Today at work, I found a book on the counter.
Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children. I have no idea why it was on the counter, but it’s my boss’s kid’s favorite book and he’s been telling me for years that I need to read it, so I took the opportunity. And I was blown away! Can’t wait to discuss it with him.
But if you want an amazing example of Jewishness and antisemitism worked into a YA fantasy story, this is your book.
The novel opens with our protagonist, Jacob, talking about his grandfather Abraham’s stories. Abraham tells fantastical stories about his childhood, when his parents sent him away from Poland to escape the Nazis. He wound up in a children’s home in Wales. His stories of this children’s home are populated by children with magical abilities, a wise bird who looks after them, and the man-eating monsters that he fled from.
As Jacob grows older, he dismisses these stories as fantasies made up to cope with being a refugee. Which makes a ton of sense. The severe trauma of losing your family and being sent to a strange country–then to grow up, fight in the war, and learn that your family didn’t survive–why wouldn’t a survivor turn it into a faery story for a young grandchild?
The novel doesn’t shy away from addressing the generational trauma caused by the Holocaust. Abraham starts a family after the war, yet is constantly travelling and rarely sees his children, who later find love letters from a mysterious woman. Jacob’s father is obviously burdened by this emotional neglect, and his cynicism about his father vs Jacob’s starry-eyed love for Abraham provides a background character conflict.
After Jacob witnesses Abraham’s death by the hands of a monster right out of one of those childhood tales, he decides to track down the truth about the children’s home. He and his father travel to Wales, where he finds the fantastical home and the magical children, protected forever in a pocket of time. Miss Peregrine, the guardian of the home, tells Jacob about people with strange abilities - “Peculiars” - of whom he and Abraham belong to. Jacob and Abraham both have the unique power to see the monsters (Hallowghast) that hunt and devour Peculiars, and Jacob learns that Abraham spent his life after the war tracking those monsters down and killing them.
The Peculiars and the Hallowghast are used as an allegory for Jewish persecution and antisemitism. Peculiars all over the world have retreated into loops of time to protect against persecution from humanity. Meanwhile, the invisible Hallowghast hunt them down. Hallowghast are mere beasts, but if a Hallowghast kills and devours enough Peculiars, it transforms into a Wight - an intelligent creature that can blend into society and organizes the Hallows to track down and destroy more Peculiars.
And it’s no mistake that the only two characters in the book that have the power to see the monsters for what they are - are the Jewish ones.
Antisemitism is a pervasive thing. There are the antisemitic tropes and stereotypes. There’s been a lot of talk on tumblr about learning to recognize these in both media and everyday life, and I’m hearted to see people discussing what everyday antisemitism looks like. But unless you’re Jewish, you likely didn’t grow up learning to recognize them. They’re everywhere - invisible but present in media, in the news, on social media, and in institutions. Like the Hallowghast, they are invisible monsters that can hurt and kill - and it takes someone who is looking for them to spot them.
The Wights, on the other hand, are far more insidious. They blend into society, looking like a normal person, organizing the everyday monsters. This is our systemic antisemitism. Universities putting quotas on Jewish students. Employers who don’t want to hire Jews. Pogroms. Exile. Inquisition. Ghettos. Genocide.
Abraham is heavily implied to be the only Jewish child at the house. He leaves the safety of the loop - and forfeits his place there forever - because he wants to fight against the ones hurting his people. In WWII, the Nazis. After - the Hallowghasts. Because he belongs to two marginalized peoples, he feels that he cannot sit back and let either be terrorized. The other children - for whom the Hallowghast are invisible - do not make this choice, probably because they do not see the consequences of ignoring it.
This is a particularly interesting point to me, because often when Jewish characters are in fantasy stories, they do not have to deal with how their Jewishness does - or does not - fit into the fantasy world they’re given access to. Whereas Abraham grapples with how he fits as a Jew into the world of the Peculiars. He decides that he cannot sit idly by while his people are killed, and this decision sets up the one that Jacob will have to make. Does he abandon the Peculiars to the Hallowghasts, or will he fight for his newly-found family?
In the end, perhaps inspired by Abraham’s example, Jacob does. He leaves his father, leaves his time period, and sets off with the other Peculiar children to confront this threat.
“Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly, now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.”
-Rabbi Tarfon, Pirkei Avot 2.16
It is this Jewish value that guides the text. Abraham and Jacob both fight for their people, fight for freedom from persecution. Freedom from the monsters in human form.
And that, my friends, is how you successfully integrate Jewishness into a YA Fantasy novel.
2087
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