Jewish Double Consciousness: The Example of John “Jew” King and His Daughters

• In Event: Ambivalent, Critical, Self-Divided: Perspectives on Jewish Self-Appraisal from Literature and Philosophy

Abstract

Influential paradigms for understanding Jewish ambivalence and self-division include self-hatred (Sander Gilman), assimilation (Todd Endelman), and Enlightenment and Modernity (decline of tradition). John “Jew” King (1753-1823), money broker and political writer, displayed strong features of assimilation—name change from Jacob Rey, divorcing his Jewish wife for an Irish aristocrat, minimal involvement with the Jewish community, taking an oath in courtrooms on a New Testament—but over time moved closer to Judaism and the community. Although King as an English Jew was anomalous in his left-wing radicalism and flamboyant public personality, his ambivalence was somewhat like that of his literary daughters, Charlotte (King, Dacre, Rosa Matilda, Byrne) and Sophia King Fortnum.
Ambivalent modern fictional Jews and lyrical voices that find their identity a source of anguish and embarrassment are too numerous to mention, but Philip Roth’s work illustrates vividly one version of the love/hate conflict. Roth did not invent the self-divided Jew nor did such fictional Jews disappear after Roth. Antiquity arguably has ambivalent Jews—Josephus, Elisha ben Abuyah, Israelites of the Golden Calf—but my focus is two centuries ago when the Enlightenment and French Revolution provided a new situation for European Jewry, including King and his daughters. When they found it impossible to conceal their Jewishness, they found ways to counter the bias against Jews: King employed the political essay, multiple personae, and radical activism as ways to taunt and undermine English bigotry, and his daughters found in erotic Gothic fiction and poetry forms to change their exotic and foreign status into an alluring mask or veil beneath which they enjoyed resources for expression. King found in the Irish fellow combatants against English power in his writing and activism, and his daughters exploited the moralistic tale of the wicked heroine by depicting her consciousness and pleasures far richer than cautionary stories require. The DuBois concept of double-consciousness is a way of approaching Jewish ambivalence.

Author

• Michael Scrivener, Michael Scrivener