Recently I read Will Eisner's graphic novel Fagin the Jew, an alternative retelling of the life of the character of the same name from Dickens's Oliver Twist. Eisner (logically) places Fagin as the descendant of Ashkenazi immigrants to England during the late 18th and early 19th centuries, as many lower-class British Jews of the time would have been. When I, a 21st-century American Jew of Sephardic descent, imagine first- or second-generation Ashki immigrants speaking English, a very specific accent comes to mind, of the sort one sees in old movies, occasionally in the older relatives of my friends, or in the modern day is mostly associated with the likes of Dr. Zoidberg. But that accent emerged in America-- did British influence produce a distinct Yiddish-British accent from the Yiddish-American one I'm familiar with? And did this accent survive long enough to be recorded, either in writing or by phonograph? What did it sound like?
"In one of his final public readings in 1869, a year before his death,
Dickens cleansed Fagin of all stereotypical caricature. A contemporary
report observed: "There is no nasal intonation; a bent back but no
shoulder-shrug: the conventional attributes are omitted."
Dickens didn't really know of tradditionally Yiddish words and did not use them. The idiosyncracies he does use were generally quite stepped back Yiddish sterotypes ie - long e in on 'leetle/little ', use of 'my dear' when addressing people. The character of Fagin is one that deceives and puts on airs, he dosn't thrown in cockney or kant the way his boys do - Dodger saying "don’t fret your eyelids" and the like. He does use contractions like 'em' for 'them' - so his accent must be a little syncretic.
Furthur:
"Anne Aresty Naman (1980) discusses how Fagin’s dialect is atypical of the stereotypical theatrical or literary Jewish dialect of the time, which she identifies as being closer to that of Abraham Mendez, a contemporary London Jewish criminal, characterised by W.H. Ainsworth in Jack Sheppard of 1839.11 Naman statesthat, like that of Mendez in the novel, a German accent was the most notable feature of the stage Jew-villain, which was also used as a caricature in Punch (1980: 63). In this extract from Ainsworth’s Jack Sheppard, one can see that Mendez’s accent was characterized by [v] for [w] sounds as associated with a German accent and [d] to represent ‘th’:
‘He hash eshcaped!’ cried the Jew. ‘Who? Jack!’ exclaimed Jonathan. ‘Yesh,’ replied Abraham. ‘I vent to de New Prish’n, and on wishitin’ his shel vid de turnkey, vot should ve find but de shains on de ground, de vinder broken, and Jack and Agevorth Besh gone.’
Fagin is not as overblown as all this and is much closer to a kind of street RP.
TL:dr - As written Fagin's very very light zoidburg with some light east-end elements. In real life - maybe much more Zoidburg.