"Geissler is not a common name" - sorry, but Geissler (or
Geisler/Geißler/Geiseler etc., most probably meaning "goatherd", from
Geiß/Geiss=goat) is indeed a very common German name; the national
telephone directory (on the internet) lists more than 5700 entries for
the first variant alone. If the name did exist in Chicago at that time
is not really relevant; a fiction writer will usually pick a name that
suits the purpose. And I don't think there were many women named Badalia
Herodsfoot in London in 1890 either.
Regards -
Gisbert Haefs (Bonn, Germany)
Am 20.03.2013 21:44, schrieb Bryan Diamond:
> This follows my posting on !9 March. Thanks to Howard Mather re
> Founders' shares. But I have no advice yet about the Jewish character.
>
> There were numerous Jews in Chicago by 1889, but the book "The Jews of
> Chicago" by Irving Cutler (1996) does not mention any.Geissler - or
> similar name (tho many German Jews were there).
>
> Clara Geissler was the originator of the vampire myth according to
> Nochlin & Garb "The Jew in the Text" (1995), p184 from Anthony
> Masters: "The Natural History of the Vampire" (1972) : " The torture
> in 1597 of Clara Geissler of Gelnhausen illustrates the aim of
> torture." - this seems scarcely relevant to Kipling's Geissler character.
>
> Kipling had published " The Jews in Shushan" in 1887, a sympathetic
> story of an Indian Jewish family killed by epidemic; & in "His Chance
> in Life" in 1888 there was Michele d'Cruze" The Cochin Jew", 1/8
> Jewish, who quells a riot. Neither story suggests RK was then
> antisemitic. So why the unpleasant Jew in the 1889 story?
>
> I will post my query on a Jewish site.
>
> Bryan Diamond
>
> "
>
>
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