A ‘Harry Potter’ reboot is coming — here are our unsolicited ideas for Jewish plotlines
J.K. Rowling has come under fire for, among many other things, possible antisemitic stereotypes in her books
Harry Potter
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Fast Forward ‘Hogwarts Legacy’ video game renews criticism of antisemitic tropes in Harry Potter franchise
The villainous goblin characters are bankers with hook noses and use instruments resembling shofars
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Opinion Think the goblins in Harry Potter are antisemitic? Try the rest of British literature
I used to read “Harry Potter” to my son every night. (I do a killer Hagrid.) You may recall that in “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” (“the Philosophers’ Stone” in the UK) Hagrid takes young Harry to Gringotts Bank, which is run by goblins. JK Rowling describes the first goblin that appears as “a…
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Culture An oral history of the most epic Jewish summer camp prank ever
The summer before 10th grade, some friends of mine pulled off what I have long thought had to be the most outrageous prank of all time: spoiling the biggest twist in the Harry Potter series for an entire sleepaway camp. It happened at Camp Ramah in Ojai, Calif., on July 18, 2005, two days after…
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Culture Mazel tov: First edition of Yiddish ‘Harry Potter’ sells out in less than 48 hours
Less than 48 hours after the Yiddish edition of “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone,” translated by Arun Viswanath, became available for pre-order, the book sold out its first print run of 1,000 copies. (Viswanath is Forverts editor Rukhl Schaechter’s nephew.) For a Yiddish publisher in 2020, that’s a sales number that’s almost magical. A…
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Culture The monumental effort of translating ‘Harry Potter’ into Yiddish
Read in Yiddish. When Arun Viswanath, the Yiddish translator of J. K. Rowling’s worldwide bestseller “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” was 12 years old, he suddenly had a revelation that made him feel dejected. Although he’s a grandson of the venerable Yiddish linguist Mordkhe Schaechter, the son of the Yiddish poet Gitl Schaechter-Viswanath, and…
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The Schmooze Daniel Radcliffe Cries, Learning About Anti-Semitism His Ancestors Faced
Daniel Radcliffe, the 29-year-old star of “Harry Potter,” “Viktor Frankenstein,” and multiple Broadway hits, is one of the wealthiest and best-known actors in the world. Radcliffe is Jewish on his mother’s side and considers his heritage a central part of his identity, though he’s not a person who’s usually associated with being Jewish. Samuel Gershon,…
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Fast Forward How A Hanukkah Song Made Its Way Into The Hebrew Translation Of Harry Potter
(JTA) — If you read the “Harry Potter” series in Hebrew you may have noticed a curious Jewish fact: Though Sirius Black isn’t Jewish, the character sings a Hanukkah song in one scene. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Hebrew translator Gili Bar Hillel reveals some behind-the-scenes tidbits about her “Harry Potter” translation process. In…
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