In a related myth to the claim that the famous cartoon character ‘Betty Boop’ was created by jews; (1) we have the implied claim by Benjamin Ivry in the ‘Jewish Daily Forward’ but reprinted in the ‘St. Louis Jewish Light’ that the much loved Disney character of Donald Duck was ‘created by jews’.
Ivry never explicitly claims as much but he implicitly claims as much writing about how Donald Duck was the face of the ‘anti-Nazi propaganda campaign’ of the 1940s in the United States.
He writes that:
‘It was 90 years ago that the querulous, sputtering Donald Duck first appeared in a movie short. The Russian Jewish director Sergei Eisenstein adored Donald and his Disney confrères, despite their lack of social significance; Eisenstein deemed Donald “beyond good and evil.”
Yet other Jewish talents specifically used Donald Duck as a vehicle for teaching morality propaganda lessons, like the comedian Sid Caesar, of Polish Jewish origin, who according to historian Jeremy Dauber got his start in showbiz by doing a routine in which Donald Duck debated Adolf Hitler.
Mimicking the two voices in a Coast Guard entertainment for the troops in 1944, Caesar was doubtless inspired by the 1943 Disney propaganda cartoon “Der Fuehrer’s Face,” an Oscar winner for best animated short film. It depicts Donald Duck as a beleaguered denizen of Nazi Germany who is terrorized by a shadow that looks like a character giving the Sieg Heil salute. To the duck’s relief, it turns out to be a shadow cast by a replica of the Statue of Liberty, raising its arm to carry the torch of liberty over the poem “The New Colossus” by Jewish author Emma Lazarus.’ (2)
Superficially there seems to be a good case for Donald Duck being a ‘jewish invention’ because he was first animated by two jews named Richard Huemer and Art Babbitt (born Arthur Babitsky) (3) but in fact - as Steven Watts explains – they actually aren’t responsible for the character of Donald Duck:
‘Dick Huemer and Art Babbitt animated Donald Duck’s first appearances, but Dick Lundy was most responsible for giving the early version his distinctive visual personality.’ (4)
Richard ‘Dick’ Lundy was a non-jewish American from Michigan.
The truth however is the creator of Donald Duck was actually Walt Disney himself, who instructed Huemer and Babbitt as well as then Lundy about how to draw Donald Duck (5) and Disney’s inspiration – as well as Donald Duck’s first voice actor – was Clarence Nash and his duck impression. (6)
Put another way: jews weren’t responsible for creating Donald Duck but rather Walt Disney was.
References
(1) On this please see my article: https://karlradl14.substack.com/p/jewish-invention-myths-betty-boop
(2) https://stljewishlight.org/top-story/the-secret-jewish-history-of-donald-duck/
(3) Steven Watts, 1997, ‘The Magic Kingdom: Walt Disney and the American Way of Life’, 1st Edition, University of Missouri Press: Columbia, p. 253
(4) Idem.
(5) Tom Andrae, 2006, ‘Carl Barks and the Disney Comic Book: Unmasking the Myth of Modernity’, 1st Edition, University Press of Mississippi: Jackson, p. 61
(6) Watts, Op. Cit., p. 181