Shylocks to superheroes: Jewish scrap dealers in Anglo-American popular culture

Abstract

For centuries, Jewish entrepreneurs have worked in the second-hand goods economy. Closely allied with pawnbroking, dealing in second-hand goods made it possible for Jews, often forbidden from owning land or joining craft guilds and unions, to earn a living in much of Europe. As Jews left eastern and central Europe for England, the British Commonwealth, and the United States, they took their knowledge of second-hand goods with them and built on established peddlers’ networks to create businesses that dealt in scrap materials like metals, paper, rags, and hides. From that foundation, Jewish scrap dealers came to deal in military surplus, used and new furniture, and auto parts. Although underappreciated and obscured in the present day, in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the figures of Jews who dealt in second-hand goods loomed large enough to appear in popular culture in literature, on stage, and on screen, both films and television. Even comic books – a literary genre shaped by Jewish entrepreneurs and artists – got into the scrap.

keywords:

• Jewish entrepreneurs
• scrap metal
• rags
• film
• comic books

Notes

1. For Kubert and Kanigher’s career highlights before Ragman, see Fingeroth, Disguised as Clark Kent, 21–22, 87, 89, 142–143; for Ragman’s origins and powers, see Ragman 1:1 (Aug.-Sept. 1976), 3–4, 6–8, 11; for the reboot, see Ragman 1 (October, 1991), cover.

2. Mendelsohn, The Rag Race, 18–20; Stone, ‘Dickens and the Jews,’ 225–231.

3. Zimring, Cash for Your Trash, 47–48; on nebbishy, effeminate Jewish characters on stage and in film, see Erdman, Staging the Jew, 36–39; and Merwin, In Their Own Image, 41–45.

4. For the connotations of gold vs. paper money in this period, see O’Malley, Face Value, 114–161; for the perceived impurity of scrap materials, see Zimring, Cash for Your Trash, 38–41. For a thorough account of the ‘metonymic slide,’ see Rice, ‘The New “New”,’ 200–212.

5. Woloson, In Hock, 1–53; Mendelsohn, The Rag Race, 112–133.

6. Mendelsohn, The Rag Race, 18–36; Woloson, In Hock, 9–19.

7. Ramazzini, A Treatise of the Diseases of Tradesmen, 196–200; Geller, The Other Jewish Question, 169–211.

8. Zimring, Cash for Your Trash, 45–52; Pollack, ‘Success from Scrap,’ 95–97; Diner, Roads Taken, 172–173, 177–179.

9. Pollack, ‘Success from Scrap,’ 97–99; Zimring, Cash for Your Trash, 44–66.

10. The Larks, The Shakespeare Water Cure, 6; see also Erdman, Staging the Jew, 17–18, for Shylock’s villainy throughout the play. Harap, The Image of the Jew, 212–214, lists several similar Shylocks in Shakespeare spoofs.

11. For example, see Landa, The Jew in Drama, 11–14, 70–85; Friedman, Hollywood’s Image of the Jew, 16–17; Erens, The Jew in American Cinema, 12; Erdman, Staging the Jew, 17–39.

12. Erdman, Staging the Jew, 75–87, 104–105.

13. For Mayer’s early career as a scrap dealer, see Gabler, An Empire of Their Own, 82–84. General Film Brokers advertisement, The Billboard, 28.

14. Kibler, Censoring Racial Ridicule, 116–130, 147–170; for the concept of ‘dirty work,’ see Zimring, ‘Dirty Work’.

15. Old Clothes; The Rag Man; A synopsis of The Rag Man can be found on the Turner Classic Movies site, http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/2048/The-Rag-Man/full-synopsis.html; see also Erens, The Jew in American Cinema, 93–94.

16. For World War I, see Lipsett, U.S. War Surplus, 9–20; for World War II, Zimring, Cash for Your Trash, 96–101; for a less sanguine view of the military-surplus industry in both wars, see Brandes, Warhogs, 180–184, 260–262.

17. Kanin and Gordon, Born Yesterday, 8.

18. Kanin and Gordon, Born Yesterday, 10.

19. Kanin, Hollywood, 372–374; Gabler, An Empire of Their Own, 300; ‘Broderick Crawford Dead at 74; Oscar Winner, TV Series Veteran,’ Variety, 4, 46.

20. Kanin and Gordon, Born Yesterday, 24.

21. Zimring, Cash For Your Trash, 70–80.

22. Jacobson, Roots Too, 180–195.

23. Zimring, Cash For Your Trash, 108–123; Pollack, ‘Success from Scrap,’ 106–108.

24. Richler, The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, 145–159; The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz.

25. Richler, ‘A Sense of the Ridiculous,’ 59.

26. Richler, ‘My Father’s Life,’ 60–61.

27. Richler, Son of a Smaller Hero, 78–79, 149, 216, 222.

28. Lies My Father Told Me; in Ted Allan’s stage adaptation of the same title, references to the rag-collector’s cry appear on pages 7, 49, 53, and 64.

29. For more on Lear’s politics, see Buhle, From the Lower East Side, 227–229.

30. ‘Steinberg and Son’; Vider, ‘Sanford versus Steinberg,’ 21–29.

31. Ibid.

32. Portnoy and Buhle, ‘Comic Strips/Comic Books,’ 313–341; Ragman 1:1; Leo Keil letter in ‘Junk Mail’ column, in Ragman 1:3 [31].

33. Keil letter, op. cit.

34. Kevin Dooley, ‘The Last Neighborhood,’ in Ragman 1, 30.

35. Ragman 2, 18–19, 31.

36. Ragman 3, 1–15.

37. Ragman 4, 7–8; Woloson, In Hock, 71–73.

38. The Golem starts to express his self-consciousness in Ragman 5, 20–21. Kaplan’s bio appears in the same issue, in ‘Inside DC: What Did an Editor Do? Part II,’ 26. Batman appears in Ragman 6, 24.

39. Bob Kahan letters column appears in Ragman 7, 25.

40. Ragman 8.

41. Ken Altabef letter in Ragman #8, 25; Batman 552; Shadowpact 8 (DC Comics, February 2007); Ragman: Suit of Souls (DC Comics, December 2010).