Trudy Gold
Readmission of the Jews to England
Trudy Gold - Readmission of the Jews to England
- Now, last time I was talking about Manasseh Ben Israel and the readmission of the Jews to England. And before I get on to that, I want to talk a little more about his personality. Manasseh Ben Israel, if you remember, he came from a converso background. His father had been tortured by the Inquisition. Converso, those of you who are new, it meant that they were secret Jews, but were practising their Judaism secretly. And that put them under the sway of the Inquisition. Never forget the Inquisition had no control whatsoever over Jews, but they did have a lot of control over heretics and conversos were heretics. Just as many Muslims had stayed behind in Spain, they were known as the Moriscos. And a little irony of history for you. When Heine in the 19th century wrote his brilliant play Almansor, he coined the phrase, any society that burns books will one day burn people, and he was talking about the Moriscos, the actual burning of the Quran by the Moriscos, but that’s a by the by. Manasseh Ben Israel with his converso background, father tortured by the Inquisition, finally moving to Amsterdam, which of course had become a haven for these conversos. Why? Two reasons. Number one, the Dutch Republic was far more tolerant, because it was pragmatic. The Dutch were building up the greatest trading empire of the period. All you have to do is think about the Dutch East India Company, the Dutch West India Company. And many of these conversos had built up huge merchanting empires. And it meant, and also, they have international contacts. I think this was one of the interesting aspects of Jewish history.
It’s been our blessing and our curse because it means people always talk about Jewish power but the reality was conversos had agents, quite often family members or friends in the various ports of Europe. And now, of course they are moving out to India, they’re moving out to China. This is the centre of trade, and you can even make the case that you know Jewish history, it kind of prepared us for being quick thinking, adaptable. And so as mercantilism develops, as the modern world develops, it’s a great big plus for the Jewish community, but never forget how small the community is in Amsterdam. You’re talking about about 200 families. And as I mentioned last time, they quarrelled amongst each other. But what else is new? Anyway, Manasseh Ben Israel brought up in Amsterdam from the age of 10, brilliant young man, studied aspects of Jewish law, studied Talmud, studied Torah, becomes a rabbi, opens up the first Jewish printing press, but becomes a figure of humanistic Amsterdam. Amsterdam was a great centre of humanism. And as I explained last time, he had many friends in that world, including of course Grotius, who is the father of international law, which wonderful Dennis is talking about next week. So, Manasseh Ben Israel in Amsterdam, what on earth made him try and create a new home for Jews in England? Now, I’ve already discussed over the weeks, there was a Jewish community in England, a secret Jewish community of conversos. Some were agents of the conversos I’m talking about.
Others were merchants, mainly Portuguese Jews who fled from Portugal, conversos who fled from Portugal, and they held their ceremonies in their private homes in London, but they are not officially allowed there. So, there’s no Jews living in England, officially, but we know there are quite a few, which we’ve discussed but when I say a few, you’re talking under 100 people. England, of course, is now a Commonwealth under Oliver Cromwell, which William has already begun to talk about, and he’s talking more about that on Monday. We are trying to kind of coincide our presentations. Manasseh Ben Israel’s motivation. He was a fascinating, he’s a brilliant man, well versed in humanist thought. He had many languages, he studied the philosophy of Greece and Rome. He was deep in Jewish thought as well. He felt the agony of his people. This is a letter, an open letter of September ninth, 1655, to all the gentlemen of the Hebrew nation, living in Asia and Europe. He’s very famous, remember, he has a printing press, he has a catalogue. This will go to quite a few hundred people, Jews, merchants, throughout the world. The affliction of our people who are today so oppressed who could finally reach remedy in that most powerful republic. He’s looking to England, what is going on in the Jewish world? Well just a recap. 1648, one of the worst tragedies in Jewish history. Think 9th of Av, think the destruction of the temple, think the expulsion from Spain and now the end of the 30 years war, the Chelyabinsk massacres which led to the murder by the Cossacks on the rampage of about a hundred thousand Jews. Now think what the population is, it’s an absolute devastation, it’s the end of the world. And some of these Jews are finally making their way to Amsterdam. The Jewish world is galvanised and the other thing that I started to talk about of course was the messianic dream.
So important to remember he wants to help his suffering people, he has already approached Queen Christina of Sweden, he’s looking for tolerant lands where Jews can move to. Of course there are Jews in the Ottoman Empire and something else if you want to be cynical, if too many Jews come to Amsterdam, how will that fit the Jews already there? This has been a common thread of Jewish history. A group arrive in a country, they gradually adapt to that country then in come the foreigners. It happened in England many many times and it’s happened in most countries where there is Jewish population. The Sephardim were well used to mixing in non-Jewish society and some of them were very wealthy and they were dispensing charity to the less fortunate like Manasseh Ben Israel’s family when they first arrived. So he doesn’t want the numbers to be too high in case it leads to increased anti-Semitism. He also was very conscious of the economic benefits for the Sephardim who already have business partners in London and then that extraordinary notion of the restoration to Zion. I talked last time about the messianic dream. It’s no accident that Sabbatai Zevi, the most famous of the forced messiahs is important at this period because after the expulsion from Spain and Portugal, after the horror of the inquisition which is following the Jews, whenever Spain and Portugal conquered the inquisition followed the conversos who were trying to remain Jewish. So you’ve got a horror story there, you now have a horror story in Eastern Europe, you have the Ottoman Empire, you have Italy, parts of Italy anyway, but some of Italy is now falling to the Habsburgs, mainly through marriage. So the areas where Jews can live safely is becoming shrunken.
So Manasseh Ben Israel, he’s well aware of the messianic dream and he’s also part of it. His pamphlet that we looked at here, Hope of Israel, don’t forget that he had met a converso traveller who told him that the lost 10 lost tribes of Israel were in fact in South America in Quito. Not just Jews interested in this but so of course were Christians, millenarians, the wanting of the coming again of Jesus. There’s a fascination with it. Samuel Pepys had actually written in his diary about the story of Sabbatai zevi. These millenarians and they were in the main Puritans, they really did believe that the coming of Jesus again, one of the things that has to happen first is that A, the Jews have to be converted, but also they have to be scattered to every part of the world. And of course England is known as the end of the world. So you have a certain body of millenarians who also want the Jews to come to England. Okay what on earth was Cromwell’s motivation? Well Oliver Cromwell, it’s important to remember that the Jews are really an afterthought to Oliver Cromwell. You know the Lord Protector of England, he’d fought a civil war, he had a parliament to control. William has already started talking about him, we’re going to hear a lot more about him on Monday and actually on Saturday Professor Pima and Dennis are going to be looking at the film Cromwell but you’ve got to remember when I teach Jewish history we are kind of an aside, we are an afterthought. It’s central to us but it’s not particularly central to Cromwell or the parliament.
Now this is a quote from Steve Nadler, who wrote the latest and the best book on Manasseh Ben Israel. Gentile and millenarians that were in contact with Manasseh Ben Israel, the Jewish expoditor of Jewish Christian millenarianism, where all the worldly empires, they believed that all the worldly empires would be swept aside, provided there is a scattering to Ketz Ha'aretz. I hope I pronounced it properly. I’m sure my Israeli friends online will tell me. It means the end of the world. It’s the Hebrew term for Anglo Terre. What has to happen is, if we spread the Jews everywhere, And in fact, way before Manasseh Ben Israel, in early 1648, there was a woman called Joanna Cartwright. She was a widow with her son Ebeneezer. They were very wealthy. They lived for a while in Amsterdam. They were merchants and they were millenarians. And they’d already lobbied Thomas Fairfax, who was actually the commander of the parliamentary forces. And because not only did they believe it would help with the coming of Jesus, but it would enrich Britain. She saw the impact of these converso merchants, who are now practising Judaism openly, in Amsterdam. And also the other point behind many of these millenarians was that they wanted to convert the Jews. We have to be very careful of this. You know, we have some very strange friends, even today, throughout the world. There are Christian evangelicals who are friends of the Jews, but don’t forget they want to convert us. And it’s a fascinating notion. Manasseh Ben Israel, you will remember, a long later with Moses Maimonides he believed there were many paths to the truth. There is the Jewish path. And if you’re a Jew, you stick to the Jewish path, but other people have the path to the truth. And at this stage, certainly, neither Christianity or Islam believed there was any path, but their path. Okay, already this is, don’t forget that Manasseh Ben Israel was a focus for all these millenarians. And this is a quote on a very good book on a man called Brailsford. It’s called The Levellers and the English Revolution.
Was it because the Old Testament taught them to think of them as God’s chosen people? Or was it for the commercial reasons and because they worked for his intelligence services? Now this is another point. The point is that Cromwell, some of the conversos in London were working for Cromwell. He’s involved in foreign wars too, just as in Elizabeth’s reign. These Jews with their contacts everywhere. So we know why the millenarians are involved in it. There was a conference at Whitehall. This is Major John Whaley. It seems to me that there are both politic and divine reasons which strongly make for their readmission into cohabitation and civil commerce with us. Doubtless they will bring much wealth unto the Commonwealth, where we both pray for their conversion and believe it shall be. I do not know why we deny them the needs. It has to be said that there were quite a few merchants in London who were worried about competition. You know, the English merchants. Remember the English are a nation of shopkeepers and adventurers. Far more developed society than many of the places the Jews arrive in. Are they going to be real competition for us? And Nieupoort, the Dutch ambassador, he assured the merchants that he didn’t want Dutch Jews to come to England, only those escaping the Inquisition. We’re going to keep the ones we’ve got. We don’t want the numbers to become too big. So, what happens is this. Oliver Cromwell makes it known that he would be prepared to have a petition. I think, having talked at length to William on this, I think Oliver Cromwell’s motivation was purely pragmatic. He is growing England as a great mercantile country. Don’t forget the navy goes back to Henry VIII’s reign. England is emerging as a power, a world power. And what do you need to create? Look, just think of the discovery of the new world. Think of the Dutch East India Company and what the Jews did for that.
Think of the growth of the British East India Company, the British West India Company. If we’re going to compete with the Dutch, and there’s going to be a war between Holland and England in the 1650s as well, we need these merchants. The wealthiest of them have their own fleets. This is about trade. Never forget that in England what does the Lord Chancellor sit on? He sits on the woolsack, sheep, the centre of English trade, so it’s very important to remember he’s a pragmatist. Okay, so what happens is this, the Amsterdam community told Manasseh, because there’s a state of war between in the early 50s, that if he went to England it would be on his own head. He wasn’t very well, so he sent a substitute along with his own son Samuel and November 1654 they submit two commissions. In 1655 Manasseh himself arrives in England and can we have a look at his picture again? So here you have the man, an extraordinary individual, a man of great erudition, part mystic, he studied Kabbalah, part mystic because of this whole notion of messiahship, but also remember he’d been a merchant and his brother was a merchant and one of his reasons was that he saw that England would open up new avenues and during the war between Holland and England one or two things had happened of great interest in England. There was a merchant called Antonio Rodriguez Robles, he was a Spanish converso, but of course he was being preceded against as an enemy alien and Robles and his family decided to declare themselves openly as Jews, refugees from the inquisition.
The one thing the English hated more than- Puritans hated more than anything else was Catholicism and they decided to throw themselves on Cromwell’s mercy. In the end there were 20 households connected with this family and when Manasseh Ben Israel finally arrives in London they decide to join forces with them. On the 24th of March 1655 he meets with six others to present a petition to Cromwell and the first petition is to hold private Jewish rights without molestation, I’m quoting, and also they asked for a burial place for their dead. This is always the first sign of an established community, you ask for the burial place. Remember the reason Montara came to Amsterdam, the rabbi who of course had had so many problems with Manasseh Ben Israel, he’d come to bury his great teacher from Paris because there were no Jewish burial ground. The petition was not considered immediately but Robles’ sequestered property was released on the grounds that he was not a Spaniard but in fact of the Hebrew nation. Now this is very very important because this is the nod that maybe it might be okay. So in the end he presents his petition and I’m going to read you some of the petition because it’s so clever. Three things if it please your highness that makes a strange nation well beloved amongst the natives of a land where they dwell, profit that they may receive from them, fidelity they hold towards their princes and the nobleness and purity of their blood.
Now when I have made good all these things are found in the Jewish nation. So he’s saying the first thing he’s not talking about messianism at all in this pamphlet. He’s talked about it in the hope of Israel and he knows that those who support it for their own reasons they want to convert the Jews for the coming of the Christian messiah they’re already behind them but he’s got to now convince a pragmatic ruler. And he says profit is the most powerful motive which all the world prefers before all other things. It is a thing confirmed that merchandising is as it were the proper profession of the nation of the Jews. You note in the 1650s he’s talking about the nation of the Jews. If we wanted to go into digression which I do far too often we could spend the next hour or probably the next 20 hours trying to define Jew. Here he says the nation of the Jews. I attribute this for having banished them from their own country yet not from his protection he have given them the almighty as it were a natural instinct by which they should not only gain what was necessary for their need but they should also thrive in riches and possessions. So basically he’s saying we’ve lost our country we have developed an instinct for trade. He doesn’t of course go into the whole rigmarole that we weren’t allowed to join guilds etc. We weren’t allowed to have normal lives. You know this is in many ways the secret of the Jews. I mentioned this last time, what is it about the Jews? What makes us so adaptable to modernity? And this is what he’s basically saying, morever it cannot be denied but the necessity stirs up a man’s ability and gives him a greater incitement.
Besides, seeing it is no wisdom for them to endeavour the gaining of lands and other immovable goods and so imprison their possessions here, where their persons are subject to many banishments, they are forced to use merchantising upon that time when they shall return to their own country that as God promised by the prophet Zechariah, there shall be found no more merchants among them in the house of the law. So you know this is basic. We are merchantisers. We’re not allowed to own land. We don’t put down roots. So consequently if you allow us in we are going to be very very good for you. And he goes on to say, the Jews have no opportunity to live in their own country, to till the land or other like employments, gave themselves holy to merchantising and for contriving new inventions. And so it is observed wherever they go the traffic begins to flourish. Wherever we go merchanting and prosperity follows us. And then he goes to list the countries which have been good to the Jews. He talks about Livorno. Now you will remember those of you who’ve been online for a while, I mentioned Livorno to you. Livorno was actually created by whom? The Medici. The Medici, those incredible pragmatists and what did those incredible pragmatists do?
They allowed Jews, foreigners to live there freely and families like the Montefiore family, Benjamin Disraeli’s family, he was a straw bonnet maker in Livorno, about a third of the city became Jewish and they could flourish there. So he points to Livorno and he also, but this is what he said, then he goes on to say, he gives a little bit of history. He talks our forefathers flying from the Spanish of the Inquisition. Remember Cromwell and his people hate the Catholics. Some of them came to Holland, others got into Italy and others got themselves to Asia and so easily they credit one another that by that means they draw the negotiation on wherever they are. Then he begins to list the kind of goods that the Jews deal in, they deal in money, they deal in diamonds, gradually the diamond industry is going to become a Jewish industry. Cochineal, indigo, wine, oil and other commodities that serve from place to place, another thing he’s telling them, especially holding correspondence with their friends and kinfolk whose language they do understand. So there are Jews all over the world, we can communicate with each other, be good to us and we will enrich you and he says what we can help with the transporting of bringing in merchandise from remote countries, many times I’ve mentioned to you China, with Jews in China trading from the 8th century and there was the- And if you think of the silk routes when we went to that incredible caravansary near Baku, Wendy, you know there would have been many Jews on that route so they’ve had this long history of dealing with each other.
Now the vending and exportation of many kinds of manufacture and then he goes on to say the Jewish nation dwelling in Holland and Italy traffics with their own stock but also with the riches of many others of their own nation, friends, kinsmen, acquaintance which notwithstanding live in Spain. They’re now talking about the secret Jews in Spain and Portugal and send on to them their money and goods which they hold in their hands and content themselves with a very small portion of their estate to the end that they may be secure and free from danger. So basically, conversos under threat in Spain, I should call Portugal, they’ve all fled from now into Spain, they’re in trouble, they know they can come up before the inquisition so they’re trying to get as much of their property out, and who are they getting it out through but through other Jews who are now living in Italy and in Holland and in the Ottoman Empire. Then the love that men ordinarily bear to their own country and the desire they have to end their lives where they’ve got their beginning is the cause that most strangers, having gotten riches when they’re in a foreign land, are taken a desire to return to their native soil.
But the Jews, the case is very different. For wherever the Jews are kindly received, they make a firm resolution never to depart from there. And he basically goes on to say, if you let us in, we will be loyal to you, we will enrich you, and we will become good people in your country, and you will gain a lot of benefit from us. And he goes on to say, if it please your highness that the Jewish nation, those scattered throughout the whole world, are not therefore a despisable people, but a plant worthy to be planted in the whole world and received into populous cities. And then he lists all the countries that are good to the Jews. For example, as I mentioned yesterday, I beg your pardon, Tuesday, that the Danish king had taken them into Gluckstadt. The Duke of Savoy had taken Jews in, and he goes through a whole list of Jews that- Countries that have been good to the Jews. Okay.
And then he goes on to talk about the Ottoman Empire, and the petition goes on and on and on. And he talks about how it had been in the kingdom of Poland, of course before the tragedy that had been very good to the Jews. So the petition is very, very clever, because what it basically says is, if you’re good to the Jews, you will prosper. Now, the point is, we now come to a wonderful, wonderful mystery. What decision was ever reached? The pages concerning the minutes of that day were actually mutilated and torn out. So we don’t know. The petition, there was no petition, the petition was read, there was opposition to it. And we don’t exactly know the record. Cecil Ross has done a lot of work on this. But we do know that on December the 19th, 1656, the conversos petitioned for a synagogue, and a lease was signed on Crete Church Lane. There’s no formal agreement, no conditions were laid down. So, what you see happening is that the Jews begin a new era in their history, which is known in no other country, there’s no edict of emancipation, they come in quietly, those already there, and they are going to live openly as Jews. What happens, of course, to Manasseh Ben Israel, he stays in England for another two years, meeting people, meeting people, he wanted everything official, it was never given to him. What happens to him is tragically his son dies.
He’s already lost one son. And now his second son dies, and he decides to take him back to Holland for burial. Cromwell must have liked Manasseh Ben Israel, because he granted him a pension of 100 pounds a year, which was a lot of money. He goes back to Holland, and in Middelburg, he himself dies. So he dies without really seeing the benefit of his work, but he was an extraordinary character and what I find fascinating, he isn’t as famous as Moses Montefiore, but in many ways, he’s just as interesting and in many ways I think more interesting because he’s part fantasist. I think he did have a little bit of a Moses complex, he saw it was his duty to look after the Jews, to bring them into the new promised land, and frankly he knew, I should be careful here, did he know that the real aim of many of these fundamentalists was to convert the Jews? If he did, he used it. And the point was, he was very well liked, he was very famous, and for really pragmatic reasons, the British turn a blind eye, and then they allow the conversos to openly meet as Jews, and some of them were absolutely fascinating. I mean I’ll give you a few examples. Duarte Henriques Alvares, Daniel Cohen Henriques, he formerly been a chief tax collector in the Canary Islands, the Spanish Canary Islands. Domingo and Giorgia Francis, they were wine merchants in Malaga. They are going to be very important because what are they bringing? They’re bringing- They were involved also in merchanting with India.
So this is now all coming to London. And you can see a lot of this in the lading bills at the Port of London which Sandra Meyers did quite a lot of work on. Hope you’re listening Sandra. And later a man called Duarte de Silva, after the fall of the Commonwealth and King Charles II comes to the throne, he’s going to handle Catherine of Braganza- He marries Catherine of Braganza and he’s going to deal with her dowry and he’s going to be knighted for it. The problem was he converted. You see this is going to be another story and I’m going to introduce it in now because a lot of these converso aristocrats, here you see, thank you Judy, here you see the rather gorgeous Charles II, so many stories about Charles II, I’ll come on to that in a minute. And that is his queen Catherine of Braganza and the man who came over, a converso, Duarte de Silva, when he comes to England, he can come out as a Jew. It’s interesting that Charles II, who had spent so much time in hiding, his father had lost his head, he’s brought back to England the new king and of course outwardly he’s a Protestant, but he marries a Portuguese Catholic. And the Stuarts are going to the Stuart dynasty. I’m going to digress into him for a minute because he’s such an interesting character. He’s known as the Merry Monarch. He never had legitimate children by his wife, who he treated incredibly well in many ways.
He gave her great respect, she couldn’t bear him children, and many people in fact wanted him to, many of his courtiers wanted him to divorce her. And of course he had loads and loads of mistresses. I suppose Nell Gwynne is the most famous, but he was the Merry Monarch and isn’t it interesting, in the end, the British wanted him back. And what is also interesting about him, he lived and died a Protestant but his brother James, remember their mother was the Catholic, Henrietta Maria, the Stuarts are a fascinating dynasty. His brother is going to come to the throne because he had no legitimate children. And also in his reign, England is going to get wealthier and wealthier and wealthier. Some of the other characters in it, and remember we’re talking about a very small number of Jews, and Duarte de Silva begins the… You know he’s knighted, he’s the first Jew to be knighted. The second is Solomon de Medina, who is going to become the, really the purveyor to the armies of the Duke of Marlborough in Queen Anne’s reign. So the point I’m making is Jews, conversos, some of them are going to rise very very high, but many of those who rise high are actually going to convert. And this is one of the issues of that terrible notion, is anti-Semitism the key to Jewish survival? I think one of the problems, what is the problem? We come from a huge tradition of learning.
When we scale the heights of the societies in which we live, if we lose our Judaism, we so much want acceptance into these worlds and certainly some of these converso families are going to blend into the English aristocracy, not all of them, but if you look at most of the original families, they are no longer Jewish, many of them married into the English aristocracy. Later on in the 1800s, Samuel Johnson talks about an interesting supper party. He went to in the borough of Ham, which is now near Richmond, and he talks about the people around the table. He talked about actresses, bishops, lords, and Jewish converts. It’s fascinating how it is. Anyway, the da Costa family, they stayed Jewish, they were wood merchants, sugar, sugar refinery, remember the Jews are very involved in the sugar business in Amsterdam, and they were leading in the East India Company merchants. Once the stock exchange is established, 124 people involved, it was limited to 12 Jews. In fact, Disraeli’s grandfather was one of the men who was first on the London Stock Exchange, and of course Montefiore is going to be on the Stock Exchange. His uncle, Mercata, is going to be on the Stock Exchange. So they’re absolutely at the centre of the City of London. And of course, then the discovery of diamonds in Brazil, bought back by many of these converso merchants, finishing up in London. It’s huge for the diamond industry in Amsterdam, and it’s established in London. Now it’s fascinating, in the reign of Charles the first, in 1660, the corporation of the City of London was worried about these Jews.
There’s not many of them. In fact, let’s have a look at the figures. By 16… By the time of Charles’s accession, there were only 35 heads of family and by 1686 there were only 57 new names. You’re not looking at many people here at all but they’re central to trade. So the corporation of the City of London actually petitions Charles to expel them. There’s no answer but in 1664 there’s a written document which gives them rights and Bevis Marks from then on has a service, a special ritual, to commemorate the readmission of the Jews under Charles II. Of course it’s got to be under Charles II because think about it, they first came in under the Commonwealth. Look, when the Commonwealth fell all those who executed Charles the first, his father, they tried to bring them all to justice. Cromwell’s body was disinterred and desegrated so anything that had happened under the reign of the Puritans, I’m going to call it under the reign of the Lord Protector, was turned over by Charles the second so in many ways it’s marvellous that there wasn’t a written readmission and some scholars have actually postulated maybe that it was deliberate. Now this is the Jewish petition. Until they receive from your majesty some significance of your royal pleasure that they should depart the kingdom that they may remain here under the light protection with the rest of your majesty’s subjects and this is the reply, this is Charles the Second’s reply.
The king has been graciously pleased to declare they have not given any particular order for the modesty or disquieting of the petitioners either in their person or estates but that they must promise themselves the same favour as long as they demean themselves peacefully and go quietly with due obedience to his majesty’s laws and without a scandal to his government. So this is fascinating because the city of London don’t want them very much but they’re there and the crown realises that they are useful. So these conversos they settle in London and they continue their trade with other conversos in Portugal and the head of the community is a man called David Abravanel Dormido, the famous Abravanel family. He’d actually been in London before Manasseh Ben Israel. In 1663 the synagogue employs its first Hakam from Amsterdam and under the constitution it is the affairs of the Jewish nation and the whole issue of the power of the community they very much set themselves as a model of the community in Amsterdam. So in fact let me give you an example of how Jews were treated because of course the great fire of London. In 1665 there was a terrible plague. In 1666 a fire broke out in Pudding Lane in the city of London. All those wooden close together houses it broke out in a bakery and much of London burnt. In many ways considering the plague it was a boon.
Now for the first time a huge event has occurred that the Jews aren’t blamed for. The Catholics are blamed and maybe so what can we pull together in Charles the Second’s reign they come in under Manasseh Ben Israel, they come in quietly Cromwell allows them in. It’s an aside for pragmatic reasons they’re very important in trade, the government under Charles realises that and he’s going to do nothing to stop it. The Earl of Berkshire, very important Earl in London, though he’s the Earl of Berkshire of course he has his stately home in London, he offers them protection and says that Bevis Marks if you don’t take my protection you’re in trouble. They have the audacity to petition at the king and basically he says here look after them and then the synagogue is enlarged to double its size. The same year the again citizens of London petition the petitioner there’s riotous assembly and again the charges are dropped so basically they can as long as they don’t disturb, they can live. Now when Charles II died in 1685, his doctor Fernando Mendez was a Jew, he attended him to the end, and under James II again there was another attempt to disrupt the community, the Beaumont brothers who were important traders, they took out a writ against Jews for failing to attend church, contrary to a law of Elizabeth I. 37 were arrested at the Royal Exchange, it was nullified, so it was very much nullified- this is what’s so important, it was nullified by the crown.
Now let’s look at some of the interesting individuals who come here. I want to talk about a man called Duarte. Now Duarte de Silva, he was the man who of course was responsible for Catherine’s dowry, he was a fascinating man, unfortunately he converted, but let me tell you a story. He made his fortune as a converso in the Brazilian sugar trade, he’d been born in Lisbon, he was a banker, he was a tax farmer, he traded in both Brazil and in India, he imports diamonds from Goa, he had agents in Hamburg, in Rouen, Antwerp and Amsterdam, these are the multinational companies that Jews are forming, and he in London, this is fascinating, he was said to be the greatest merchant, held to be the greatest in the city of the greatest credit. He had previously been arrested by the Inquisition and although the records of the Inquisition make it clear that he’d raised his children as a Catholic, he was actually, he was saved by the intervention of the king, he was just so important, but he fled to London. His close friend Mendes da Costa had been born in northern Portugal, he arrived in London, he managed to get his money out with substantial capital, he traded in Peca, in fact if you go back to the original Mendes family of the 1500s, Dona Gracia’s family, Peca was virtually a converso and therefore Jewish monopoly, and he shipped it to Livorno-Leghorn.
The Lisbon Inquisition had actually arrested his wife for Judaising, she was burnt at the stake, and so you can imagine he stays in London and he brings all his children up as Jews, and he is buried in the Jewish cemetery, and by 1670 over 40% of the East India Company trade in diamonds was already in Jewish hands, and it goes up and up and up, and not only that the agents of the company in Madras, a man called Gamas Rodriguez and Alvaro da Costa in London, they were Jewish. Now James, as I said, it’s obvious that James II had absolutely no wish to reverse these laws, so to sum up, under the Stuarts you’re looking at a very very small community who are allowed in, they don’t have to wear any special Jew dress, they don’t have, as is happening in all the ghettos of Europe, they don’t have to live in a rarified section of town, they cannot open up on shops in the City of London, so what they do is they open up on the outskirts on the wall of London and they become more and more powerful, particularly in the trade, in international trade, and of course in 1688 James II loses his throne, and it’s again, remember the bete noir of British society is the Catholics. If you’re trying to identify why England was different, if you believe, and of course I’ve given you these kind of nudges already, the merchants in the City of London were jealous, a few people irritatingly tried to disrupt Jewish services etc, but the King holds firm.
Jews are not central in any way but they are helping the prosperity of the nation, and if you believe that every country needs a scapegoat, the British have a scapegoat, they happen to be called Catholics, so the Jews if you like slip into England and when William III, who is Dutch, the Glorious Revolution, William III comes to England, only a small Jewish population, in 1688, it’s called the Glorious Revolution. No Catholic will ever be allowed to sit on the throne of England. Just to give you a little bit of English history, remember Charles II had had no children. His brother James came to the throne. He was suspected of being a papist. He had a son and two daughters. His son was a papist. His two daughters were brought up as Protestants. William of Orange, William III, the Dutch King, was married to one of those daughters and it is he who is brought back to England with his wife Mary, the daughter of James II, and they make a successful bid for the English crown with a very strong army which has been in the main financially backed by Jewish merchants who remained connected with William until he died. The Pereyras and Antonio Nicado, the money to actually service his army, much of it came from Jews in Amsterdam. And William knighted his Jewish banker, a man called Solomon Medina, who came with him to England as his army contractor. So it’s important they are useful to the crown and also this guy Solomon Medina during the war of the Spanish succession, Solomon Medina accompanied the Duke of Marlborough on his campaign and basically he provisions the whole of the British army and he was one of the largest contributors to bear this marks. So I’m going to now quote from one of my favourite historians, he’s a very populist historian, a man called Max de Mont, Jews God and History.
If you know a lot about Jewish history it’s fun, if Jewish history is quite new to you it reads like a novel, Jews God and History by Max de Mont. And this is what Max de Mont has to say and a hundred years after the first conversos first arrived in England, Jews began arriving from the ghettos of Germany and Russia but the true two strains seldom merged. The Sephardi Jews regarded themselves as superior, in fact not only did they not mix they diverged as the Sephardim rose in scholarship and wealth they absorbed more and more English culture. What the Spanish and Portuguese have not been able to accomplish with force, the English accomplished with indifference. Sephardi Jews applied from baptism into the English church, the church welcomed these Jewish truants with open arms, the Jews welcomed the patents of nobility that so often accompanied the certificate of baptism. So on the positive side they become more and more prosperous the Sephardim, what Max de Mont is referring to is the influx of the poorer Ashkenazi Jews and I’ll talk about that another time. And England was prosperous so the demand for silver plate increased, Goldsmith’s Hall, the invention of brilliant cut diamonds made gemstones even more popular and by the 1690s the English polishing industry expanded. This is the epitaph of one of the best diamond cutters, Isaac Alvarez Nunez, his far gained knowledge of mysterious gems sparkled in European diadems. So the kings of Europe were now turning to Jews in Amsterdam and into London to cut the diamonds. Whenever the governments wanted extra money they would turn to these incredibly wealthy interesting merchants.
And as I said before when the stock exchange was finally created the fact that they had to limit the numbers of the stock exchange to 12 out of 124 just shows you just how important the Jews were to the trade of the City of London. Look you’re only talking about a few thousand families, it’s fascinating to actually look at the numbers. By 1750 there might have been about 8,000 Jews in the whole of England so it’s tiny. And in fact in 1881 when of course the floodgates of Eastern Europe are going to break, and when Disraeli is about to lose his position as Prime Minister of England, there were only 60,000 Jews in England and yes England did treat them relatively well if you’re comparing them to most other countries but on the other hand the seduction as I’ve implied very- Well not even implied, I’ve said, did lead to an incredible amount of conversion because did they have the knowledge? It’s difficult to walk both worlds. A hundred years later in Germany Moses Mendelssohn could do it because he had the huge Jewish knowledge and he had knowledge of the outside world. Manasseh Ben Israel did it. But it does seem one of the problems of the Jews of the diaspora is the imbalance. Is it possible to walk the tightrope? So I stopped there and let’s see what questions we’ve got. Wendy I hope I was more structured tonight. Okay.
You were great. Thank you.
I took your, I had a chat with Wendy and my son-in-law and they said structure, structure, structure, so I hope .
[Wendy] It was very good, thank you, Trudy.
There’s some very, this is a very interesting period of history isn’t it? Let’s see what the questions are.
Q&A and Comments:
Oh people are wishing goodwill to your parents Wendy. Speedy recovery. Lots of people are saying that.
Adrian Wolf is saying Jewish traders flourish because of a common language, Hebrew. Also a Jewish trader would enter a synagogue where he would meet the Jewish leaders and traders. Glass beads from Spain arrived in the far east. Yes of course it’s this international network. It’s our strength and it’s our weakness. It’s one of the main causes for antisemitism but it’s also our strength.
Oh this is from Monty. He says some useless information. The plague was caused by a specific bacterium we are now faced by a mutating virus. Different story. Thanks for that Monty. I do love-
Spoken by a pharmacist. Hello Monty. Nice to hear from you.
Is he a friend?
[Wendy] Yes.
Oh he’s a pharmacist. Why was England considered the end of the world then? It’s just that phrase in Hebrew. This is before the discovery of the new world. Look when Julius Caesar conquered England he thought it was the end of the world. I have a friend in Hadassah, Christian and they support… Yes there are lots of proto-Zionists in Christianity and a lot of Christians are real supporters of the Jews. I’m not saying that. I’m just saying there is a thread of evangelicalism which still wants to convert us. Israel with their own intentions. Yeah.
This is from Adrian who I know is a guide in Israel. Many of my Christian tourists attempt to convert me. My answer was Jesus was born Jewish and he died a Jew. If it was good enough for Jesus it’s good enough for me. That shuts them up. That’s funny Adrian I love that.
This is from David. One of the things that make lockdown university so fascinating is the presentation of world history from a Jewish point of view. Yes this is the point. I call it inside out history because I’ve been discussing with William you know this whole issue of the Jews and he’s been consulting all his books and we’re so minimal in English history books but then of course I’m showing him the Jewish history books. It’s inside out history.
Oh this is from Rose. If you read the book of Kings one knows the tribes remain in Israel and silently fight each other. North versus south around the reign of David and a few generations later even after Solomon. Rose maybe it’s our weakness and our strength. We are a disputatious people.
Q: How many words are there in Hebrew for question?
A: We are questioners and we are disputatious, so yeah. If we had total peace would we destroy each other? I didn’t say that.
Q: Why was Manasseh Ben Israel not considered to be a spy by the Dutch?
A: You know it’s a very interesting question David. I mean that is an interesting question. I have to look that up for you haven’t I?
This is Pamela. The Worshipful company of needle makers was refounded by Cromwellian Charter on November 1656. They subsequently received their royal charter from Charles II. I do not know whether they had their first Jewish master but in modern times it was Judge Alan King Hamilton in 1969. I was the first lady master in 2011. Oh that’s interesting Pamela.
Now the point is did they accept Jews the company of needle makers because a lot of the guilds didn’t. You see the point about England there’s no edict of emancipation. The city of London how did Jews get into parliament? And into local government it’s because gradually the city of London began to realise how important these Jews were. The reason, there was always a problem, to achieve office in England you had to swear on the oath of a Christian- On the Christian Bible the revised Bible, not on the Catholic Bible. So Catholics, dissenters, Jews, could not be part of these kind of things and the- it was actually the City of London that altered its own oath and they made Jews into alderman and lord mayors. That’s how it begins. Even in Parliament it’s the long slow process. In the first debate it doesn’t happen in Parliament. Jews can’t sit in Parliament till 1858. The only reason Disraeli was Prime Minister was because his father converted him, plus incredible tenacity and brain. I’m not saying otherwise but if he was still a Jew he could not have become Prime Minister and he would cross- And it was interesting because the Whigs, the liberals were in favour of it but the Tories were against it and he was a Tory remember but he crossed the floor in the debate along with his friend Lord Stanley who said, “No man should stand alone”, and in a debate in Hansard he actually said how could you not emancipate the Jews when half the world worships a Jew and the other half his mother. You know only Disraeli and it took until 1858 for it to be passed and then the Lord still wouldn’t do it until then a man called Lord Lucan who had a very strange descendant many of you living in England will know all about him, he proposed a new formula. The Lords have their own oath, the Commons have their own oath so consequently the first Jew, Lord Roth, it was actually one of the Rothschilds, takes his seat in 1858 and the first Jew to be ennobled was his son Nati Rothschild in 1885. So England it’s a long slow process not many numbers and I think that’s why you have this story that England was different. Whether it is or not is something that we have to debate particularly when we look at Palestine 45 to 48.
Rose Rahami, tragically we lose our Jews to genocide and assimilation to other faiths your recommended book The House of Fragile Things that speaks to that so entirely. Rose I’m going to say something to you, yes we always lose our numbers and the tragedy of the Shoah, you know, how can we even talk about it. I sometimes think there are no words even today and I sometimes feel when I lecture on the show I shouldn’t but having said that if you think of those who- In Babylon how many went back 10 percent to hold the line and to hold the thread you don’t need all the numbers but you need some numbers and that’s the point we have had such a strange history. I sometimes, you know, I’m not a very spiritual person but I do think there’s a hand of destiny in it somehow.
Q: Were Jews admitted if they weren’t merchants?
A: Yes, yes you’re going to- For example in the you’re going to see a flooding of poorer Jews from Silesia because the Habsburg queen Maria Theresa, who was the mother of Marie Antoinette, she threw them all out and many of them came here. And in fact a Jewish merchant called Jacob Frank had the, I beg your pardon, Moses Hart, he actually petitioned George II to talk to her and the fact that a Jew could do that it didn’t work so first the conversos came because they were incredibly useful and then others came in, poor Jews, some of them they had their own synagogue, you know, in Bevis Marks they had rows of pews at the back for the Ashkenazim which is hysterical.
I thought there was no formal readmission of the Jews. No there was no formal readmission well we don’t know that’s the whole point we don’t know what happened on that day but the point is when they petition for a synagogue etc it’s all allowed so they’re there it’s the English way, you know, we haven’t got much of a written constitution it’s precedent it’s case law it’s a very unusual kind of situation in England. There are many Jewish cemeteries in London I can think of about five or six. There’s a big one in Willesden.
You said Duarte was buried in the Jewish cemetery there would have only been one. Now that you’re probably right Margaret the one in the grounds of Queen Mary’s College which is the Sephardi burial ground. You could well be right. Can you explain why and how some Jews tended to turning to farming in the south of England. Why not so? Why not. You know, once Jews arrive in a country and they’re allowed in and they- You know, they can enter into all sorts of trades and professions they’re not just going to stay in merchanting, are they? And they’re going to spread out all over England as well. Oh it’s a nice comment Barrington, thank you very much.
Now this is from Philip, my converso Portuguese ancestors escaped Lisbon to be welcomed by the Bevis Marks congregation in London where two congregants charted a ship to Savannah arriving on the 13th of July 1733 from whom we have survived here. Oh that’s very interesting Philip, you know the accidents of history. I mean my family story on one side is very common because one branch of my family got out of Eastern Europe and they finished up in Hull. Now the family story is they wanted to cross to America but the sea captains made far more money if they dropped them off in British ports and as they didn’t know the difference between the nuance of an American or an English accent so the story goes they thought they were in America. Maybe they some of them I think still do but never mind.
Some of his books, this is about Victoria Ben-Tatar, do I know anything about Oxford and Menasseh Ben Israel? I had read somewhere he was somewhere had a doctorate which gave me… It’s quite possible some of his books were left behind at Christchurch. You’ve got to remember Victoria what is fascinating is that many Christians were now Bible readers, they read the Hebrew Bible. Hebrew was a fascination to them. There were a lot of Hebrew scholars particularly at Cambridge and I think you should follow up on that, that’s a make a very interesting thesis.
This is Angie Wissinger Sulchanikas Sameer, thank you Angie, Angie Elfassi, that’s a good Sephardi name, sorry I meant a document, some of his documents- Yes that I can believe. At a later point will I talk about the unsuccessful attempt to restrict the Jews by parliamentary bill, I think 1753? Yes I will but not for a while. Those of you who joined us have joined us late and that’s why Wendy is systemizing things, bless her, thank you Wendy. We’ve kind of covered that, that’s why I wanted to do this area. We’ve looked at some parts of modern history but I will be alluding to it, in fact a colleague of mine did his PhD on it and I hope he’s online but if he is online he knows who I’m talking about, I’m going to invite him to give that lecture.
The UK, it was in the city of London, Livia, so I think it could well be in that which was suggested. The Persephone one in London, yes of course.
Myrna loves your philosophy about Jesus, Adrian, do you mind if I steal it? That’s that wonderful line of Tom Lehrer’s plagiarise, never let anyone else’s work evade your eyes, remember why the good Lord gave you eyes, so plagiarise. I’m sure we don’t mind, you can see, there are very few original ideas in this world.
Yes, Kaya, the Life of Rembrandt by Hendrik Willem van Loon mentions both Spinoza and Manasseh Ben Israel, gorgeous book, thank you for that Kaya. Yes, Rembrandt of course lived in the Jewish section of Amsterdam and knew Manasseh Ben Israel, you know that when Manasseh Ben Israel came to London, Spinoza had been his student and it was Spinoza was excommunicated while Manasseh Ben Israel was in London, be interesting to know what he would have thought about that and of course there’s a big hoo-ha at the moment about, I’m not giving you any details, just there’s a lot of press about what’s going on with Spinoza’s reputation at the moment.
This is from Ruth, if you ever go to Amsterdam, do go to the cemetery where Manasseh is buried, Bet Chaim, Oude Kerk and Amstel, the most amazing place to visit, most huge standing stones are inscribed in Portuguese and Hebrew, wonderful carving, thank you so much for that Ruth, it’s so wonderful we’ve got an international world travel group.
Again best wishes for your parents, Wendy. There were several Jewish North Mayors before the first Catholic North Mayor in the 1980- That’s a very important point Stuart, thank you for that. Yes it’s the Catholics who had the problems, the real problems with British society. I had a colleague who was a, he was of Catholic descent, and I’ll never forget we were debating prejudice and he said can you imagine, because of course he was telling the story of Guy Fawkes, he said to the Catholics Guy Fawkes is a Catholic martyr, he was the chap who tried to blow up the Houses of Parliament. Now there is a ceremony in England which still exists that every Guy Fawkes day which is November the 5th, the burning of Guy Fawkes, the burning of Guy Fawkes and I’ll never forget this colleague said to me, can you imagine if today, he was talking about in the 1990s, I’m not saying today, if someone attempted to burn a Jewish martyr, he said every Jewish organisation would be up in arms. But this was this sort of thing that went on in England. I think it’s more or less died away now but the burning of Guy Fawkes becomes a sort of party ceremony.
This is Nicholas, Sir David Sullivan was the first Jewish in Parliament who refused to take the oath, Rothschilds were the first to speak. Yes, yes Nicholas obviously you could do this in a lot of detail. Sir David Solomon was a fascinating man, he first stood for Parliament in 1851. He was prepared- the City of London was prepared to go unrepresented because he refused to take the oath on the Hebrew Bible, that’s the point, that was the point. So he was always fined and I think he tried it four or five times and the city’s prepared to go unrepresented, they so much believed in it.
Now this is from Melissa, not really a question, I’m researching a friend’s Dutch grandmother who saved Jewish children during the Holocaust. She and her husband had lived in the Dutch East Indies before World War I and her husband’s roots were Jewish, he was the manager of a plantation. At some point they started writing their so-name as Kosta rather than Costa with a K, presumably to fit in. Costa would indicate Jewish, makes me sad that so many Jews were getting baptised even before the Holocaust. Yeah you know German Jews, this is a really, this is quite a story, intermarriage in Germany was running at 45 percent in 1925. When a society says come in, and don’t forget Germany, had an incredibly vibrant intellectual life, Jews got to be part of it. That is one of the dilemmas of the Jew.
And this is from Caroline, my great great great grandparents buried in the Hackney Jewish cemetery. I think that’s an Ashkenazi ceremony.
And this is from Valerie, my father’s family landed in Bristol also wanting to go to America.
Oh this is from Livia, oh Livia how are you? And she’s giving us all love, she’s in America with her step-daughter.
Q: Romy, Do I think the Sephardi merchants looked down on the new Ashkenazi immigrants?
A: Interesting, if so the reverse happens in Israel towards new Sephardi immigrants. Yes, the Sephardi merchants certainly looked down on the immigrants mainly from the centre of Europe, and later on they all looked down on the Eastern Europeans. They wanted to make them into English gentlemen. I’ve mentioned this to you before, there’s a wonderful letter by Lord Rothschild who was the president of the Jewish preschool telling the parents, the Eastern European parents, to send their children onto the football pitch, not to send them to Heder, to make them into Englishmen. And then when the Germans and Austrians came in in the 30s there was a lot of prejudice against them from Jews, and in many ways they were the most, in my view, they were the most interesting immigration that ever came to England, the Austrians and the Germans. Then of course you had the other waves of immigration into England, you had the Sephardi Jews who had been thrown out of Iraq, and you know Lynn Julius had lectured brilliant on this, on Iraqi, and many of them who came from the old British colonies came to Britain, and then you had the South Africans. I remember when I used to run the LJCC about a quarter of our students were South African, that’s how I got to know Wendy, and I’ve always been fascinated by South African Jews because they seem to be much more proud in their Jewishness than the Jews I- the other Jews I met in England, and I think that’s something that we’ve talked about a lot. And then of course and the Israelis, so there’s been so many haven’t they? I mean Wendy I don’t know if you want to-
Comfortable with Judaism, I think we’re almost done Trudy. We have to jump off because we’ve got Holly Huffnagle on, talking about anti-Semitism in America, and just to remind you all that this week Hanukkah week there’s a big push to examine the narrative of anti-Semitism in the States.
Wendy if you don’t mind, I don’t want to put you on the spot online, but wouldn’t it be interesting at some stage to have this debate on why South African Jewry is different?
[Wendy] We can.
Yeah we’ll have to give something we should certainly think about because it keeps on coming up in lectures doesn’t it?
Let me call you back dear. One minute.
Okay all right thank you everybody.
Yeah exactly thank you very very much, I will see you on in an hour.
[Trudy] God bless everyone.
[Wendy] Very good thanks Trudes, thanks bye-bye.
God bless everybody.
[Wendy] Thanks bye-bye.