This is one of those sorts of assertions that can seep into a discussion about the past while having no basis in fact and almost certainly no basis in reality. Consider this image, which I posted a while ago in reference to another witch question. The image is by famed Victorian-era illustrator George Cruikshank (1792-1878) and dates to 1864. It features old women. Like many old people who find their facial fats and their teeth depleted, their noses appear to grow in size. Asserting that this was part of some anti-Semitic conspiracy is absurd unless someone can provide the smoking gun that demonstrates that people purposefully decided to depict witches in a way that would increase anti-Semitic sentiment. And I am fairly certain that no one will find that documentation. Witches were often popularly perceived to be old, and old people have noses that seem to grow with age. This has nothing to do with anti-Jewish propaganda.
Four decades ago I heard a lecture by a historian of Africa who asserted that the French used their cannon to blow off the nose of the Sphinx because the nose had the appearance of someone from below the Sahara, and the Napoleonic troops wanted to cover up the "fact" that Egyptian culture was actually Sub-Saharan. All well and good except that no one knows what the nose of the Sphinx looked like AND there is no real evidence that the story of French troops practicing with their cannon on the Sphinx is true.
Asserting these sorts of things to support a political agenda, to support an assertion that this or that is part of a larger conspiracy of prejudice is a disservice to reality. And it is particularly offensive since there is clear evidence of widespread anti-Semitism just as there is a widespread tendency to ignore the achievements of sub-Saharan Africa. We don't need to make up things to reinforce what is true, and when we do invent these sorts of things, it weakens the stand that many would take against anti-Semitism or anything else of its sort.
I would turn this back on your friend who asserted this: what possible proof could exist to support this assertion?
Hello everyone, this post is attracting a number of subpar answers based on speculation, blockquotes without explication, jokes, and (of course) comments/complaints about a lack of comments on a post that is, at the time of this comment, barely three hours old.
Please, remember the rules. As was explained in the excellent recent meta post on "What it means to post a good answer in /r/AskHistorians": If you're choosing to answer a question in /r/AskHistorians, there are three questions you should ask yourself first in turn:
Do I, personally, actually know a lot about the subject at hand?
Am I essentially certain that what I know about it is true?
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There's a lot to be said about witches and a fair bit of it traces back in medieval Europe.
The Malleus Maleficarum was the how-to guide for finding Devil worship and over time people derived a list of what witches did.
Sure, witches were supposed to be non-Christian but that's a broad category. It definitely doesn't mean witch = Jew. As you move into the later medieval period you also see Protestantism appear. The ability to persecute people for personal reasons, political reasons, and religious reasons, even within Christianity was not lost on Europeans.
Clothes
This is where clothing comes in. Sure the black outfits are reminiscent of Jewish frocks and a type of pointed hat was worn by Jews, but the outfits are more reminiscent of regular articles of clothing worn by Northern Europeans. The traditional hat worn by Jews 'the judenhat' looks a little witchy but not anymore so than earlier fashions like the hennin or [sugarloaf] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capotain) which are non-religious or at least mostly Christian. The English portrait for Mrs Salesbury is a dead-ringer for witch outfit. Painted in 1675 this black, bleak fashion isn't uncommon across England, Holland, and Northern Europe. This is very a similar fashion to very stark black you see on early Protestants and it gets exported to American colonists.
Witches were images of heresy and they wore what the heretics wore - meaning normal clothes. Depending on which sect of Christianity was doing to witch-hunting you might persecute other Catholics, Jews, or other Protestants. The most recent witch-hunt craze was German Protestant so a lot of our images of witches look Protestant. Sure, it included Jews but was not exclusive to Jews. Christians weren't shy about persecuting Jews (see: Spanish Inquisition) so there was little need to veil your personal vendettas in witchcraft, as was necessary when accusing other Christians.
The nose
The nose itself is also interesting because women's value came from being beautiful. Sexuality was one your only currencies as a female aristocrats so an off-putting nose isn't necessarily Jewish. It may just be ugly.
So I've sorta beat-around-the-bush with my point because while appearance was important to witches, I think the biggest story about witches is sexuality.
The broom or sticks that witches rode were sort've sexual symbols. Basically the story 17th century Europeans knew was that witch used hallucinogenics through their vaginas and the application method was a stick. Brooms are also reminiscent of maids or spinsters (and crazy-cat ladies), who sometimes didn't get husbands because they were ugly. If you end up one of those spinsters, the message was conceivably: "don't go around masturbating or having too much fun high".
See, sexuality (& children in turn) were central to the idea of a witch.
Tales of witches included rituals at night, with orgies, animal sacrifices, and the worst was the Obscene Kiss where the Devil would demand you kiss a cat or goat asshole.
Witches were also blamed for bad luck in children, birth defects, and miscarriages, all of which are extensions of women's sexual currency. Basically kids are what happens when a woman cashes in her sexuality. The primary fear was that witches would sacrifice children. Witches were a nice blanket explanation for why regular women's sexuality sometimes didn't pay out like it was supposed to at a time when medicine and luck weren't really explained or explainable.
TL;DR So long story short: Jews were always boogie-men in Europe, so sure, witches are at least somewhat anti-Semitic. But witches are also anti-a-lot-of-other things and their central identity seems to lie in their sexuality and the effects they have on other women's sexuality and child-rearing. I'd say witches are misogynistic over being anti-Semitic. I'd also say 17th century witches - in the outfits we imagine - were more anti-political-enemies than anti-Jew.
Medieval European Christians did believe Jews had a bizarre appearance (hooked noses, horns), and theologians like Martin Luther cited the Biblical story of the Witch of Endor as an example of sinister Jewish magical powers. But contemporary depictions both of witches and of Jews don't show either group sporting a real Witchy-Poo beak. Our modern folkloric European witch's birdlike long nose probably has a different, more recent origin: the distinctive "plague doctor" mask worn by 17th-century French faith healers. A beak-shaped pouch worn over the nose and stuffed with fragrant herbs, it was used as a not-very-effective protection against disease. (Green skin, by the way, was just the decision of a costume designer on the 1939 "Wizard of Oz.")
Sources: Dark Mirror: The Medieval Origins of Anti-Jewish Iconography, Sara Lipton; "Why Are Witches Green?", Linda Rodriguez McRobbie
Does the stereotype of a "Jewish nose" predate the association of long noses with evil or sin?
I was under the impression that long noses were considered evil by Northern European Christians well before they were considered Jewish.
What is the first attestation of a "long-noses witch"?