Look, I gotta be honest⊠Iâm Jewish, and Iâve written literal academic term papers on Tolkien and the messy topic of Jews, Dwarves, goblins, and so forth. Honestly, the ask-sender seems well-meaning, but I think they are off the mark. If anything, Tolkien intended Dwarves, not goblins, to act as âJewsâ in his canon, and there is some evidence he really did write Dwarves with Jews in mind, by the time of LotR if not The Hobbit. For example, he admitted to the inspiration, in so many words, in a letter or two, based Khuzdul off of Hebrew, and so forth. Even then, his early work with Dwarves was likely influenced far more heavily by Norse, Icelandic, and Germanic mythologies, and thatâs clearly visible in Dwarven names and runes as well as origin stories. I find it unlikely that these early mythologies, especially those from Iceland, Norway, and first-millennia Germanic tales, were in any way inspired or influenced by stereotypes of Jews, who were not a significant presence at the time in those areas.
Although those myths may have been influenced later on by what we might today term either antisemitism or anti-Jewish hostility, as people saw a confluence between tales of dwarves and goblins and stereotypes of Jews as each evolved, I find it hard to fault Tolkien for using pieces of early European mythology while trying to create his own. When it counted, and despite many possible reasons not to (profit, fame, strong involvement in a pre-Vatican II Catholic Church, few if any personal friendships with Jews, certain common upperclass opinions), Tolkien unequivocably stood up for real Jews. In 1937, a letter arrived from a German publisher, asking Tolkien to confirm his Aryan ancestry in order to translate The Hobbit into German, which would significantly increase his bookâs fame and sales. You can Google the letter; Iâm on mobile. Either way, Tolkien politely told the German publisher to take his Nazi policies and fuck off, saying in no uncertain terms that he held great admiration for the Jewish people, and that he regretted that he could not truthfully tell the publisher that he was a Jew. (To clarify, Tolkien was in fact of German ancestry and was not Jewish).
Even if there were some unfortunate, seemingly âantisemiticâ stereotypes of the Dwarf race within the narrative, if we take Tolkienâs inspiration for them to be partly Jewish, I would argue firstly that Tolkien himself was not consciously antisemitic and secondly that it is a matter of opinion whether the narrative actually supports such stereotypes. Bilbo is, after all, an unreliable narrator, and with the exception of Thorinâs gold-sickness (later linked to his lineageâs bearing of one of Sauronâs 7 rings given to the Dwarves), none of the Dwarves ever appear truly greedy or gold-obsessed when allowed to speak for themselves in dialogue or song. They may appreciate valuable objects of varying metals and gems, but I would argue that their love for these objects is most often explicitly linked for a love of craft and craftsmanship, not minerals and jewels themselves. Other stereotypical elements, such as beards and short, misshapen stature, can be linked to the early Scandinavian myths Tolkien used.
I should add, far too late in this long post, that I could find no actual evidence myself that the Tolkien goblins were based on stereotypes of Jews. As I said, if anything, there is some evidence of Jewish inspiration for Dwarves, and regardless of how we may feel about it today, Tolkien indicated in about three different letters and a radio interview (iirc) that he essentially meant Dwarves as a âcomplimentâ and held Jews in high esteem, as an 'ancient warrior raceâ. That claim may feel a little iffy in terms of modern social justice lingo, but I would remind you that at the time that he wrote The Hobbit and LotR (dovetailing historically with the rise of Nazis to power, the Holocaust, and the post-war crisis of Jewish survivors/refugees), the main European stereotypes of Jews were that Jews were weak, often cosmopolitan and disconnected from the land, and behind most of the ills of the modern world. The materialism aspect is tricky, and may result from unconscious anti-Jewish bias, faithfulness to the original Norse myths, or a little of both. But it is clear, at least, that within our world, Tolkienâs view of Jews directly opposed the main antisemitic claims of his day, and he went directly against his own interests to tell a 1937 German publisher in quite strident terms that he opposed Nazi policy and admired the Jews, when he could have easily made himself a small fortune by simply admitting what was already true (his âAryanâ ancestry).
The fact that the asker claims that goblins are âformed from Jewish caricatures,â unless they can produce actual evidence of this, seems to me unlikely. Dwarves might have been a better argument, but the record on that is mixed at best and far from a purely ill-intended âcaricatureâ. Either way, the argument over âreclaiming goblins,â especially over Tolkienâs goblins, seems to me altogether ludicrous, to be frank. If they are in fact discussing Tolkien, his record on antisemitism in real life is pretty good. In terms of his fantasy races, the Dwarves are the ones most likely inspired in part by Jews, and generally with positive authorial intent, although the net effect is, of course, a matter of personal opinion. The goblins, as far as I can tell, had nothing whatsoever to do with the debate. Tolkienâs use of race and colonial theory is largely a different topic, and one in which I feel the âgoblinsâ are more heavily implicated.
And frankly? Even if Tolkien had a consciously anti-Jewish agenda, and even if the goblins were Jewish caricaturesâŠ. sending @glumshoe a somewhat strongly worded message about not âreclaiming goblinsâ seems to me to be a terrible way to go about frying the worldâs smallest fish when global antisemitism is, statistically, at the highest recorded levels since 1945. Consider logging off Tumblr and donating to or volunteering for your local chapter of the ADL or other organizations fighting antisemitism. This is kinda ridiculous.
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