Jean Fautrier's Jolies Juives

There is in the words “a beautiful Jewess” a very special sexual signification, one quite different from that contained in the words “beautiful Rumanian,” “beautiful Greek,” or “beautiful American,” for example. This phrase carries an aura of rape and massacre with it. The “beautiful Jewess” is she whom the cossacks under the czars dragged by her hair through the streets of her burning village. And the special works which are given over to accounts of flagellation reserve a place of honor for the Jewess. But it is not necessary to look into esoteric literature. From the Rebecca of Ivanhoe up to the Jewess of “Gilles” … the Jewess has a well-defined function in even the most serious novels. Frequently violated or beaten, she sometimes succeeds in escaping dishonor by means of death, but that is a form of justice; and those who keep their virtue are docile servants or humiliated women in love with indifferent Christians who marry Aryan women. I think nothing more is needed to indicate the place the Jewess holds as a sexual symbol in folklore.