In contrast, the Jewess exists as a seductive and desirable commodity that European and American men longed to possess. The sensuality of Oriental women was one of the main themes in French representations of the Orient, and Jewish women were included in this imagery. . . . Men from disparate fields such as Hugo and the painter Eugene Delacroix—as well as the lesser known writer Charles Didier—all found in the Orient and its Jewess something that was sufficiently distant to be idealized and made mysterious, but which nonetheless retained elements of familiarity. All contributed to the ambiguous image of the Jewess who was both spiritual and carnal: beautiful, sensual, and knowing."

Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imag…, loc. 412