Wandering Jew in Tunis January 12, 2017
Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern , trackback
Beach offered, just the other day, a Wandering Jew story. Here is another encounter, this time from Tunis: incidentally how can the WJ live in both Tunis and Monte Carlo, perhaps he got the boat over once a year? Canadian movie star Matheson Lang meets a fan, after he produces a play, The Wandering Jew. We are in the 1920s.
When she came round (she incidentally was not a flapper fan but a dear whitehaired old lady) she brought with her a small old-fashioned box made of cedar wood. This she said she wished to present me. I asked her why. She replied: ‘because is supposed to bring luck to men and bad luck women, and since my husband and two sons were killed the war, I alone in the world, and as have no mankind [sic] to pass it on to I would like to present it to you.’ ‘Why to me?’ I asked. She replied, ‘Because it has been known in the family for one hundred years as the Wandering Jew’s Box.’
And the story?
About 100 years ago great-great-grandfather of mine was in Tunis. One day he found a ragged Jew lying ill the street and being baited by some street urchins, so he drove them away and helped the old man to his home. After walking some considerable distance they came eventually to the wealthy part of the town, and then the old Jew took out a door-key and opened the front door of a large, palatial house. They entered, and the Englishman was amazed to find that the house was full of priceless furniture and antiques. In astonishment he said to the old Jew, ‘Is this your house?’ He replied, ‘It is.’ ‘But surely,’ the Englishman said, I find you lying in rags in the road all these priceless treasures cannot belong you. Who are you?’ The old Jew laughed and shrugged his shoulders and replied: ‘Of course you will not believe me but I am the Wandering Jew.’ Before leaving him. after hearing wonderful stories of his journeys round the world, the Old Jew presented him with the small cedar wood box, in which were three moonstones and one uncut diamond, with the words. ‘Keep it. It will bring you luck, but bad luck to women.’ It is doubtless a coincidence but I must say that ever since I received the box good luck has been very largely my portion.
There is an unappetizing follow up: ‘Now here is a strange sequel to the story.’ A psychic is given the box and has a vision of the crucifixion… A slam dunk then? But seriously any insights: drbeachcombing At yahoo DOT com. Did an English expat walk into some kind of scam? Did a granddad decide to try and give some romance to a trinket he picked up in North Africa? Did the old woman – who was not a ‘flapper fan’ – just make the whole thing up? Or did Matheson use the box from Manitoba to impress the girls?
Hull Daily Mail (2 Sep 1932), 6
19 Jan 2017: Leif and Loes point out that there are several accounts in Curious Myths of the Middle Ages by Sabine Baring-Gould. I’ll check these out at the earliest opportunity. Loes continues: Looking for the wandering jew in Dutch papers I only found the play and the book and some rambling religious things, but no encounters. But there was one remarkable piece from 1846 about a woman who after hearing the story got it into her head that the Wandering Jew was dead, and that she had to pick up his existence. An angel told her so. She was trying to walk the waves and nearly drowning. When she was saved at the last moment she was adamant that she had a mission to fulfill and that others kept her from doing God’s will. Her wanderings came to an end in the asylum. I can translate the whole piece for you if you should like me to, but it is not really relevant to the ‘real’ Wandering Jew legend. Just a curiosity.
19 Jan 2017: LTM with ‘Acres of Wandering Jew tales’: Useful resources [writes Beach] but I was looking more for ‘factual’ encounters.
19 Jan 2017: KMH ‘Have you considered the idea that the Wandering Jew legend might explain why Jews are found in so many countries around the world? Wherever places the Wandering Jew has gone to are ones where Jews will be eventually found. I don’t believe a physical Wandering Jew existed, but he might function as one of Jung’s Archetypes needed to explain Jewish behavior.
