The Harry Potter ‘Goblin Problem,’ in brief, is that many people believe it is a demonstrated truth impossible to refute that the Gringotts Bankers are Rowling’s anti-Semitic portraits of the evil, hook-nosed Jewish money-lenders. It didn’t help that comedian Jon Stewart made comments last month that suggested he felt the Gringotts Goblins were definitely problematic for Jews.
Nick Jeffrey wrote ‘The Gringotts Goblins and accusations of anti-Semitism (again)‘ to explain the origin of this mistaken if still prevalent belief, the Warner Brothers film adaptation Goblins. He also explained the errors of certain “proofs” offered online for the assertion that Rowling is an anti-Semite, shared the statements of Jewish groups on this matter, and included the response of Jon Stewart to the news agencies who put out the word that he thought the writer was a bigot (pretty funny). Beatrice Groves in 2019 wrote two posts at ‘Bathilda’s Notebook’ about this issue, Rowling’s Goblin Problem? and The Sword Until Recently Known as Gryffindor’s, in which she clarified how the Gringotts Goblins were traditional artisans rather than rapacious usurers. I expanded on this idea in my post on traditional or sacred art (and how it differs from aesthetic and profane artistry), Christmas Pig 4: The Magic in Things, point three.
It’s still a live issue in some circles, however, especially as it is no longer an outrage for someone in Potter Fandom to assert that Rowling is a bigot; it is, though absurd and libelous, now almost a first principle on major fan sites, a sign of their “commitment.” I was being interviewed by the BBC last year when another guest, the host of a website dedicated to reading the Harry Potter novels as secular scripture, asserted off-hand that the Gringotts Goblins were obvious anti-Semitic tropes; Beatrice Groves was also on hand and set her straight in so compelling and gracious a fashion that the producers felt obliged to delete that exchange from the aired version.
All that background is the necessary context for something I read today about the translation of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone into Yiddish (hat tip, David Martin!). The article in Tablet, ‘How Do You Say ‘Quidditch’ in Yiddish? The inside story of how ‘Harry Potter’ was translated into Yiddish,’ tells the delightful story of how the first entry of the Hogwarts Saga made its way into the native language of Isaac Asimov, Saul Bellow, and Isaac Bashevis Singer.
Read the whole thing — it’s as good as the prompt for it says: “How did such an unusual edition come to be produced nearly 23 years after its source material’s publication? The work of an Indian-American Orthodox Jewish translator, and printed by a publishing house in Sweden, the story behind Harry Potter un der filosofisher shteyn is almost as remarkable as the story it tells.” Dumbledore, for instance, as represented in Yiddish “speaks in the Yiddish register of a rabbinic dean of a yeshiva because that’s the role he plays at Hogwarts, not because he’s actually Jewish.”
What I found most interesting, though, is how the translator chose to represent the Goblins.
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