The day has finally come. As most of you know I hate snape and, as a Jewish person, advocate for speaking up about antisemitism in Harry Potter. This includes the fact that J.K. Rowling drew inspiration from Nazi Germany, and based the death eaters off Nazis.
To begin off this point I’d like to address how this background information ties into Snape. Assuming muggleborns & muggles are supposed to be the Jewish characters of the story, Snape is a halfblood meaning he’s half muggle or in allegory to the story half Jewish.
Judaism is an ethnoreligion. What defines an ethnic group is ‘a common set of traditions, ancestry, language, history, society, culture, nation, religion or social treatment within their residing area’.
Snape is a muggle on his fathers side, but has distanced himself from him because of neglect and this is where his dislike of muggles begins. Snape does know much about wizarding culture as he introduces it to Lily. Snape is not connected with muggle traditions, history, culture, etc. He is also a halfblood which mean he will never receive the same social treatment as muggles/muggleborns. The only thing connecting him to this ethnicity is ancestry which he rejects. I do not think anyone should be able to claim he is apart of this group. Furthermore according to traditional Jewish law (one of which I don’t follow because I think it’s stupid, but am bringing it up because it coincides) Judaism is passed through the mother. Snape would be patrilineal meaning even if he was raised in Jewish culture he would not be Jewish.
Let’s get into how Snape’s character is antisemitic. Appearance (I will be linking the wiki because we all have different books so pages will not coincide). Snape is described as a “thin man with sallow skin, a large, hooked nose and yellow, uneven teeth”. Now let’s look at this picture,
The happy merchant a common antisemitic trope of Jewish men. Please spot the difference. I’d also like to bring up another Jewish trope ‘The Jewish American Princess’ while Snape seems to directly mirror that stereotype it just seems a little too close to The Halfblood Prince for my liking, so I’m bringing it up.
Rowling did as what hundreds of others have done throughout history. Take antisemitic tropes and put them on a villain character to further ‘Jews = bad’. While she should be called out on this alone, to make a character antisemitically Jewish and then have him join a group she based on Nazis, a group who violently murdered millions of Jews as well as others is beyond disgusting.
Conclusion, Snape isn’t Jewish. He’s antisemitically coded Jewish. If you are going to take his traits and connect them to Jews & POC you are further aiding the narrative of *insert minority here* is evil.
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