Did Tolkien ever explicately state they were an allegory for Jews?
He absolutely did, yes. The dwarvish language of Khuzdul is even based on Hebrew. It wasn't intended to be a denigrating comparison, though. The dwarves were the heroes in The Hobbit.
He absolutely did, yes. The dwarvish language of Khuzdul is even based on Hebrew. It wasn't intended to be a denigrating comparison, though. The dwarves were the heroes in The Hobbit.
I always saw the dwarves as the proletarians of middle earth. Hobbits were kinda peasants and elves were the inteligista.