Hollywood and Jewish illustrators adopted orientalist biblical costuming

Evidence

American popular culture has continued to quote this tradition. When we see the kaffiyeh on the heads of the Israelites led to the Promised Land by Charlton Heston, we are not surprised. In The Ten Commandments Hollywood builds on an artistic practice established during the previous five centuries and more. — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 154 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

First, in all historical versions of orientalist biblical art it is enough for one or more characters to be shown in oriental costume; the rest can be European. The oriental-looking personages are then metonymic for the oriental character of the entire scene. Artists have often depicted in the background of biblical scenes local crowds equivalent to Hollywood’s extras. In a typical orientalist Christ Before Pilate or Road to Calvary only some of the Jews are shown wearing distinctive oriental headwear. There is an ideological reason for this selectivity. Showing some but not all Jews as oriental expresses the religious position that they had, at the time of Christ, the option of joining or rejecting him. In the code of Christian orientalist art, encrypted in the form of dress and headwear, Judaism is oriental and Christianity is occidental. But while the Jewish religion was oriental, the Jews at the time of Christ had the choice of surpassing it and adopting, as Christians, what was to become the religion of the West. To European viewers the Jews clad in oriental costume represented the Jews wedded to their oriental religion, either because they were born before Christ or because, as contemporaries of Jesus, they have not yet fully embraced him, or indeed rejected him. The de-orientalized Jew, on the other hand, represented the Christianized Jew whom the Western Christian viewer read as a spiritual ancestor. At the Christian theological level, the choice the artist has in representing a biblical personage as oriental or otherwise is meant to encode the choice we, the viewers, continue to have: either to embrace Christ or to refuse him. — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 214 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Selective oriental costume in biblical art encoded Jews’ freedom to reject Christ; Hollywood biblical epics continue five centuries of orientalist costume tradition — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 154; Biblical Jew depiction was a primary early arena for orientalist Othering — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 157 (+10 more)

Broader Connections

• Hollywood biblical epics continue five centuries of orientalist costume tradition #corroborates (0.95) — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 154
• Clothing in biblical art encoded whether Jews had accepted Christ or not #complicates (0.82) — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 214