Which is a pity because if Lord Falconer, or anybody else, had looked at the mural before condemning it, they would have seen that it is not anti-Semitic at all.
Look at the men playing Monopoly. Apparently they must be Jews because they have hooked noses, which probably makes Lord Falconer the first man in history to be able to divine a man’s religion by the shape of his nose. Looking more carefully, you can see that none of the men is wearing a kippah (brimless cap.) There are no Jewish symbols in the rest of the picture: no star of David, no seven branched candlestick, no mezuzah on the doorway.
No, the only symbolic object in the picture is the Eye of Providence, the pyramidal stone with an eye on one face, visible on the disk behind the players. The same symbol is also to be found on the back of the US dollar bill, where it forms part of the design of the Great Seal. It has an ancient origin, but these days it connotes Freemasonry.
So the six men playing Monopoly — there are no female Freemasons — are not Jews. They are Freemasons. The mural isn’t anti-Semitic at all. It’s a satirical comment on the Freemasons.
6 March 2019. I have learned that Meah One has since painted a second version of the Brick Lane Mural, from which all hooked noses have been removed. Meah One describes the Monopoly players as ‘banksters,’ which does not imply that they are Jews. I wish that I could interpret the symbolism on the new version, in particular the black birds flocking overhead and the pale figures painted, or projected, on the wall behind the players must mean something, but I am reasonably sure that they do not originate in Judaïsm.
Here is the new version.
