Colleagues,
Apologies for this second request for help in just a few weeks.
"Knoblauchfresser" is used an an insult towards Muslims in general and Turks in particular today, but I also find it as an insult against Jews in the mouth of a German guard in Jurek Becker's novel "Jakob der Lügner". Does anyone know of any scholarly references to this in the Nazi or earlier contexts as an anti-Semitic insult? It's not listed in Brackmann and Birkenhauer's "NS-Deutsch".
My suspicion is that it goes back to the SCHUM towns of the 12th century, whose Jews wore garlic to signify their membership, "schum" apparently being a Hebrew word for garlic, but it would be good to have evidence.
Regards,
Pól.
Prof. Pól Ó Dochartaigh, MRIA, FRHistS,
Dean of the Faculty of Arts,
University of Ulster.
Tel: +44 28 7012 4517
Email: [log in to unmask]
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