Is Bugs Bunny a Jew?

Bugs Bunny, the world’s most famous rabbit, is Jewish, a renowned British cinematic historian claims.

Revealing his findings at a lecture held recently at Britain’s University of Warwick, Israeli daily newspaper Ma'ariv reported the film expert David Yehuda Stern claimed the cartoon character exhibits tell-tale Jewish traits: He lives in a Jewish neighborhood, has a distinctly New York/Jewish accent and uses witty repartee to side-step all attempts to eliminate him.

Stern, who studied thousands of animated shorts featuring the rabbit, delved deep and found an episode in which Bugs Bunny's early life in a New York neighborhood is portrayed.

Stern revealed that the rabbit's childhood panorama is alive with an array of Eastern European Jewish types, including ultra-Orthodox Jews. Lending credence to the theory of Jewish inspiration behind Bugs Bunny, Stern noted in his lecture that the both the cartoon's producer and the character's voice actor, Leon Schlesinger and Mel Blanc, were Jews.

[Via Haaretz.com]