Countless accusations have been lobbed at Jews over the millennia. They’re money-grabbing, hooked-nosed Christ-killers who control global finances, Hollywood and the music industry. On the flipside, at least they’re hilarious, right? Look, if all of that was true, as a lifelong Jew surely I’d be a lot richer and a hell of a lot funnier than I am. But no, stereotypes prevail, and the Jewish Museum is trying to tackle the big one: money.
The show starts with the Oxford English Dictionary’s definition of ‘jew’ as a verb. It makes for unpleasant reading. And the show doesn’t get much nicer. What follows is Judas, the ultimate treacherous Jew, selling out the messiah for a bag of coins. Then there are the Jews as British usurers before the first expulsion, the arrival of Sephardic merchants in London, and then a world of vile caricatures and idiotic conspiracy theories. There are 300-year-old drawings and sculptures of Jews as either disgusting beggars and peddlers or bloated, nasty, big-nosed bankers. There are turn-of-the-century-posters blaming Jews for the Russian Revolution, World War II propaganda showing Jews as puppet masters, that ludicrous Mear One mural that Jeremy Corbyn defended, showing Jews profiting off the backs of everyone else: the whole thing is draining, exhausting, frustrating.
There are missteps here. Starting the show with explanations of the actual role of money in Jewish religious life, emphasising the importance of charity and anonymous giving, and talking about the Jews as a historically poor people, feels like a concession. You don’t have to justify some historical anti-greed stance in order to make sure we all know that what follows is bullshit.
And the contemporary art feels a bit tacked on. I’m not sure what the Ryan Gander works – all of which are great, especially the abandoned bronze wallet and phone and the little mouse hole stuffed with Swiss Francs – have to say about Jews and money. Surely these are just works about money? The Jeremy Deller video piece meanwhile conflates satire and conspiracy in a way that’s not particularly helpful.
But what you leave with is an awful sense of hundreds upon hundreds of years of degrading, damaging lies and conspiracies that show no sign of abating. It’s illuminating, and it’s depressing. I don’t know who will have their mind changed by any of this, but I’m glad someone’s trying.
