"Mosaic Arabs": Jews and Gentlemen in Disraeli's Young England Trilogy

Though converted to Christianity at an early age, Benjamin Disraeli, the popular novelist and prime minister under Queen Victoria, was outspokenly philosemitic. Fueled by contemporary ethnology and race theories, Disraeli argued that the Jews were a superior, "aristocratic" race destined to become the spiritual and intellectual guide for modern Europe. Enabling such claims was Disraeli's skillful manipulation of Orientalist discourse, whereby he routinely reversed its stereotypical privileging of West over East. Following the example of Thackeray's "Codlingsby," however, this essay argues that Disraeli's "strategy of reversals" ultimately failed because it did not adequately comprehend traditional Western associations and meanings of "aristocracy," a fundamental misunderstanding that, for Disraeli's political enemies and critics, exposed him yet again as foreigner, Oriental, and Jew.