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The Image of the Jewish Street Seller in Nineteenth Century London
What also attracts attention in this cartoon is that although it was clearly drawn
for the British public, it contains a misspelling in the caption—"de" instead of "the."
Misspelling of English words in cartoons focusing on immigrants was neither rare
nor unusual and was meant to point out immigrants’ misuse of the language. The
very same technique can be found in a caricature entitled “One of the Benefits of
Jewish Emancipation (ill. 173)," from 1847, by J. L. Marks. It is a color etching that
can be described as a caricature between the political and everyday ones. It is held
at the Jewish Museum Archive under the catalog number AR 1028.
This cartoon actually has two titles: “One of the Benefits of Jewish Emancipa¬
tion,” written in English, and “let us rejoice,” written in Hebrew (“199m wann”).
‘There are two main characters visible in the picture, who are talking to each other:
a man and a woman. The male figure has several attributes by which he can be
defined as a Jew: the overalls; the exaggerated facial features and expression; the
beard; and the sack on the back. The woman looks different: she is dressed in bright
colors, usual for middle-class Victorians, and has flowers in her hair instead of a tra¬
ditional wig. The only signs of her Jewishness are visible on her face—the features
and expression. The man hands a piglet to the woman and says “Dare mine dear,
see vot I’ve pought you! tanks to de Paron Roast-child and de Pill.” She bends over
to have a closer look and replies “Plefs mine heart it is von pretty ting. Vont I have
my pelly full.”
In 1847, Baron Lionel de Rothschild was first elected to the House of Commons
as a representative of the City of London. Due to the Christian character of the oath
one had to take to be allowed to sit in the Parliament, Rothschild could not fulfill
his obligations.” Finally, the law was changed to enable the members of the Jewish
minority to become MPs. The cartoon illustrates both of the events. At the same
time, the author used it to show his view on the ease of acceptance of changes in the
law by Jews, as soon as it was of any use to them.
What catches the attention is the language both figures use. Jews arriving
to Great Britain throughout the nineteenth century rarely spoke any English at
all. Most of them took on the task of learning it, but in many cases it was the
first generation (and later generations) born within Great Britain that could
speak English without a foreign accent or loanwords. Since the majority of the
immigrants had foreign accents and tried to communicate using mixed English¬
Yiddish or English-German, the way they spoke became one of the things by
which they could be quickly recognized, along with their traditional clothes
and names.
"7 hetp://www.jewishmuseum.org.uk/search-our-collections-new?adlibid=7705&offset=0 (accessed
04. 07. 2012).
'8 Transcription without vowel signs, translation to English based on the archive information.
'9 hetp://www.jewishmuseum.org.uk/search-our-collections-new?adlibid=77058&offset=0 (accessed
04. 07. 2012).
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