Famed spy James Bond has Jewish roots, claimed a lecturer at a Limmud conference in London last week. According to The Jewish Chronicle, Rabbi Raphael Zarum of the London School of Jewish Studies addressed an audience of 300, telling them the Ian Fleming character is widely acknowledged to have been inspired by real-life Jewish spy Sidney Reilly.
In his lecture, Zarum elaborated on the life of Reilly, born Shlomo Rosenblum, a 19th-century Russian-Jewish spy who worked for Britain. According to Zarum, Reilly is widely considered the first “super spy”, and like 007, was an outsider and a master of deception.
“James Bond really is Jewish, I’m not making this up,” he said. “Fleming used Reilly as a model for Bond. To be a spy you have to be a person outside of the system – a Jew. It’s a great Jewish story.”
The hero of a book series, James Bond has been portrayed in film by the likes of Sean Connery, Roger Moore and most recently, Daniel Craig.
Beyond the details intentionally borrowed by Fleming from Reilly’s story, Zarum argued there are numerous other Jewish parallels in the themes repeated throughout the James Bond novels and movies.
“James is the Christian form of the name Jacob and Jacob had a lot of women, too,” Zarum explained. Additionally, he said, many of the villains in the Bond series are reminiscent of Esau, Biblical Jacob’s twin brother and adversary.
Referencing the recent Bond film Skyfall (2012), Zarum pointed out that the villain, Tiago Rodriguez, has a surname which means “red-haired one”.
“Eisav was red, the hairy one. Does the film’s director Sam Mendes know this? Probably not, but still,” he said.
Zarum argued that spymaster M., played by Dame Judi Dench, represents the Biblical Rifka, mother of Jacob and Esau, for whose attention the brothers strove. This theme continues in the film Spectre (2015), with the rivalry between Bond and villain Ernst Stavro Blofeld.
Zarum told his amused audience, “You do what you want, I’m just telling you what the Torah says.”
He added: “Bond’s story is a great mythic story. Myths and stories are fundamental to who we are. I do not see cinema as escapism. I see them as reinforcing theories we have deep inside us.”
