Claims of Jewish-African physical resemblance encoded anti-Semitic caricature

Evidence

Here we see how the supposedly Jewish appearance of the Makalanga was adduced in support of the ethnographic proofs. The theme of the physical similarity of Jews to some Africans was frequent in this discourse: of course, part of the project was racial classification. Some of these constructions of the other emanate from anti-Semitic premises. In a 1962 article Raphael Patai referred to the writings of the German scholar Frobenius about the Lemba tribe of southern Africa. “I could not help being reminded of the impression made upon me by the Galician Jews,” wrote Frobenius, “Their glances can never detach themselves from the small heap of three-pence pieces which was built up before them as a stimulus for their narrative art.” — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 335

Categorization

• XREF: The ‘glances fixed on coins’ caricature is a classic anti-Semitic trope that parallels Edward Said’s observation that orientalism projects onto the native the traits the west condemns in itself; echoes of Sander Gilman here.