What’s in a Nose?

Spanning a bridge between Bertrand Russell and medieval churches, Sara Lipton shows that it was medieval Christian art that introduced the idea that moral and spiritual significance resided in Jews’ features. She argues that “Jewish” features are something that people need to be trained to see, and once they have become used to see meaning in certain shapes and forms, they may flip the process and, spurred by pre-existing assumptions, begin to see those shapes and forms where they do not, in fact, exist.