{"id":91302,"date":"2021-12-03T17:05:11","date_gmt":"2021-12-03T15:05:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=91302"},"modified":"2021-12-03T11:04:31","modified_gmt":"2021-12-03T09:04:31","slug":"07-05-73","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=91302","title":{"rendered":"James Bond: 5 Jewish Facts"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>James Bond: 5 Jewish Facts<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/h5>\n

Dr. Yvette Alt Miller<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

Ian Fleming’s antisemitism and other ways Jews loomed large in the world of 007.<\/em><\/h4>\n
1. Bond\u2019s creator was a known racist and antisemite.<\/strong><\/h5>\n

Ian Fleming wrote the 12 spy novels featuring James Bond, the British secret agent which formed the basis for the successful film franchise. Fleming was a fascinating and complex character. Born in 1908 into an upper-class British family (his father was a Member of Parliament), Fleming was educated in England, German and Switzerland. Before the Second World War, Fleming worked in Moscow as a journalist, then in Britain as a banker. During World War II, Fleming served as a high-ranking intelligence officer in Britain\u2019s Royal Navy.<\/span><\/p>\n

One of Flemings\u2019s greatest contribution to the Allied victory was his role in planning Operation Goldeneye, a top-secret spy operation aimed at ensuring that Nazi Germany did not invade Spain and Portugal and could not develop capabilities to spy on Britain\u2019s territory in Gibraltar. After retiring from the Royal Navy, Fleming worked for the\u00a0London Sunday Times<\/i>, then moved for much of the year to an estate in Jamaica \u2013 named Goldeneye \u2013 where he wrote many of the Bond novels. He died in 1964.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"Ian Fleming<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

To modern eyes, the original James Bond novels are relics of a crueler and less politically correct past, replete with shockingly offensive descriptions of women, Black people and other ethnic groups. Fleming\u2019s biographer Matthew Parker observes that \u201cFleming \u2013 and Bond \u2013 looked down on pretty much\u00a0everyone<\/i>\u00a0who was not British and perceived people of all colours in terms of negative stereotypes of race and nationality\u201d (quoted in\u00a0Goldeneye \u2013 Where Bond Was Born: Ian Fleming\u2019s Jamaica<\/i>\u00a0by Matthew Parker: 2015).<\/span><\/p>\n

Mordechai Richler, the Canadian Jewish writer, believed that Bond\u2019s nemeses evoked anti-Jewish conspiracy theories that Jews are somehow driven by a superhuman lust for power or greed. Thus, Bond villain Auric Goldfinger says that \u201cThe day when we shall have made ourselves the sole possessors of all the gold in the world, the real power will be in our hands.\u201d Sir Hugo Drax, the villain in Fleming\u2019s book\u00a0Moonraker<\/i>, says \u201cThe surest means of attaining (power) is to have supreme control over all industrial, financial, and commercial operations.\u201d Both these statements \u2013 and many others scattered throughout the James Bond novels \u2013 seem like the untrue slurs that have for countless generations been baselessly hurled against Jews.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMy boys are crazy about the James Bond movies,\u201d Richler noted. \u201cThey identify with 007, as yet unaware that they (as Jews) have been cast as the villains of the dramas.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

2. The Bond villain Goldfinger was named after Ian Fleming\u2019s famous Jewish neighbor.<\/strong><\/h5>\n

The chilling villain of Fleming\u2019s 1958 novel\u00a0Goldfinger<\/i>\u00a0is Auric Goldfinger. Auric is Latin for Gold and, as his name implies, the character of Goldfinger is obsessed with gold \u2013 along with the power that unlimited wealth could bring. Much of the novel describes James Bond thwarting Goldfinger\u2019s plan to steal the gold reserves from Fort Knox in the United States.<\/span><\/p>\n

Fleming named this odious character \u2013 whose obsession with gold and wealth and power echoes anti-Jewish conspiracy tropes \u2013 on his real-life Jewish neighbor in the leafy neighborhood of Hampstead in North London. This real-life Goldfinger was Erno Goldfinger, a noted Hungarian Jewish architect who moved to London in 1934. Ian Fleming seemingly loathed Erno Goldfinger, who threatened to sue Fleming after the book\u00a0Goldfinger<\/i>\u00a0came out.<\/span><\/p>\n

3. Jewish producers \u2013 including a war hero \u2013 helped bring James Bond to the screen.<\/strong><\/h5>\n

After reading the book\u00a0Goldfinger<\/i>, the Canadian-born Jewish film and theater producer Harry Saltzman optioned the rights to make films of the James Bond books. He turned to his friend Wolf Mankowitz, a British Jew who grew up in the old Yiddish-speaking East End of London, for writing help. Mankowitz wrote much of the screenplay for the very first James Bond film,\u00a0Dr. No<\/i>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"Wolf Mankowitz<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

He was aided by the American Jewish playwright Richard Maibaum. Maibaum was already well known for his Broadway plays, including the early anti-Nazi play\u00a0Birthright<\/i>, produced in 1933. Maibaum helped in writing\u00a0Dr. No<\/i>, and then continued to help write nearly a dozen other Bond films.<\/span><\/p>\n

Journalist\u00a0<\/strong><\/span>Seth Rogovoy<\/strong><\/span><\/a>\u00a0explains that \u201cMore than anyone, perhaps even Fleming, Maibaum can be said to have created and sustained the mythical icon of Bond.\u201d Jewish actor Joseph Wiseman played the ghoulish Dr. No, setting the stage for James Bond villains to be cartoonishly cruel and larger than life.<\/span><\/p>\n

Perhaps nobody was as instrumental in creating the mystique of James Bond in the movies than a real-life war hero,\u00a0Sir Ken Adams<\/a><\/strong><\/span> (born Klaus Hugo Adam in 1921). Adams was fascinated with art and design from a young age. His Jewish family fled Germany in 1934 after Hitler rose to power. When World War II broke out, 18-year-old Ken Adams was still a German citizen and thus not eligible to join the British army \u2013 yet he was determined to fight.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"Ken Adam in the pyramid control centee he designed for the 007 film\u00a0Moonraker\u00a0(1979).<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Adams joined the Pioneer Corps, the only branch of Britain\u2019s service in which German-born men could enlist. He asked to fight for the Royal Air Force and became a RAF fighter pilot \u2013 only one of two German citizens to be allowed to. He was under particular danger: if he\u2019d been shot down and was discovered to by the Nazis to be a Jew from Germany, Adams would have faced certain torture or death.<\/span><\/p>\n

art. recommended by: Leon Rozenbaum<\/strong><\/em><\/span>
\nAfter the war, Adams became an art director in cinema. He joined the James Bond project in 1962 with <\/span>Dr. No<\/i>. It was Adams who invented James Bond\u2019s bulletproof Aston Martin car with its array of gadgets, including \u201cBrowning heavy machine guns, rams, tyre shredders, revolving number plates, smokescreen and oil slick projectors, a homing tractor, and an ejector seat,\u201d accroding to Adams’ obituary in\u00a0<\/span>The Guardian<\/em>.<\/span><\/p>\n

One of Adams\u2019 most memorable design features was the simplest: the tarantula that is dispatched to kill James Bond in\u00a0Dr. No<\/i>. \u201cI think it is one of my favorite sets, because it is so simple and theatrical,\u201d Adams explained. \u201cI think I had 450 pounds left in the budget. So I really had to come up with something very quickly that was very easy to construct and at the same time create a very important effect.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

4. Goldfinger<\/i>\u00a0was temporarily banned in Israel.<\/strong><\/h5>\n

The movie\u00a0Goldfinger\u00a0<\/i>was a hit around the world when it first came out in 1964, and Israel was no exception. Over a quarter of a million Israelis watched the film in its first six weeks in the cinemas. The film\u2019s popularity was despite the fact that the German actor who played the movie\u2019s arch enemy Auric Goldfinger, a beefy man named Gert Frobe, didn\u2019t speak English. An English actor dubbed most of Frobe\u2019s lines.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"Gert Frobe, Goldfinger<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Soon after the movie came out, the British\u00a0Daily Mail<\/i>\u00a0newspaper ran a story titled \u201cOf course I was a Nazi!\u201d An Israeli journalist had asked Frobe what he\u2019d done during World War II, and Frobe admitted that he\u2019d joined the Nazi party in 1929 at the age of 16 because he was attracted to their policies. In 1956, Israel had passed a law banning any films that included wartime Nazis.\u00a0Goldfinger<\/i>\u00a0stopped being played in Israel\u2019s cinemas.<\/span><\/p>\n

Over the next weeks, more of the story came out. Even though he was a member of the Nazi party, Frobe had saved the life of a Jewish woman and her family during the Holocaust. He explained that he and the woman were both assigned to work in a hospital in Vienna in 1941. Realizing that she was in danger, he hid both her and her family in his apartment for the duration of the war. \u201cThe fact that I helped them was proved after the war before I was allowed to start work again,\u201d he told\u00a0The New York Times<\/i>\u00a0in December 1965.<\/span><\/p>\n

Soon, a man named Mario Blumenau went to the Israeli embassy in Vienna that his life and his mother\u2019s life had likely been saved by Mr. Frobe. Within months, Israel allowed\u00a0Goldfinger<\/i>\u00a0to resume being shown in Israel. It was a case of truth being much more dramatic than the capers of the fictional spy thriller on the screen.<\/span><\/p>\n

5. James Bond might have been modelled on a real-life Jewish spy.<\/strong><\/h5>\n

James Bond might have been modelled on a real British Jewish spy, Sidney Reilly, who bore some uncanny similarities to Ian Fleming\u2019s creation. (As a former high-level intelligence official, Ian Fleming surely would have known about Sidney Reilly, who is sometimes called the most successful British spy of all time.)\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Born Shlomo (some say Sigmund) Rosenblum in 1873 in Ukraine, Sidney Reilly was recruited by the Special Intelligence Service (SIS), the forerunner of Britain\u2019s famed MI6 intelligence service, and given the number ST1 \u2013 much as James Bond is known by his handlers as 007.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"Sidney Reilly<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

A mysterious figure who spoke seven languages, Reilly was recruited to help Britain battle Bolsheviks in the early 1900s. Known as the \u201cAce of Spies,\u201d Reilly\u2019s heroic actions seems like something out of a James Bond film. One notable adventure came in 1905, after an Australian miner named William D\u2019Arcy discovered huge oil fields in the Persian Basin. D\u2019Arcy needed a huge investment to exploit the oil field and arranged a meeting with members of the French Rothschilds family to discuss financing the project.<\/span><\/p>\n

As D\u2019Arcy and the Rothchilds conferred on the yacht, a priest suddenly barged in, asking for money for Catholic charity. In the course of the discussion, this \u201cpriest\u201d managed to convince D\u2019Arcy that the British could give him a better deal in exploiting the oil field. The priest was none other than Sidney Reilly, acting on orders from the SIS, and the eventual company that D\u2019Arcy and the UK Government formed eventually became British Petroleum.<\/span><\/p>\n

During World War I, Reilly continued working for the British, infiltrating German lines on several occasions. He told people that he even attended a General Staff meeting during the war at which Kaiser William II was present. Like James Bond, Reilly was an inveterate gambler, womanizer and collector of high-end antiques. He married several times and went under an array of pseudonyms. He was finally captured in Russia in 1925 where he\u2019d likely been sent by the British government to further their anti-Communist activities there, and was executed near Moscow.<\/span><\/p>\n

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James Bond: 5 Jewish Facts Dr. Yvette Alt Miller Ian Fleming’s antisemitism and other ways Jews loomed large in the world of 007. 1. Bond\u2019s creator was a known racist and antisemite. Ian Fleming wrote the 12 spy novels featuring James Bond, the British secret agent which formed the basis for the successful film franchise. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[26,24],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91302"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=91302"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91302\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":91319,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91302\/revisions\/91319"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=91302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=91302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=91302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}