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).
Geissler is not a common name.
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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