The role of the Jew in Western literature has far too often been as a malevolent, money-grubbing villain who exists mainly to be bested by the blond-haired, blue-eyed hero. And if that Aryan-Nordic hero can be a child, so much the better, as Charles Dickens knew well when he conjured up the primary antagonist for Oliver Twist. “There is almost no other character to compete with Fagin for the title of the most grotesque and villainous Jew in all of English literature. Of all the 989 characters who sprang from the pen of Charles Dickens, the evil old gang-master is one of his most vivid caricatures.” Even though modern morality has mandated that film and stage versions of the Dickens tale tone down the anti-Semitism, the disturbing stereotype is still pervasive.