Roald Dahl’s family apologises for his anti-Semitism

LONDON: The family of Roald Dahl has apologised for “the lasting and understanding hurt” caused by anti-Semitic comments the author made during his lifetime. Dahl, the writer of classic children’s books such as “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” and “The BFG,” made several disparaging comments about Jewish people in interviews and in his writing and made no secret of his anti-Semitism.
“Those prejudiced remarks are incomprehensible to us and stand in marked contrast to the man we knew and to the values at the heart of Roald Dahl’s stories,” the Dahl family and the Roald Dahl Story Co. wrote in the online statement. “We hope that, just as he did at his best, at his absolute worst, Roald Dahl can help remind us of the lasting impact of words,” the statement added.
The apology was in such an obscure part of the author’s website that it was unclear how long it had been there. The Sunday Times, a British newspaper, drew attention to the statement in an article Sunday.
Dahl, who died in 1990 at 74, has a complicated legacy. His many imaginative tales — including “Matilda,” “Fantastic Mr. Fox” and “The Witches,” as well as the Charlie books and “The BFG” — have endured through the years and have been adapted into films and musicals.
But Dahl’s self-avowed anti-Semitism has cast a shadow over his work. “There is a trait in the Jewish character that does provoke animosity,” Dahl said in an 1983 interview with The New Statesman. He reinforced his views in another interview months before his death in 1990. “I am certainly anti-Israel, and I have become anti-Semitic,” he said, according to The Independent, a British newspaper.
Upon Dahl’s death, Abraham Foxman, then the national director of the Anti-Defamation League in the US, called him a “blatant and admitted anti-Semite” in a letter to The New York Times.
Other elements of Dahl’s work have attracted criticism. The Oompa Loompa workers in Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory, who were first depicted as African pygmies, were recast in later editions as fictional creatures from Loompaland. The Royal Mint, which produces currency in Britain, rejected plans to honor Dahl with a commemorative coin in 2016, the centenary of his birth, citing his anti-Semitic comments.