The ‘Jews have horns’ trope persisted among educated elite Britons in the 1970s

Evidence

When we asked Michael if he had personally experienced antisemitism, he did not reference any traumatic encounters with Muslims. However, he did recount how once, back in the 1970s, when he was a student at a prestigious UK university, he shared with a fellow student doing a law degree that he was Jewish. On hearing this the student, who, according to Michael, was of solid upper-middle-class background, expressed his surprise at the way Michael looked—‘I thought Jewish people had horns’, he said. — James Renton, Ben Gidley (eds.), Antisemitism and Islamophobia in Europe, 1738

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the horns motif in the Immodesty article’s broader cross-cultural moral-panic theme, and to medieval antisemitic iconography and the blood libel literature.