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Gentile Jew-Chaser
aka: Matzo Fever

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Three years of mandatory military service will tend to do this to people.

"I want a steamy little Jewish Princess!"
Frank Zappa, with one of the very few SFW lines from his song "Jewish Princess" from Sheik Yerbouti.

Some dig Asians. Some prefer their lovers Latin. And some feel that Everyone Looks Sexier if French. And then there are the Gentile Jew-Chasers ("chaser" in this case meaning romantic or sexual pursuit rather than hostile persecution), who are not Jewish themselves, but find that when God chooses a people, he pulls out all the hotness stops.

A sort of sub-trope to Everyone Looks Sexier if French, dedicated to the Chosen People. Maybe it's the Woobie factor (they are pretty much the world's Butt Monkeys); maybe it's their sense of humor (everybody knows Jews are funny). Maybe it's the strength of the Badass Israeli or just the sweetness of the Nice Jewish Boy. Or even the allure of sophisticated Jewish culture. The Gentile may end up Converting for Love.

While primarily an American trope this can be seen in other countries with large Jewish populations, such as France. On the other hand, it's an unknown trope in countries with negligible Jewish populations. Though this trope appears relatively new (as in, post-World War II), it can be traced back to the 19th Century where this archetype was known as la belle juive (the beautiful Jewess) in Romantic European literature, and as the name implies it was Always Female and tended to be portrayed either as a tragic heroine or a particularly antisemitic variant of The Vamp. Male examples of this trope were virtually unknown (and tended to be played negatively) until modern times.

Obviously, compare and contrast Race Fetish, Latin Lover (which can overlap if they're Sephardic), Sensual Slavs (overlapping if they're Ashkenazi), Mighty Whitey and Mellow Yellow, Where da White Women At? and, well, any other ethnic or national tropes. Contrast Shiksa Goddess, which is the inverse of this trope (Jewish characters pursuing Gentiles because they're not Jewish), and compare and contrast Jewish and Nerdy. Drama that results from this relationship can count as a form of Maligned Mixed Marriage.

Please note that the Gentiles in question should be pursuing Jewish people precisely because they're Jewish, a Gentile-Jew pairing on its own is not an example of the trope.


Examples:

    open/close all folders 

    Comedy 
  • Comedian John Mulaney has a segment where he says while describing his Jewish (now-ex) wife that he’s always preferred to date Jewish girls. He says that they say what they feel and get him to stand up for himself when others treat him poorly as he’s a self-described Extreme Doormat.

    Comic Books 
  • In the half book/half comic Limekiller at Large, the second item on Marty's bucket list is "Make love to a Jewish Woman(Long Story)"

    Films - Live-Action 
  • In the David Mamet film State and Main, Sarah Jessica Parker's character mentions that she loves Jewish men while seducing Philip Seymour Hoffman's character. Tying into the trope title, she comes to believe he's Jewish after finding Matzo in his hotel room, which was just a gift from the director. In fact, he is not Jewish.
  • God Is Great and I'm Not: Unlike most instances of this trope, Michelle the Catholic, who falls in love with Francois the Jew, is entranced enough to convert. Francois is pretty skeptical of her conversion because he thinks this trope is the motivating factor.
    Michelle: You're not Jewish enough!
  • GoodFellas: Mafia gangsters Tommy and Henry go on a Double Date with two Jewish girls because Tommy wants to have sex with one of them, and she won't go out with an Italian unless she can bring her friend along. We never see Tommy's date again, but sparks fly between Henry and his own date Karen, and they eventually marry. Based on a true story!
  • In Meeting Daddy, a proper Southern belle mistakes her best friend's future husband for a Jew (because he's from New York and was raised in Los Angeles) and tells him, "I want to suck your big, circumcised Jewish dick." (He's actually Episcopalian.)
  • The Hebrew Hammer plays around with this. At one point, Damien's female assistants try to seduce him, gushing about how well-read Jewish men are.
  • The Fabelmans: Monica, a devout Christian, is instantly interested in Sammy when she learns from Claudia that he's Jewish (because she loves Jesus, and Jesus was Jewish). The relationship creates not an insubstantial amount of drama.

    Literature 
  • In Trainspotting, Spud says his plans for his cut of the money are to settle down with a beautiful Jewish princess.
  • The novel Eighty-Sixed includes the slang for gays with ethnic fetishes: "beanie queens" are those who like Orthodox Jews. note 
  • Lawrence Block's spy story The Cancelled Czech has a girl who has been raised as a devout neo-Nazi ... and has intense sexual fantasies about Jewish men.
  • Discussed in Portnoy's Complaint. As a teen, Alex Portnoy believed that he must pretend to be Christian to attract Christian girls; but he later realized that this is not necessary, because there are plenty of Christian women who are attracted to Jewish men just like him.
    Who knew that the secret to a shikse's heart (and box) was not to pretend to be some hook-nosed variety of goy, as boring and vacuous as her own brother, but to be what one's uncle was, to be what one's father was, to be whatever one was oneself...
  • This article marshals the evidence that Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, in addition to having a general, nonsexual sympathy to Jewish interests, also frequently used Jewish women as examples of his erotic ideal.

    Live-Action TV 
  • The Addams Family: Played with. Gomez finds it very attractive, to the point of becoming completely Distracted by the Sexy, whenever Morticia calls him "bubele", a Yiddish term of endearment. (In the 90s cartoon, he only finds it attractive because he mistakes it for French, but this is not the case in the sitcom, where he explicitly knows it isn't French.) Morticia was played by the Jewish (convert) actress Carolyn Jones, and has a few other examples of Yiddish as a Second Language. However, Morticia is only very Ambiguously Jewish: the family celebrate Christmas (although only Gomez is mentioned to have grown up celebrating it, so she might simply celebrate it because he does), and she definitely doesn't keep kosher (though plenty of Jewish people don't). That being said, her use of Yiddish is still being specifically presented as something that makes her more attractive to Gomez.
  • Mad Men seems to love this concept, made especially relevant by showing that Jews are outsiders in the ad men's WASPy social circles. Don Draper's first and second-season mistresses are Jewish, as is his fourth season girlfriend. Roger's young wife is also Jewish. When Draper's firm lobbies for a job with the Israeli tourism bureau, and the executives take particular note of how beautiful Israeli women are.
  • In an episode of Law & Order: SVU, a serial rapist mentioned he's really, really into Jewish women, to the point of secretly corresponding with some while in his prison's equivalent of the Aryan Brotherhood.
  • The Big Bang Theory
    Howard: A catholic girl like you wearing a big cross like that might just give my mother the big brain aneurysm I’ve been hoping for.
    Bernadette: Okay, but only if you come to Sunday dinner at my house wearing a yarmulke.
  • A variant in Curb Your Enthusiasm: Larry has a fling with an anti-semitic Muslim woman who enjoys the degradation she feels when having sex with Jews.
  • Elliott in Scrubs has an Imagine Spot where she builds herself the perfect husband and he turns out to be Jewish. She then mentions that her parents wouldn't approve.
  • St. Elsewhere: Helen Rosenthal has a case of this, admitting that she is "fatally attracted to Jewish men."

    Music 
  • Ninja Sex Party's Danny Sexbang (real name Leigh Daniel Avidan) invokes this trope in some of their songs, such as "The Decision":
    The choice should be so obvious
    And although he is mysterious
    Don't you want a man
    Who's tall, whose name is Dan
    And he's Jewish

    Myths & Religion 
  • Of Muhammad's thirteen wives, two (Safiyya bint Huyayy and Rayhana bint Zayd) were Jewish. Muhammad married them to manumit them, as both were members of the tribes who were against the early Muslim community and as a result had their freedom stripped away after the Muslims won the war. According to Muhammad's biography, Safiyya was distrusted by some members of the prophet's inner circle because of her Jewish origin, but Muhammad reassured her that if she were to be taunted she was allowed to proclaim herself as a Jew first and his wife second.

    Theatre 
  • Jewtopia!: One of the main characters of the play wants a Jewish girl so he doesn't have to make another decision in his life. He marries someone posing as a Jew, but she converts at the very end of the play.

    Web Original 

    Western Animation 
  • American Dad!:
    • The episode "Bar Mitzvah Shuffle": Etan Cohen, a sophisticated Jewish boy, seduces Steve's girlfriend, Debbie. Being Jewish is part of the charm, and Etan plays it for all it's worth.
    • In "Stan's Food Restaurant", Steve wants to get with a crazy girl who believes her doll is alive. She mentions the doll "likes Hebrews" when Steve arranges a "date" between it and Snot.
  • An episode of The Cleveland Show had a devout Christian girl become obsessed with Jr. because he is an atheist and another boy named Hunter because he is Jewish.
    Hunter: We [Jews] don't believe in Hell.
    Vanessa: Oh, that is even hotter.
  • Family Guy: When Peter finds out Lois was Jewish, he is really into it, at least until his Catholic guilt kicks in.
  • The Simpsons: Lisa almost instantly develops an innocent, chaste crush on her Jewish substitute teacher, Mr. Bergstrom, and even remarks on his "Semitic good looks." He seems slightly taken aback by this compliment.

Alternative Title(s): Matzo Fever

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