Jews in fantasy

[polaris_starz]

I know people have been posting links to their own Jewish-themed fanfic, but I didn't seen a post for recommending other people's-- if there is, please point it out to me. But anyway, today I was looking through my bookmarks and stumbled over this: Kaddish, by copperbadge, which is a HP fic about Remus and Harry saying Kaddish for James, Lily, and Sirius

Comments

[mofic]

I'm not sure if you're just looking for fanfic, but a wonderful fantasy novel with a Jewish protagonist is Harry Turtledove's _The Case of the Toxic Spell Dump_. He creates a world where most of what we do through technology is done through magic. It is a little like the HP universe (and has a lot of the same kinds of humor in implicitly comparing our society to the magical one) except that it is a world unto itself, not a hidden parallel society. The hero, David Fisher, works for the EPA - the Environmental Perfection Agency - and he investigates illegal use of dangerous magic. He is very explicitly Jewish and is shown occasionally engaging in Jewish religious practices. There is a really moving scene where his girlfriend recites the Shma after a demonic possession - if she were not spiritually whole again she wouldn't be able to say it.

The world he envisions is not only a multireligious one but one where there really are multiple gods and the different religious groups keep the deities alive through their belief, so if a religion dies out, so does the god or gods it worshipped. It's a really interesting concept. It's also a mystery novel and the mystery is really good! I highly recommend it.