The Lie Of The ‘Jewish Nose’ Returns

The notion that there is a distinctive “Jewish nose” is one of the oldest anti-Jewish myths. Medieval Jew-haters introduced it in the 12th century C.E. as a way of singling out Jews for contempt.

Nazi Germany’s propaganda machine frequently invoked the “Jewish nose” stereotype. A notorious Nazi film produced in 1940 called “The Eternal Jew”—purporting to expose the “real” Jew—focused on “Jewish faces,” zooming in on Jews’ noses to make them seem unattractive.

Similar images appeared throughout the Nazis’ news media, cultural publications and children’s books. Der Giftpilz, an anti-Jewish children’s book published by Julius Streicher (publisher of the Nazi newspaper Der Stürmer), included a section called “How to Tell a Jew.” It described a seventh-grade boys’ class in which “Karl Schulz, a small lad in the front row,” steps to the chalkboard and declares: “One can most easily tell a Jew by his nose. The Jewish nose is bent at its point. It looks like the number six. We call it the ‘Jewish six.’ ”

The “Jewish nose” lie has surfaced occasionally in recent years. In 1999, for example, former Arizona state legislator Barbara Blewster told a colleague, “You can’t be Jewish. You don’t have a big hooked nose.” Blewster was forced to publicly apologize but continued to insist, “I have no prejudice at all. I admire the Jews.”

The former prime minister of Malaysia, Mahathir Mohamed, a Holocaust denier and anti-Israel extremist, has repeatedly referred to “hook-nosed Jews.” The website of Belgium’s Ghent University, until recently, included a sign-language video showing a hooked nose as the translation for the word “Jewish.”