He is the leader of a group of children (the Artful Dodger and Charley Bates among them) whom he teaches to make their livings by pickpocketing and other criminal activities, in exchange for shelter.

Fagin is portrayed as a criminal mastermind who kidnaps orphaned children and trains them to be pickpockets in return for sheltering and feeding them; he keeps the ill-gotten money for himself.

Oliver tries to run away, but Sikes almost beats him into submission, stopping only when Nancy begs him to show mercy while the cowardly Fagin tries to smooth matters over between the two.

Fagin forces Oliver to help Sikes burgle a house owned by the wealthy, elderly widow Mrs. Maylie.

Fagin becomes suspicious of Nancy and has Noah Claypole, who has recently joined his gang, follow her to one of her meetings with Brownlow and Rose.

[3] Fagin's character might be based on the criminal Ikey Solomon, who was a fence at the centre of a highly publicised arrest, escape, recapture, and trial.

The popularity of Dickens's novel caused "fagin" to replace "kidsman" in some crime circles, denoting an adult who teaches minors to steal and keeps a major portion of the loot.

Dickens wrote that he had made Fagin Jewish because "it unfortunately was true, of the time to which the story refers, that the class of criminal almost invariably was a Jew".

"[10] Dickens became friends with Davis's wife, Eliza, who told him in a letter in 1863 that Jews regarded his portrayal of Fagin a "great wrong" to their people.

[12] In an introduction to a 1981 reissue of Oliver Twist, Irving Howe wrote that Fagin was considered an "archetypical Jewish villain.

"[13] Comic book creator Will Eisner, disturbed by the antisemitism in the typical depiction of the character, created a graphic novel in 2003 titled Fagin the Jew.

Alec Guinness portrayed Fagin in David Lean's 1948 film adaptation of Oliver Twist, with controversial make-up by Stuart Freeborn which exaggerated stereotypical Jewish facial features.

[15] The release of the film in the USA was delayed for three years on charges of being antisemitic by the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith and the New York Board of Rabbis.

[16] For the BBC's at the time controversial 1962 serial, Fagin was portrayed in a fashion very faithful to the novel by Irish actor Max Adrian.

His plot with Monks is deleted and his role in Nancy's death is similarly excised, and he is portrayed as being cowardly and deeply afraid of Bill Sikes.

The film version reverses this ending, with Fagin briefly considering reformation, but then gleefully teaming up again with Dodger to start their racket again.

was brought to Broadway in 1964, Fagin was portrayed by Clive Revill, but in a 1984 revival, Moody reprised his performance opposite Tony Award winner Patti LuPone, who played Nancy.

In this 13-episode series, Fagin has escaped his hanging by pretending to have had a stroke, which has left him paralyzed (and therefore unfit to be executed) and is in hiding at The Three Cripples, tended to by Barney.

[22] In Disney's animated version, Oliver & Company (1988), Fagin is a kind-hearted but poor man living in New York City.

This version does away with the moral quandary of child exploitation as all the characters are dogs who have no real need for money and genuinely want to help their owner.

Informed by earlier portrayals, he retains a large nose, red hair, and a green coat, but his racial characteristics, religion or "Jewishness" play no role in his character.