The Luftmentsh as an economic metaphor for Jewish poverty: a rhetorical analysis

Nicolas Vallois and Sarah Imhoff

No ptxgf, SocArXiv from Center for Open Science

Abstract: . “Luftmentsh”, literally “air-person”, is a Yiddish word which refers to beggars, petty traders, peddlers and various kinds of paupers. The word appeared for the first time in Yiddish literature in the 1860's and began to be used in political and economic discourse in the 1880's-1890's. This article proposes a rhetorical analysis of the word Luftmentsh, considered as an economic metaphor for Jewish poverty. Our study thus contributes to the existing literature on economic metaphors in the history of economic thought. We also show that the economic character of the Luftmentsh popularized an influential yet ambivalent image of Jewish masculinity at work.

Date: 2020-08-20
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://osf.io/download/5f3d3eb5d42ad40297cda0a7/

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:osf:socarx:ptxgf

DOI: 10.31219/osf.io/ptxgf

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in SocArXiv from Center for Open Science
Bibliographic data for series maintained by OSF ().