McGrath of Harlow, I'm fairly sure there were secular Jews around in the 1830s. Certainly not every "Christian" person goes to church often, or "Muslims" to mosques, and some people have no religion at all, (me, for example- not    One of my friends is of Polish descent and both of her parents' But my interpretation of Fagin is going to be different from Dickens' character---- understatement. He's a street trader in secondhand goods , Kind of Ikey Solomon-esque. And he's religious (when he can find the time, such as a few minutes, because street traders had to get up at dawn), and it's not obvious except with the prayers and the not eating pork and shellfish (I know that's not all that's involved in kosher- I've done some research). BTW, according to my research into information on Judaism, even a religious Jew can break the laws in emergency situations.