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Originally Posted by issybird
I'm going to disagree with you here, Jon. I think the point of the remark was to show what a thoroughly nasty person Freke was and Sayers was using his anti-Semitism as the tool. I can read that as anti-anti-Semitism.
The issue crops up I think for two reasons, and that's one of them. The other is that Sayers couldn't resist the means of knowing that the body in the bath wasn't Sir Reuben. A little too clever and self-conscious as was much of the book, but I wouldn't call it disrespectful or anti-Semitic. A little cheesy, mostly.
That doesn't exclude, of course, the throw-away comments about "Hebrews" and so forth, but again, they were the words in the mouths of the characters and a reflection on them and their times. In fact, I don't think there was a Jewish character, or am I forgetting someone minor? Unless Lady Levy was a convert.
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Back then, not many Jews married outside the faith. So chances are that Lady Levy would be Jewish without having converted.
I still think there was no need to have Jewish hating characters. I do like the idea of the circumcision as a way to tell that the body was not that of Levy. But I still stand by my saying there was too many derogatory remarks against Jews.