Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol, and Fighting Antisemitism

Charles Dickens is known as the “man who invented Christmas” because of his iconic classic A Christmas Carol, which has influenced our celebration of the holiday ever since. But Dickens also wrote one of the most powerful novels against antisemitism.

Charles Dickens penned the greatest literary inspiration for celebrating a Christian holiday, and his Christmas Carol is a thoroughly religious work (more so than any of the movie adaptations). But he understood that Christians and Jews worship the same God and should stand together, lessons which we in the modern West seem to need to relearn. And Dickens can say it better than I ever could.

The Jewish character in Dickens that most people know is the wicked criminal Fagin in Oliver Twist, but in Our Mutual Friend — Dickens’s last completed and arguably greatest novel — we find the exceptionally good and wise Mr. Riah.

Riah works for one of the most loathsome men in the novel, Fledgeby, a greedy, cowardly, abusive, selfish man whose great pleasure is to lend money at extortionate rates and make a profit off others' misery. In fact, in this point we already see a connection between A Christmas Carol and Our Mutual Friend. Fledgeby is Ebeneezer Scrooge as he might have been as a young man, only more despicable in being apparently irredeemable. There is not a single spark of human compassion in Fledgeby; had he been introduced to Tiny Tim, he would have sneered.

What makes Fledgeby's tyranny over Riah so particularly galling is that the former is forever rubbing his alleged "Christianity" in Riah's face, and attributing various completely false opinions and invented sins to Riah, all stereotypes of Judaism. Worst of all, Fledgeby perpetually lies to others about Riah, making out that Riah is the boss and the worst sort of money-grubber. Among those to whom Fledgeby lies are one of his debtors and a friend of Riah’s, a young girl named Jenny Wren. Disturbingly, Jenny believes the lies, even though Riah has been so extraordinarily kind to her.

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Later, Jenny finds out that Fledgeby is the true villain and Riah totally innocent. In fact, though himself indebted to Fledgeby, Riah takes the risky and impoverishing step of breaking with his employer to rid himself of the false stigma. When she finds Riah to apologize to him, Jenny tries to excuse her own poor behavior by saying the circumstances "looked bad" against Riah. Then follows this speech, proving Dickens was far ahead of his time on understanding antisemitism:

"It looked so bad, Jenny," responded the old man, with gravity, "that I will straightway tell you what an impression it wrought upon me. I was hateful in mine own eyes. I was hateful to myself, in being so hateful to the debtor and to you. But more than that, and worse than that, and to pass out far and broad beyond myself—I reflected that evening, sitting alone in my garden on the housetop, that I was doing dishonour to my ancient faith and race. I reflected—clearly reflected for the first time—that in bending my neck to the yoke I was willing to wear, I bent the unwilling necks of the whole Jewish people. For it is not, in Christian countries, with the Jews as with other peoples. Men say, 'This is a bad Greek, but there are good Greeks. This is a bad Turk, but there are good Turks.' Not so with the Jews. Men find the bad among us easily enough—among what peoples are the bad not easily found?—but they take the worst of us as samples of the best; they take the lowest of us as presentations of the highest; and they say 'All Jews are alike.' If, doing what I was content to do here, because I was grateful for the past and have small need of money now, I had been a Christian, I could have done it, compromising no one but my individual self. But doing it as a Jew, I could not choose but compromise the Jews of all conditions and all countries. It is a little hard upon us, but it is the truth. I would that all our people remembered it!"

And how I wish that all men, particularly all Americans, understood as clearly as Dickens did the irrationality and ugliness of antisemitism. This Christmas, we should certainly draw inspiration from the redemption of Ebeneezer Scrooge, but with violent anti-Jewish hatred sweeping the world, we should also remember that as we worship the Jewish Messiah Jesus, we must honor His Chosen People.

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