Little Red Riding Jew

I recently read Sons of Saviors: The Red Jews in Yiddish Culture by Rebekka Voß. It charts the evolution of the story of the Red Jews through the centuries. It was very informative as it explores the Yiddish variants of the story. So, though I was already quite familiar with the general theme, this whole perspective was new to me.

In the gentile telling the Red Jews are portrayed as a group of people locked away in the east. A threat to the Christian world, ready to break loose and cause carnage. Somewhat akin to the eastern horde. Or Gog and Magog, sealed off behind mountains by Alexander the Great.

In the Yiddish tradition it's similar, but the story is flipped. Here they're sealed off beyond the river Sambatyon. A river that's impassable, except on the Sabbath ..the one day the Jews aren't allowed to cross it. Far from being a threat they're viewed as liberators. Saving the European Jews from Christian persecution, at the coming of Mashiach.

Likewise, the Red Jews are also often portrayed as red-haired in these Yiddish traditions. In fact, the book is full of information about red hair. Too much to catalogue in this article. (I genuinely recommend reading it, the context will make more sense that way as well.)

I'll share a few things though. For example, this passage:

Moses b. Elijah Galina writes that redheads are jealous, irascible, and deceptive. Jacob b. Mordecai of Fulda, in Shoshanat Ya'acov (Rose of Jacob; Amsterdam, 1706), a guide to palmistry and the so-called wisdom of the face, states: "Red hair [signifies]: a jealous person, a fraud, an irritable person, one whose speech and tongue are no good."

We've noted the negative stereotypes associated with red hair in European folklore many times before on here. In the Yiddish speaking world it seems this was also the case.

One thing I really liked about the Yiddish stories was how they often gave the Red Jews the moniker Little Red Jews. Things take on a whole new sense once the prefix little is added. It all suddenly gets a bit more cute. Sometimes the Red Jews sent to help European Jews in these tales were actually children too. It brings to mind other European folktales, such as Little Red Riding Hood.

[As an aside, we've speculated about potential links to red hair with some of these tales too. The red is clear, but the word hood also. No doubt cognate with head - where a hood is worn. Robin Hood could give a similar rendering. The word robin quite probably having its root in the word red, hence robin redbreast, or red rubies ..we could go full circle and try to link it to rabbi/rebbe ;) ]

There were so many other interesting things in the book I could mention. For instance, apparently some later Jewish writers equated the Red Jews with the Native Americans - another 'red' people. There were also more modern satires written that used the Red Jews (along with their red hair) to make commentary on the political situation of the Jews in the 19th and early 20th century. In one short story by Sholem Aleichem (the writer whose works provided the basis for the musical Fiddler on the Roof), a Red Jew visits the land on the other side of the Sambatyon river and is shocked to find that the Jews have black hair. He "couldn't even imagine a Jew with no red hair."

I would quite like to read some of these stories. So perhaps that might be a post for the future.