Jewish Ham

Abstract

Many scholars have considered how the curse of Ham in Genesis serves as a justification for the enslavement of Africans. However, in seeking for the origin of Ham’s purported blackness, they overlook his association with Jewish hereditary inferiority. Originating in patristic exegesis, this idea circulates widely in medieval visual arts and popular discourses. While medieval Christian commentaries on Genesis that link Ham to Africa do not mention Noah’s curse, the idea of Jewish cursed servitude appears adjacent to these considerations, thus paving the way for a transfer of hereditary inferiority from one group to the other. The association of Jews with Ham continues into the Reformation, but subsides as the imperative to subordinate Jews gives way to intra-Christian enmity. The figure of Ham as representing a curse of Jewish perpetual slavery is eclipsed by a more profitable, opportunistic application to Africans that justifies their enslavement.