Word: fagin
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...Brooklyn, a taxpayer's suit had asked that Oliver Twist and The Merchant of Venice be banned from New York City public schools on the ground that Fagin and Shylock were "antiSemitic and anti-religious." Last week, State Supreme Court Justice Anthony J. DiGiovanna said no. He held that the test was whether either book had been "maliciously written" to rouse prejudice, ruled both Dickens and Shakespeare in the clear...
...terming the movie 'Oliver Twist' "sensitive and powerful," Mr. Friedrich offers no excuse for not prohibiting such a picture in America. Nor is the fact that Bill Sykes is as villainous as Fagin any reason to deny the poisonous hate expressed in the picture. For it is well-known that the majority group need never fear lest one of its members misbehave; whilst the persecuted minority is always categorized by the behavior of its worst rather than best, members...
...petition to the board, Goldstein charged that the books plant "in the student in our public schools the seeds of anti-Semitism . . . [which] will pay dividends in hate, prejudice, intolerance and bigotry for generations to come." The character of Dickens' Fagin, Goldstein maintained, "holds the Jew up to ... contempt, ridicule and depicts the Jew as as fiend ... a murderer . . ." Shylock was hardly better; "the synonym for usurer, cheat . . . hater of all Christians...
...movie Oliver Twist, J. Ar thur Rank's cinematic hot potato which the protests of Jewish groups had kept from U.S. screens (TIME, Oct. 4). A short time later, Berliners themselves protested in more destructive fashion at the movie's faithful portrait of Charles Dickens' "Jew Fagin," fence and brutal master of a gang of young thieves...
...Toronto, where Oliver Twist had been showing for three weeks, the theater manager noted little comment against Fagin, no unfavorable publicity, no effect on business. The Toronto Jewish Congress called on Rank representatives to complain, but later decided to drop the matter. "We feel," one was quoted as saying, that an Englishman has just as much right to complain about Bill Sikes." Could Rank quiet the din by reshooting some scenes in the $1,600,000 picture? It seemed impractical; there were too many shots of Fagin, and some members of the cast had scattered. Last week Rank announced that...