Cedric Charles Dickens the Dickens Fellowship, a worldwide association of people who share an interest in the life and works of Charles Dickens, first taking that position on the death of his father in 1968, and again on his retirement in 1976, when he also founded the Dickens Pickwick Club, a society with an international membership. This he kept true to the spirit of the original in "The Pickwick Papers" by only allowing men to join, which in 2000 led to an accusation of sexism. In demand internationally as a guest and speaker at meetings of Dickens Fellowships and other events connected with
Racism in the work of Charles Dickens musical's Jewish provenance, Jewish playwright Julia Pascal believes that performing the show today is still inappropriate, an example of a minority acting out on a stereotype to please a host society. Pascal says "U.S. Jews are not exposed to the constant low-level anti-Semitism that filters through British society". In contrast to Pascal, Yiddish expert David Schneider found the Dickens novel, wherein Fagin is simply "the Jew," a difficult read, but saw Fagin in the musical as "a complex character" who was not "the baddie." Jewish stage producer Menachem Golan also created a less well-known Hebrew musical of "Oliver Twist". Some