“Let’s get one thing straight: everyone has the right to have a complicated relationship with their culture and identity”. One of the best sentences I’ve read in a long time.
You trace convincingly that
Malcolm’s “Jewishness” came via a contrarian family member and Dickens.
Combining the political framing of your opening and the complexities of personality, are there any strains of his Jewishness that may have been borrowed/sampled from Disraeli?
One thing they have in common is that Disraeli also claimed to a descendant of the Sephardi aristocracy of Iberia. They both associated their Jewishness with being upper class/noble blooded. I find that to be an interesting connection between them, though Disreali has been found to not have any legitimate noble ancestry.
“Let’s get one thing straight: everyone has the right to have a complicated relationship with their culture and identity”. One of the best sentences I’ve read in a long time.
You trace convincingly that
Malcolm’s “Jewishness” came via a contrarian family member and Dickens.
Combining the political framing of your opening and the complexities of personality, are there any strains of his Jewishness that may have been borrowed/sampled from Disraeli?
Disraeli the prime minster?
Yes - same times as Dickens.
One thing they have in common is that Disraeli also claimed to a descendant of the Sephardi aristocracy of Iberia. They both associated their Jewishness with being upper class/noble blooded. I find that to be an interesting connection between them, though Disreali has been found to not have any legitimate noble ancestry.