From the pages of Crank
How About That Anti-Semitism in Star Trek?
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I began wondering what happened to the Jews in Gene Roddenberry’s vision of the future. First, I dismissed the question–after all, plenty of cultures and religions are noticeably absent from Star Trek. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that Jews are present in Star Trek in the form of the Ferengi, everyone’s favorite greedy schemesters. And I was shocked to realize that the Ferengi fulfill just about every stereotype attributed to the Jews by Nazis.
iNoted for their oversized facial features
iGreedy and untrustworthy, obsessed with the accumulation of mercantile profit
iSuspected of cannibalism
iThe Ferengi are outsiders in Federation space. They are distrusted and, in many instances, hated. Jews, for their part, have endured much of the same treatment, especially at the hands of Arabs. The Arabic word for “foreigner” is “Al-ferengi.”
