Daniel Mendoza and perceptions of Jews in Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century England.
Daniel Mendoza: The Prize Ring and Perceptions of the Jews in Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century England. This article endeavours to show ways in which Jews in late eighteenth and early nineteenth century England transcended oppressive structures through challenging myths of inferiority. Reading in the early eighteenth-century one might come upon the name Jew beside words and phrases like vicious, corrupt, physically weak or easily victimized. Beside such common tropes, however, existed a more benevolent attitude, like that of Sir Walter Scott who sympathetically depicted the Jews as a people who had nobly endured terrible persecution. Yet, there was another category made manifest through the Jewish boxer Daniel Mendoza, 1764-1836. In the eighteenth-century prize fights were being attended by the social hierarchy, including King George III. They celebrated pugilism as a form of 'democratic courage.' This meant that the plain John Bull (or working class Englishman) could look...