Thursday 23 November 2017

The Future Of Judaism

Dominic Flandry's mentor, Max Abrams, is Jewish - from the planet Dayan.

Moishe Feldman, a Montivallan merchant, is Jewish.

(Regular readers know which future histories Flandry and Montival exist in.)

In another fictional future (see here), Lazarus wanders...

In the Dune future history, we learn of "Secret Israel," concealing its existence...

In ERB's The Moon Men, the Kalkars oppress a Jewish man - and everyone else on Earth.

Any more?

3 comments:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

Like you, I too thought of Walter Miller's A CANTICLE FOR LEIBOWITZ for science fictional use of the Wandering Jew legend. And I had not realized, till I read David's comment, that Anderson too alluded to the Wandering Jew in THE BYWORLDER.

The idea of a Secret Israel surviving thousands of years from now in the DUNE series does sound interesting! A major character in PA's short story "The Bitter Bread" is a Jewish woman.

I remembered and looked up this bit from Chapter 37 of STARFARERS, Hanny Dayan talking to Captain Ricardo Nansen: "Were," she corrected him in a whisper. "I suspect I am the last Jew. And a woman and an unbeliever; but the only vessel the heritage has left." Captain Nansen replied: "And I am the last"--he shrugged, "whatever it may be." That is, the last Catholic and Christian. Anderson never says outright in STARFARERS that Judaism and Christianity has completely disappeared. Perhaps they survived on a colonized world forgotten by or unknown to the rest of mankind?

And I have somewhere a collection of SF stories written by Jews called, I think, WANDERING STARS.

Sean

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Sean,
Thanks. Great additions to my post.
Paul.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

Good! I'm glad. I did forget to say I've never read Edgar Rice Burroughs THE MOON MEN. ERB is worth reading because of his sheer story telling skill--so that we can temporarily overlook his scientific absurdities.

Sean