#That while it is canon to denounce jkr as a bigot

[beloved-child-of-the-house]

🤷🏽‍♂️

[asktheheirofslytherin]

I will never understand attempts to shoehorn religious diversity into JKR's sparse world-building. There is simply no indication in canon that anyone is of a particular religion (outside of some practices associated with English Muggles and X-mas), and projecting muggle religions onto wizards opens up a massive can of worms. Religious identity can be powerful and unifying in a community; in some cases it might suggest an affinity between wizards and muggles that would undercut the enforced segregation between the two societies, and that's especially true for persecuted religious minorities. IMO it's quite simply unworkable without there being significant overlap between the two societies, and we know there isn't.

Imagining that some DEs are Jewish is frankly a bit tasteless to me. The antisemitic undertones in JKR's making goblins run a bank full of gold are hard to ignore, but talking about Jews in Harry Potter puts that glaring problem front and centre. I can see how it might be done -- for instance, you *could* say Judah Loew ben Bezalel was a wizard who made the famous golem to protect the Jews of Prague -- but I don't see any compelling reason for any Jewish person to identify with the DEs given how the latter's ideology was partly inspired by Nazism. I dunno, to me it seems too close to the crap JKR pulled when she lifted themes from Indigenous mythologies to make her half-assed magical America, effectively reinscribing real colonial trauma in a magical world. I think it's fine to continue enjoying HP as a fan while denouncing the author's bigotry, but seeing stuff like that makes me seriously want to kick the habit.

Just speaking for myself, if that's not clear.

[[OOC: Thank you for sharing your thoughts - they make sense, and everyone's personal feelings are valid! I feel as though people incorporate religious diversity within HP for the same reason they incorporate other forms of diversity that are also not mentioned in canon (or else mentioned poorly) - they want to see themselves and people like themselves in that world. It was why I was imagining female OC's in universes lacking proper gender diversity from a very young age.

Religion of course can be seen as particularly complex because of the shared beliefs and experiences that would cross the magic divide, but this can be addressed in a couple of ways - one being that the religious and cultural practices of wizards differ slightly from that of muggles; the stories are just a bit different, the customs or reasoning behind them might differ between groups, etc. OR they could become a unifying force as you mentioned, which would make little sense for the existence of Jewish DE's considering the shared history. OR wizards could have completely different religions altogether, which would be interesting as well.

I can imagine that the "truth" would be a conglomerate of all three as perhaps a wizard created religion is prevalent, but the existence of muggleborns, half bloods and intermarriage has allowed muggle religions to seep in and take on new life in many cases.

The blatant antisemetic (and other bigoted) tropes in the canon work complicate this even further. The fandom can either work around these, re-purpose or re-claim them, rewrite the whole bit...etc. If a person makes the decision to remain in the fandom, then grappling with these details is an extremely complicated internal decision and I would never tell anyone how to address them. It seems like the common theme I am getting from followers is there should not be Jewish DE's and I will keep with that interpretation.]]