ANTHROPOLOGY OF EASTERN EUROPEAN JEWS 257 



The Shape of the Nose. 



The "Jewish" nose has been considered characteristic. 

 Caricaturists have exploited this part of the Jewish anatomy to 

 an extent which, as we shall see hereafter, is not warranted by 

 statistical facts. Whenever a Jewish face is pictured, a hooked 

 nose, one which looks like the beak of a parrot is generally 

 portrayed. Even anthropologists have been led astray by this 

 popular notion. Topinard, in his classification of noses, calls 

 the hooked nose, the Jewish or Semitic nose. He enumerates 

 several varieties of convex noses, generally known as aquiline : 

 The simple aquiline, the "arched," some of which have the 

 appearance of the beak of the parrot, others of the eagle ( "bee 

 de perroquet," " bee d'aigle ") according to the direction taken 

 by the extreme point of the nose. But the investigations of 

 anthropologists do not bear out the contention that the hook 

 nose is characteristic of the Jews, at least as far as Jews from 

 Eastern Europe are concerned. 



The present author has taken notes on the shape of the nose 

 in 4,120 Jews in New York City, which includes Jews from all 

 parts of Europe as well as natives. The results are shown in 

 the following table. 



Variety of Noses in 4,120 Jews and Jewesses. 



Variety of Nose. 



Jews. 



Jewesses. 





Number. 



Percent. 



Number. 



Percent. 



Straight 



Hooked, aquiline 



1,624 

 404 

 626 

 182 



57.26 



14-25 



22.07 



6.42 



763 

 163 

 178 

 180 



59-42 

 12.70 

 13.86 

 14.02 



Retrousse (snub) 



Flat and broad 





Total 



2,836 



100.00 



1,284 



100.00 



This shows that the predominant variety of nose-form among 

 the Jews in New York City is the straight — 57 percent of Jews 

 and 59 percent of Jewesses had straight noses. This variety of 

 nose is known as the " Greek " nose, because the ancient Greek 

 sculptors have usually produced in their statues faces with 

 straight noses. But noses modeled after the form of the Greek 

 monuments are very rare among all races. This is true partic- 



