Trudy Gold
The Flood Gates Open and Reaction Sets In
Trudy Gold - The Flood Gates Open and Reaction Sets In
- Thank you very much. All right ladies and gentlemen, now the main thrust today is going to be on the great immigration. Bearing in mind that in 1880 there were only 60,000 Jews living in England, in Britain, and two-thirds of them were living in London. But what is going to happen from 1881 onwards, as you all know, the floodgates are going to open and Jews are going to leave Eastern Europe. I’ve already tried to get over to you just how ambivalent England was in its relationship to Jews. But please don’t forget the words of Max Nordau. When he opened the First Zionist Congress in 1897, he said, “There is one country in the world free from the taint of antisemitism.” And what I’m trying to give you is a kind of, an unusual picture, England was unusual. On one level yes, you’re going to see next week that the English are going to be the first country to introduce an Aliens Act to hold back on Jewish immigration. And on the other hand, you have the most extraordinary group of philo-Semites. And today, because I didn’t have an opportunity last week, I felt like I really had to talk about Lawrence Oliphant, and then turn to the floodgates opening, because it’s important to remember that the same time as we’re going to see the rise of problems in terms of the Jewish settlement in London, the large Jewish settlement, on the other hand, proto-Zionism, philo-Semitism was very much a feature of British life. And what I’m going to do on Thursday, I’m actually going to look at the work of George Eliot, who of course wrote that proto Zionist novel, “Daniel Deronda”, if you have an opportunity to read it in advance, I’m sure many of you have read it. There’s also, it’s also on, there’s a prime television, very good series on “Daniel Deronda”.
And also I’m going to be looking at some of the Jewish characters, and Benjamin Disraeli. And in 19th century England you have the positive Jews, with “Ivanhoe”, with George Eliot. You have Dickens with some positive, some negative, but the real negativity is actually going to come at the turn of the 20th century, when you’re going to see writers like John Buchan, and TS Eliot, Ezra Pound, with a real problem with the Jews. But I want to give you this balance, and there’s no better way of doing it than talking about the extraordinary Lawrence Oliphant. When Napoleon said the British were a nation of shopkeepers, a very close friend of mine who was in the SAS, one of those brave Englishmen, he said, “Never forget, we are also adventurers,” and Lawrence Oliphant is a huge adventurer. Now I’m going to give you a bit of background, and this will interest I hope, those of you from South Africa. That’s what I love about us being such an international community. He was born in South Africa, the only child of Sir Anthony Oliphant. He came from the Scottish landed gentry. He came from a very religious background. His father was the Attorney General of the Cape Colony, and then he moves on, remember, this is the height of the British Empire, and then he becomes the chief justice in Ceylon. And his father is credited with bringing over 30 different varieties of teas from China to Ceylon. And also when Lawrence Oliphant was a young man, he travelled widely and he wrote a lot. His first book was “Journey to Kathmandu”. So he’s born in the empire, he travels around.
He’s a very clever man, he’s an adventurer, and he’s also intellectually a searcher. He came back to Britain to study law, and his family are wealthy, so like many children of the aristocracy, he had the opportunity to travel the Empire. And one of the reasons we have so many great collections in the stately homes of England, is of course on their travels they pick up all sorts of incredible things. And he goes to Russia, and what he writes there is “The Russian Shores of the Black Sea”. Now he comes back to Britain, he obtains work. Remember, they’re very well connected. The aristos all know each other. He was secretary to Lord Elgin of the Elgin Marbles fame when he was negotiating, he was in the government of course, and he was negotiating the Canadian Reciprocity Treaty in Washington. He also accompanied the Duke of Newcastle to the Caucasian coast during the Crimean War. He witnesses the war between Britain and France and Russia, so he’s also very much aware of the conflicts. And remember, he’s in politics. In 1861 we find him in Japan, where he’s the First Secretary of the British Legation. And there was a nighttime attack on the Legation, and his pistols were locked away, and he went into the courtyard only armed with a hunting whip. He was an incredibly brave man, he was fearless. He was badly wounded, so he was sent back to Britain to recover, and then we find him in Poland, reporting on the 1863 Polish uprising against the Russians. And he hated the autocracy of Russia, he hated the prejudice of the Russian government. And then he leaves the diplomatic service, he becomes a member of Parliament, and then he becomes a writer.
He becomes a journalist, I should say. He writes something called “Piccadilly”, a fragment of contemporary life. It was a biography of many of the characters he knew, it became a great success. And then this man who was such a searcher, he fell under the influence of a spiritualist prophet. Now, I think it’s absolutely obvious from everything that I’ve said to you before, that there are many, towards the end of the 19th century, the industrialization, the growth of cities, people looking for all sorts of answers. Hypnosis was very popular, mesmerism, and also spirituality. Is the industrial life the kind of life we want? What kind of life are we going to work towards? And unfortunately, he falls under the spell of a man who proved to be a terrible charlatan, a man called Thomas Lake Harrison, who in 1861 had organised a small community, Brotherhood of New Life on Lake Erie. He then moves it to Santa Rosa in California. Now Oliphant actually leaves Parliament to follow this character to the States. He lived in the colony for many years. His mother joined him, they gave a lot of money to Lake Harrison, and he was in, they’re going to create the utopian dream. This was one of many kinds of utopians that people were dreaming of as a sort of, I suppose, a kind of backlash to the world of materialism. Members of the community were allowed to work outside to earn money, and he also got involved in manual labour. Whilst this is going on, to earn money, he became the “Times” correspondent in the Franco Prussian war. And then he moves on to Paris. He marries a beautiful woman called Alice. Shall we have a look at her picture? Next slide, please. Yeah, Alice Oliphant, now go back please, so we can, he married a very beautiful woman and he and she, they return to the Harris complex. But then there’s a quarrel over money. His wife decides to stay, and he leaves. And in 1878, he’s very much caught up in the concern that Russia has plans for the Middle East. He’s very conscious of the Holy Land.
He’s very conscious of the spiritualism of Christianity, and he also is very philo-Semitic. He feels, many Bible-reading Brits, particularly Scots and Welshmen, people who come from Bible-reading backgrounds. You know, later on Lloyd George was to say, “I was far more familiar with the names of the trees, the valleys, and the oasis of the Holy Land than I was even of my own country.” They’re kind of caught up in it. And he becomes rather entranced with the idea. He’s horrified by what’s going on in Russia, and he wants to devise a plan under which the Jews could regenerate themselves through a small agricultural colony, we’re later going to hear a lot of this from the Zionist movement, and work in the more fertile parts of Palestine. Now remember, he is very influential. He enlists the support of Disraeli and the Foreign Minister, Lord Salisbury, who by the way, his nephew and Godfather is going to be Arthur Balfour, more about them later. So all these characters are interconnected. He also has a good relationship with George Eliot, and also with Edward VII, who at this time is the Prince of Wales, who as I’m sure you already know, surrounded himself with Jewish advisors. And I’m going to talk more about them in another session. So with credentials from the British government, he set sail to investigate the possibilities, to see if this was a way of alleviating Jewish suffering in Russia. And in May 1897, we find him in Constantinople, petitioning the Ottoman government to establish a Jewish agricultural colony.
This is very important because it’s prior to the first Aliyah, and he begins to raise money from Christian believers, both in Britain and in America, because America is witnessing this huge spiritual revival. It’s after the American Civil War remember, this sort of revulsion with industrialization and going back to pure Christianity. And whilst he was awaiting an answer from the Sultan, he travels to Romania to discuss the plan with the Jewish community there. Now, Romania is also suffering from huge antisemitism. You will remember that Moses Montefiore had visited in order to try and alleviate the situation. So he’s very, very aware of the terrible situation the Jews are under. The meeting in Constantinople failed, why? Because he told the Sultan’s advisors that the return of the Jews would bring about the Second Coming. This is always the issue with these kinds of Christians. They really did believe that if the Jews returned to Palestine, what would happen is it would hasten the coming of the Christian Messiah. But nevertheless, because of the situation in Russia, and I’ve already talked to you about the meetings being held in London to alleviate the suffering of the Jews, money is being raised from the Mansion House Committee to help resettle Jewish refugees. And at the same time, Oliphant publishes an article in the “Times”, asserting that the Jews who decided to choose to settle in Palestine would have their religion safeguarded. Now, that’s important. He’s not going to try and convert them. The article meets with huge enthusiasm amongst Russian and Polish Jews. Remember now, we live in an age of communication, and he’s becoming a hero amongst the Jews of Russia and amongst the Jews of Romania. So the Mansion House Committee decide to appoint him the commissioner to Galicia, which at this stage is in the Hapsburg Empire. Well so he and his wife, who had come back to him, they visit Jews in Vienna.
Remember, Vienna is the centre of the Hapsburg Empire, and then on to Galicia. And he’s very much now a celebrity, and his settlement plans were published by the early Zionist newspaper, “Hamagid”, written up by Peretz Smolenskin, one of the early founders of Zionism in “Ha-Shahar”, and Moses Lilienblum, another one of the important characters, expressed the hope he would be the Messiah of Israel. You see, you’ve got the pogroms in Russia now, which I’m going to talk about the impact on England later. But at the moment, it’s important that you see the impact on the Zionists. Now despite the fact that no permission was forthcoming from the Turks, in May, 1882, the Oliphant travelled to Palestine, and they divide their time time between a house on the German colony in Haifa, and another in a Druze village on Mount Carmel. And who was Oliphant’s secretary? Let’s have a look at the next picture, his beautiful wife Alice first. There you see Alice Oliphant. Who goes to live with him? His secretary who he had met in Vienna, a fascinating man. Let’s have a look at him. Next, this is Naftali Herz Imber. He lived with them, and at it’s now at the time of the first Aliyah, and what Oliphant is going to do, he actually donates money for the founding of settlements in the Hula Valley. He also helps with Rosh Pinna and Zikhron Ya'akov, these are Romanian settlements. That move was organised by the extraordinary Moses Gasta, who by this time has been thrown out of Romania. He was if you like, the main individual responsible for collating the Romanian language and literature. He is thrown out by a very authoritarian regime. Later on they want him back, but he becomes a very important figure in Anglo Jewry, and is going to figure in the Balfour Declaration. So in 1883, Baron Edmond Rothschild takes it over. Now the relationship between Naftali Herz Imber and Alice and Lawrence Oliphant has, much has been speculated on it, I suppose Naftali Herz Imber, he was a kind of beatnik of a character, if I can use that term, and they did believe in all sorts of progressive ideas.
Now what happens though, in the end Alice dies, and Oliphant is absolutely heartbroken. He believes nevertheless that his wife was with him, and she helps him write. He then travels to America where he marries again, a girl called Rosamond, who’s the granddaughter of Robert Owen, you know, another great reformer. He planned to return to Haifa, but Oliphant became very ill. Now this was his obit in the “Times”. “Seldom has there been a more romantic or amply-filled career, never perhaps a stranger or more apparently contradictory personality.” So Oliphant, you know, he had 100 lives. But now let’s look at Naftali Herz Imber. I really find that I enjoy biography more and more and more. Having studied history for far too many years, for me, it’s the biography that absolutely brings it to life. Now Naftali Herz Imber, he was born in Galicia into a very Orthodox family. He was incredibly bright. He begins writing poetry by the age of 10. He was another one of these Illui, brilliant mind. And as part of the Hapsburg Empire, he had slightly more freedom than he would if he was in Eastern Europe. So he travels through Hungary, he moves to Romania, he’s an itinerant. And in 18, what’s going to happen, he’s going in Vienna. When he is in Vienna, he meets up with Oliphant. He’s a brilliant scholar, he has many, many languages, and he moves to Palestine in 1882, and living with Oliphant and Alice. Oliphant sent him to Beirut to learn watchmaking, and on his return, helped him set up a shop in Haifa. In 1884, he moves to Jerusalem. He spends his time writing poetry. He quarrelled with Oliphant. Was it about Alice? There’s lots of speculation. He departed for Britain, then Paris, then Berlin, then we find him in Bombay, and then finally in America.
He goes from city to city to city. He is a very important poet, he is a writer, he drinks too much, he’s a really on-the-edge character. In Chicago he marries a Christian woman, a Protestant doctor. Israel Zangwill, who also knew Naftali Herz Imber, who has become a famous poet, and of course Zangwill, who I’m going to do a whole session on, he was known as the Jewish Dickens, and later on wrote “The Melting Pot”. And I’m delighted to inform you that Brian Schiette, who’s a professor of Jewish literature, he’s going to give a lecture specifically on “The Melting Pot” in a couple of weeks. But anyway, Zangwill describes his wife as “a Christian crank”. It didn’t work, they had a terrible divorce. And he, but luckily he managed, he’s got no money. He acquires a patron in a Jewish judge called Mayer Sulzberger, 1882. He’d already published his first book of poetry called “Our Hope”. The first version had been written in 1877 in Iasi, in Romania. And of course, later on his greatest claim to fame, it later becomes the lyrics of “Hatikvah”, “The Hope”. He goes on, not just writing his own poetry, he’s also a great translator. He translates Omar Kayyham into Hebrew. He has lots of different languages. That’s one of the reasons he’d gone to work for the Oliphants, he had German, he had Hebrew, he had Yiddish, he had French, he had English. They needed him because of all their communications with Jewish communities, and he had Romanian. So he dies, unfortunately he becomes more and more an alcoholic, and he dies in 1909 of chronic alcoholism. And collapsed in Forsyth Street on the Lower East Side. He died in Mount Moriah Hospital. But on the way to his funeral, the people sung “Hatikvah”, and his immortality is really credited to Israel Zangwill, who called him the schnorrer poet. If you haven’t read Zangwill, please read “Children of the Ghetto”. “Dreamers of the Ghetto” is absolutely wonderful. I suppose to sum him up, he’s a Jewish minstrel. In a way, he’s a forerunner of characters like Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen. He dedicated his first poem to a European Emperor, Franz Joseph, and his last to an Asiatic one.
And he spends his time really either with the rich in the castles, in inverted commas, or in the gutter. Now, when Alice Imber first met him, this is the letter she wrote home. Her household includes a Hebrew scholar required for the Hebrew, German, and Romanian correspondence. He also, and also remember how well-established Oliphant was, he was a friend of Queen Victoria, he was friend of the Prince of Wales. He was a darling of international society. And in the Holy Land, a lot of interesting people came to meet the Oliphants, and of course they met Imber. I suppose his most fruitful years were with Oliphant. He wrote , later on translated by Zangwill. Now what happened after death? Later on his body was re interned in Jerusalem in 1953. And I think it’s important that you take on, that alongside what I’m going to talk about now, you’ve got this other strain of English adventurers who really do want help the Jews regain their homeland. Sometimes because it will precede the coming back of Jesus, but for others, they really do believe that there’s a closeness to the People of the Book. I’ve already told you what Lloyd George wrote. I mean later on, when of course Balfour meets Weizmann, they’re going to be absolutely entranced by these characters. But let’s go on please, can we see the next slide? So remember over the next few weeks, I’m giving you a duality. So can we see the first slide please, of this set? Yeah, now Russia. I do not have to tell you what happened. Alexander II is assassinated and his successor, Alexander III, a huge bear of a man, an autocrat, is going to hold Russia together with his iron fist. Now for those of you who love the byways of history, he was married to a Danish princess whose sister was married to the Prince of Wales.
That is why Nicholas II and Charles, and Nicholas II and George V are first cousins. But what a different world they come from. The Russian Empire, one of the women very closely associated with the assassination, but she kept a safe house, was a woman called Hesya Helfman. And for czarist authorities, they used the Jews to ward off revolution. After the pogroms, you have the May Laws, the terrible May Laws, which totally put a, they put a stranglehold on Jewish life. And depending on where your family members came from in Eastern Europe, and remember when it says the Russian Empire, that is Lavia, Lithuania, Estonia, Ukraine, Poland, and Russia, all right? You have to know the geography of where your family came from. They were all subjects of the czars. So between 1881, there’s a series of pogroms. Can we go on please? The next slide. In 1890, ‘91, when Grand Duke Sergei, the brother of Alexander III, became governor of Moscow, his present was the expulsion of the 20,000 Jews of Moscow. So it’s a terrible time. So economic life squeezed, fear of pogrom, and also moving from part of the Pale, one to the other, the development of far better communications. People are knowing what’s going on, and these are the motivations behind the huge exodus. And depending, you should be able to chart from where your, those of you who come from that part of the world, where your families left from, you’ll be able to work out what was going on at the time. And can we go on again? Next slide. The appalling 1903 Kishinev pogrom, particularly horrific because Kishinev was a garrison town. There’s a brilliant, brilliant book on it by Steve Zipperstein, absolutely superb book.
Now also, Kishinev was very near the Telegraph office. So basically the news was spread all over the world, and there were meetings in London, in New York, protesting against what’s going on with the Czar. So there’s a lot of horror. And the next slide please, and of course unrest in Romania. And that’s going to go on and on and on. So the majority of Eastern Europeans who get out, the Jews leaving the Pale of settlement, and Jews leaving Romania, and they are the ones that are going to come to London. London was the second biggest destination. Now just what was England like? Now what was Britain like, I should say. There were 30,000 Jews in 1850, 60,000 in 1880. And we’ve already established, the people running the community, it started with the Sephardi, the wealthy Sephardi. Now it’s added to the Ashkenazi wealthy, they run the community, they’ve set up the Jewish community as a mirror of English society. You have the Board of Deputies, a kind of English Parliament where every community sends a delegate. You have the Anglo-Jewish Association, where wealthy Jews have set up a society, they are Englishmen of the Jewish religion. And also there are more, of course there have been poorer Jews coming in, and what the community here, there weren’t that many of them up until 1880, the community gave a lot of charity to Anglicise them, and make them more respectable, that was the word. It’s very much following the English about the deserving poor and the undeserving poor, in inverted commas. So the Jews who come to this country, it’s important to remember in, and I keep on saying this because it’s very different to what happened in mainland Europe. The Jews are not on the edge of any great political movements.
They are not part of any great religious movement. And as we’ve already established, how they become part of society, it’s this long slow process. And of course in England, I think it’s fair to say it’s evolution, not revolution. There’s almost a love affair between the Jews already here. The wealthy have learnt how to give charity as the English do, to reform the poor. And remember, the wealthy Jews who are here are very useful to England. This is the height of the Empire. And basically if the English are a nation of shopkeepers, the Jews are very, very useful. And in fact, between 1858 and 1881, 10 Jews had been elected to parliament as Liberal MPs. 1871 Sir George Jessel became Solicitor General, the first Jews to hold ministerial office. In 1874 Saul Isaac becomes the first Tory MP, and in 1880 Barron Henry de Worms becomes a Junior Minister. So it’s interesting, at first they’re in the main Liberals, Whigs, then you begin to see the Tories. Up until the late '60s, early '70s, the bulk of Jews, and remember the bulk is going to be the group I’m talking about, the bulk of Jews are going to vote Labour regardless of wealth, and that’s going to be a very interesting development. Now so, the journey here was pretty, pretty terrible. Can you imagine the adverse conditions, the lack of facilities in steerage? Now in 1895, the fare was 15 shillings from Hamburg. It reached 24 shillings in 1903. And when they arrived at the Port of London, every boat was boarded by a medical officer from the Port Health Authorities, examined the passengers for infectious diseases. Representatives came on board from the Board of Trade and the Jewish shelter.
Many went, now can we see the next slide please? This is Rabbi Nathan Marcus Adler. Now you see he’s wearing the canonical, as he looks in many ways like a Christian minister, and there are too many of them coming in and it’s becoming problematic. Now this unfortunately is going to be the attitude of many Anglo Jews. And this is from the chief rabbi. “It is difficult for them to support themselves and their households, and at times they contravene the will of their maker on account of poverty and overwork, and violate the Sabbath and Festivals. Some of them have been ensnared into the net of the missionaries and have renounced their religion. May the merciful save them. There are many who believe that all the cobblestones of London are precious stones, and that this is a place of gold, woe and alas it is not so. I implore every rabbi in the community kindly to preach in the synagogue and house of study, to publicise the evil which is befalling our brethren who have come here, and to warn them not to come to the land of Britain, for such ascent is descent.” Okay, because what’s going to happen is, a lot of the community here is going to see the hostility which this new arrival is going to lead to, and they’re going to feel very, very uncomfortable about it. So because by 1880, the majority of London Jews were middle class, about 60% had become quite affluent. And before 1914 there were over 50 knighthoods, and there were 54 between 1854 and 1914, 54 Jews in the House of Commons. And so basically in English terms, in British terms, they have seen themselves as having made it. Also, there were representatives in many fields.
The wealthy had gone into business, to banking, insurance, insurance was terribly important. If you look at the life of characters like Baron Morris de Hirsch, if you look at the life of Moses Montefiore, they’re on the boards of loads of insurance companies, think Lloyd’s of London. They’re also now in medicine, law, the sciences, architecture, in the military, charities, welfare, and also in the arts, and some are active in colonial administration. Now they’re also, of course, many of them are on the stock exchange, they’re brokers. The poorer are in tailoring, they’re clothiers, they’re boot makers, diamond cutting is very important. Think of the diamonds of India. Furniture brokering, also they dominated a lot of specialty trades. The key to understanding Jewish employment patterns is the niche in the market. They have always been, I think it’s the outsider-ness, it fascinates me. It’s the same with Hollywood. Why were they so good at knowing what people wanted? And that’s what they did. I mean they, Valentine’s Day cards, by the way, was a huge Jewish business. They went into the umbrella business, the manufacturer of superb pipes. You know, what do people want? But basically the Anglo Jewry itself is run by the , and Moses Montefiore is the symbol of the .
They felt that it was a duty to give to charity, and they had an incredible system of social welfare. Now the Board of Guardians was there to improve housing and sanitation, the 4% industrial dwellings, which is something that was established by the extraordinary Rothschilds, they organised Jewish education, the Jewish Free School, supporting synagogues, and it’s interesting because later on the Board of Guardians is going to metamorphose into Jewish Care. And Margaret Thatcher actually invited Lord Young into government because he was running Jewish Care, and she was so impressed by the Jewish network of charities, which of course still exists to this day. But important to remember, the community here did not want an unruly, I’m quoting, “undisciplined mess of Jewish poor,” to create problems with what they saw was their hard-won tolerance.“ And much of their giving, I’m quoting Cesarani here, "was aimed at reforming and making the poor respectable.” There were some wonderful people though, like Simon Cohen, the Jewish Temporary Shelter, and also there was a Jewish workhouse, Solomon Green. There were people doing an incredible amount. But there was also this notion that we will have to send back those who are making life difficult. And in fact, Anglo Jewry repatriated 2000 Jews a year, it came back to Eastern Europe. Nearly 40,000 Jews were repatriated. Others were paid for to go on to America. And in many ways America really was the golden land. Now what happens to the new arrivals? Well, they’re going to settle in the East End, shall we have a look at the East End? London’s Jewish East End, a fascinating part of town. I can remember as a child, I was born in '48, going to Petticoat Lane with my father to buy, and there were still kosher restaurants there, and we would go to buy the smoked salmon and all the rest of it. There was an incredibly vibrant community. It’s no longer a Jewish area.
It became the great immigrant area, and most of the Jews of the East End have now moved on. Now of course the new immigrants settle mainly in the East End of London. Some of them of course are going to go up to Manchester. About two-thirds will settle in London, but Manchester, central to the cotton industry, Leeds, Hull, the port of Hull, and later on up to Scotland of course, and also to Wales. So this is how the communities develop. And what happens to the existing community? The more affluent, those of you who know London, they move west towards Maida Vale and Brownsbury, and some of course then move out to Hampstead. That was later on determined by the Tube lines, and this is the Reverend Goldstein, who was the rabbi of a North London synagogue. “It is a question of fashion. The Jews now go to Hampstead, Kilburn, Crookerwood, always wear the Gentile fashion leads.” And where that’s where they could buy the fashionable suburban villas. The upper classes, the wealthy tended to live in the West End and have their great estates. But the middle class Jews are now moving north and west. And also those from the East End who make a bit more money are going out to Red Bridge and boroughs like that. So it’s basically the poor that stay in the East End. There’s terrible, unfortunately there’s terrible antagonism between the original community and the newcomers. Also, I’m now going to read you a fascinating letter that Lord Nathaniel Rothschild wrote. Now Lord Nathaniel Rothschild is the third generation.
His grandfather was Meyer, in the ghetto of Frankfurt. His father was Nathan, who really became the richest man in Europe, and his son Lionel is the first Jewish MP. His son Nathaniel is the first Jewish Lord, and he’s a friend of the Prince of Wales. He’s a friend of Randolph Churchill, later on, Winston Churchill, and I’ll be discussing that later on. He is part of the fashionable set and, but he has a huge sense of responsibility to the community. And so he marries his cousin, as so many of them do. He becomes a captain in the Buckinghamshire Yeomanry. he goes to Trinity College Cambridge, he becomes a partner in the bank, and after his father’s death he becomes head of the bank. He’s very close to Benjamin Disraeli, and in fact is an executor. And it is the story of course, that on Disraeli’s deathbed, did he say a Shlema? We’ll never know. He also was a huge funder of Cecil Rhodes, and in the development of the British South Africa Company, and also involved with the De Beers conglomerate. And later he administered the Rhodes estate, and he helped establish the Rhodes scholarships. He was a member of the Round Table movement. He was a very, very important individual, a huge philanthropist. I’ve already mentioned the 4% industrial dwellings. These were model dwellings to improve decent housing. And I know that it still exists because a friend of mine, I don’t know if he’s listening, Bernie Meyers, his wife is going to be lecturing for us next week on the Wayward Women of London. But when he was running the bank, I think he was involved in that charity. Maybe he could tell us more about it at another time. He’s a member of the House of Commons, and he is the first Jewish member of the House of Lords. Right, so this fascinating man. In his position as Lord Rothschild, he’s also president of JFS, and this is the letter he writes to the parents.
This is to go to every parent, it’s December, 1898. “Dear friends, I desire to address you on a subject of great importance, considering the health and wellbeing of your sons and affecting their future development, physical and intellectual. I know what love and devotion Jewish parents feel for their children, how hard they work for them and what sacrifices they submit in order to promote their welfare. I also know how ardently they desire to see their children brought up in the doctrines of our holy faith. They should be properly instructed in Hebrew, and in the tenets of our sacred faith.” In fact, the Federation had to be set up in 1887, because the United Synagogue wasn’t firm enough for a lot of them. But at first it’s, “But it has long seemed to me that you may be doing your children harm by the overzeal which prompts you to send them to Chedorim for so many hours a day. Visitors have noticed how pale and tired the boys attending the free school look, and how their weariness increases with each hour of the day. This was particularly noticed by Her Majesty’s Inspector during a recent visit. He was impressed by the appearance of fatigue, so noticeable amongst the boys. At first he thought they might be underfed, or they suffered from some form of home neglect. But being assured that the children were all looked after by their parents, he questioned them and discovered the true reason for their tired looks.” And he goes on to say that they go to Chedorim, immediately school is over and they study till 9:00, and the conditions are quite unsanitary. And he says, “I ask you, you are expecting far too much of your children.”
And he says, “Some time ago, Dr. Schorstein stated publicly that his experience at the London Hospital,” this was another Jewish charity set up by the Rothschilds, “showed him that the Chedorim were ruining the health of children.” And he says, “Don’t send them to Chedorim.” He also says this, “I beg you, take my words to heart and withdraw your children from the Chedorim altogether. Then they will grow up healthy and strong, fitted in every way to pursue an honourable career, and with a reasonable prospect of becoming good and worthy English citizens.” So basically he’s trying very hard to change the way they think. Let’s go on with the next slide please. And of course, the Jews who come to this country, what happens to them? I’m going to read some extracts. They come with a much more resounding Jewish background. Yiddish is their language, and also they bring a lot of their politics with them. They bring their socialism, they bring their Zionism, they bring their Bundism. And the Yiddish theatre becomes very important. There are lots of Yiddish newspapers. And it becomes, in a way it’s two communities now. You’re going to see the existing community that’s trying very hard to be English, but in the East End, where you are going to see a lot of hard work and a lot of exploitation, you’re going to see, on one level you’re going to see an incredible outpouring though of real Jewish culture. Can we go on please? And of course the famous Whitechapel library, where so many of them studied. What is going to be fascinating though about this first generation, it’s going to be incredibly hard for them. The majority of them are going to go into the sweat shops, tailoring. In fact, having sent back about 40,000, the existing Anglo Jewish community did help them in a very material way.
They provided sewing machines, and also many of them went into cabinet making. They took a lot of the professions that they brought from the Pale of settlement. And later on, if you look at the English High Streets, you’re going to find they’re going to dominate. By the time you get to the post-war, they’re going to dominate the High Street, they’re going to dominate the clothing industry, and they’re going to dominate the furniture-making industry. So this is where it all starts in the East End. And later on it’s going to lead to incredible success stories. Now I want to read a little about what life was like in the East End, can we see the next slide please? Yeah, this is interesting. There was a man called Charles James Booth. Think about England and the reforming side. He was a very wealthy shipbuilder and owner, but he was also a social researcher and reformer. His work was also, runs alongside a man called Seebohm Rowntree, And of course his father Joseph Rowntree, hugely important grocers, they are very wealthy. The Rowntree charity trusts, they were Quakers and they were interested in the poor. And Charles James Booth set up all sorts of surveys. He was influenced by the philosophy of Auguste Comte, and what he believed was that the hold of the church was beginning to fail, and the leadership of society in the way would have to be taken on by the industrialists. This is industrial might, and he’s fascinated. This is really the beginnings of sociology. He’s fascinated by the poor and how they are living. And he sets up all these surveys in the East End of London. And one of the people who works with him is a cousin of his called Beatrice Webb. And Beatrice Webb is often going to come into the Jewish story.
She was born Martha Beatrice Webb, born Potter. Don’t confuse her with the writer Beatrice Potter, though she was herself a writer. She was the youngest of nine daughters of a wealthy businessman. Her mother was the daughter of a Liverpool merchant. Her paternal grandfather was a liberal MP, and they were a great reforming family. They’d been involved in the Great Reform Act of 1832. She was very much self-taught, but her father moved in an intellectual circle. After her mother’s early death, she becomes her father’s hostess and his companion. She also begins, a very beautiful woman, and also in some ways unusual in her time, she begins a relationship with a twice-widowed radical, a man, a politician called Joseph Chamberlain, who’s also going to come into the Jewish story. He was a Cabinet Minister in Gladstone’s government between 1836 and 1914. His dates were 1836 and 1914. He’s in Gladstone’s government from the 1880s onwards. And the relationship fell apart because he wanted to marry her and she wanted her independence. Later on, she’s going to marry Sidney Webb, later, Lord Passfield. Now she didn’t marry him because she loved him physically. She married him because he had a good mind, and they have very much a partnership of shared causes. Very close to Bertrand Russell. They become very important in the Fabian Society, and of course that that’s people like HG Wells, Rebecca West, the so-called intellectual set in England. And later on Bertrand Russell, they’re at the centre of it. And as far as Palestine is concerned, it’s going to be the Passfield white paper that’s going to try and limit Jewish immigration in 1930. But more about that later on.
But at this stage of the game, she is in fact very, she’s a young woman. She’s been invited by her cousin to help with the survey, and she’s very interested in wanting to be of service to humanity. She’s fascinated by the role of women, and also the meaning of faith. What is the role of women of her class? why should she be concerned with the marriage market? Interesting, she wasn’t particularly interested in the suffragette movement. Took a long time for her to convert to it. And so she goes to work in the East End, and to do that she disguises herself. And first of all, she works as a rent collector, and she’s doing it mainly for her cousin, who writes this very important work, which is really going to lay down the foundations of, I think we could go as far to say, of sociology. It’s a book that actually is, “Life and Labour of the People of London”, and much of her research is going to be in that. She also writes a letter to the “Palmar Gazette”, “A lady’s View of Unemployment in the East”. She set up a questionnaire with Booth, gained knowledge of the structure. She’s interested, what causes poverty? Is it the deserving poor, is it the undeserving poor? And to get really involved, she actually offered her services as a tailoress, and she goes to work in the Jewish East End. Now I’m going to, and she’s written interestingly, let me just give you an extract from her writing. And she’s talking about how they arrive. “Let us imagine ourselves on board a Hamburg boat, steaming slowly up the Thames in the early hours of she morning. In the stern of the vessel we see a mixed crowd of men, women and children, Polish and Russian Jews, some sitting on their baskets, others with bundles tied up in bright-colored kerchiefs. For the most part, they are men between 20 and 40 years of age, of slight and stooping stature, of sallow pinched countenance, with low foreheads, high cheekbones and protruding lips.” Quite often, as you all know, men came on ahead to raise the money to send for their families.
And sometimes they sent for them and sometimes they didn’t. “They wear uncouth and dirt-spattered garments. They mutter to each other in a strange tongue. Scattered among them a few women, their shapely figures and soft skins compare favourably with the sickly appearance of the men, in peasant frocks. The steamer is at rest. The captain awaits the visit of the Custom House officials.” And the scenes, and they’re talking about how there are a few good reunions, but the scenes at the landing stage are less idyllic. “There are a few relations and friends awaiting the arrival of the small boats filled with immigrants. But the crowd gathers in about the gin shop. Overlooking the narrow entrance of the landing stage are dock lounges of the lowest type, and professional rummers. These latter individuals, usually of the Hebrew race, are amongst the most repulsive of East London parasites. Boat after boat touches the landing stage, they push forward, seize hold of the bundles or baskets of the newcomers, offer bogus tickets to those who wish to travel to America, promise guidance and free lodging. A little man with an official badge, Hebrew Ladies Protective Society, fights violently in their midst for the conduct of unprotected females,” and Sandra’s going to talk far more about it, “and shouts at whispers to others to go to the Poor Jews Temporary Shelter in Lehman Street.” Now this is in “Life and Labour of the People of London”. This is her on the sweating shop. “I determined to chance my luck,” and this is this, sorry.
This is, I beg your pardon. I’ve lost the extract so I will have to give you, from a sweater, this is a man called Meyer Woshinsky. “I determined to chance my luck, and closed with a tailor who offered to teach me the trade and give me lodgings and coffee for three weeks, and six shillings a week afterwards, until I learned one branch of the trade, coat making, when I would be able to demand four to eight shillings a day for my toil. We lived in one of the many dirty streets in Spitterfields. The room we worked in was used for cooking also, and there I had to sleep on the floor. The wife helped as much as she could at the trade, besides doing all the work. It was very, very hard. A young woman worked the machine from 8:00 in the morning till 9:00 at night to three shillings a day,” et cetera, et cetera. It’s interesting to read all of this, and this is in “The Lancet”, the medical paper. “We had a lengthy conversation with the wife of a sweater, who was very unhappy because her husband had taken to sweating. It would’ve been better had he resisted the promptings of ambition, and modestly contented himself with being sweated. Now he had to pay the rent of the workshop, the cost of gas, and of eight or nine machines. And he got gentleman’s coats to make, with six button holes for 11 pence. It was starvation for him and his work people, and glancing around at the furniture and general condition, it certainly looked like starvation.” And there are so many interesting stories. This is another resident of the East End. “My mother used to go into her neighbour every Monday to borrow rent, five shillings. My mother used to give her, when she got back to the Board of Guardians Thursday, give it to her back, and on Monday it started again.” So they could go for charity. And what is so fascinating in the end, they are very, very quickly going to manage to get out of it. And this is a doctor’s verdict, who is going to be reporting to the Royal Commission. “When I came to examine the death rates, which I had expected to find very high, in view of the conditions of the houses and the prevailing conditions of the district, I found them very low.
I was very interested to learn how it was that people who were living in close courts and crowded alleys under conditions which I was accustomed to find associated with high death rates wherever I looked, had a low death rate. In the end, the only conclusion I could come to was the difference in the death rate was due to the better care the inhabitants took of themselves and of their mode of life.” And there are lots of descriptions of the Now it’s going to of course cause problems with the existing community. Can we go on please? Now there you see some pictures of the sweatshops, and here you see a very dark cartoon, very dark. Can we go on please? Now this is Beatrice Webb’s. Some of her comments are actually quite anti-Semitic. “Jewish girls with flashy hats, full figures and large bustles, furtive-eyed Polish immigrants.” And many of the comments that she makes in letters later on to her husband Sydney Webb, who later on had such an important role in Palestine, are actually quite ghastly, that’s my value judgement . There was someone else though who was far more simpatico, and can we see the next slide please? And here you have her, Eleanor Marx. Eleanor Marx is a fascinating woman. She was the youngest of course, of Karl’s daughters. And she herself had a huge social conscience, and she got very involved. She actually said, “I am a Jewess.” she had two loves, her father, she worked with him, languages, and also she wants to become an actress. And as an actress she got involved in the East End, in helping so much with Jewish women, fighting strike action, and also she got involved in theatre in the East End. She worked with Israel Zangwill, and she herself translated some of these, Ibsen’s plays. This is social realism, this is socialist theatre. Because don’t forget, there’s a huge amount of socialism in the East End, and she very much felt her Jewish roots.
She had a tragic wife. She fell madly in love with a man called Edward Aveling, who was himself a socialist. Unfortunately she lived with him, but he fell in love with an actress, and he married the actress, and she committed suicide when she was 43 years old. But she had none of her father’s Jewish self-hatred. There’s a lot more that I could say about Eleanor Marx. And let’s see the last slide, I’m just going to tempt you with him. Incredible man called Morris Winchevsky, who came from Eastern Europe and set up a newspaper called “Der Poylisher Yidl”, “The Little Polish Yid”. And he’s going to become an incredibly important figure in social welfare, and also in the East End of London. Later on he’s going to go off to America and become, and he’s one of the founders of “The Forward”, with Abraham Cahan. But I’ve run out of time as usual, so let me stop there. Thank you Emily, and let’s have a look at the questions.
Q&A and Comments:
“Oliphant is Afrikaans elephant.” That is interesting.
This is from Annalee. “I’m sure you’ve read 'The Bible and the Sword’, by Barbara Tuchman. the British seem to have always looked to the Holy Land.” Thank you very much, Annalee. It’s fascinating. You know, I’ll never forget, when I went to school in the ‘50s, I went to a very English school, and I could never get, you know, I was this sort of Jewish kid from a left wing background, and they sung “Jerusalem” with such gusto. And I remember when I was 11 thinking to myself, “Why do they call Jerusalem England’s fair and pleasant land when it’s in Israel?” And you know, the hymns were all, with the Anglicans as well, but particularly with low church, there’s an incredible affinity. Remember what I said with Lloyd George? He said he knew intimately every hill and valley in the land of Israel, far better than he, when he was a child. Because, and also a lot of the Welsh and the Scottish, they took biblical names. They were, they saw themselves as the People of the Book. It’s a fascinating story. You see, England is very, it’s very mixed. It’s a very complicated figure.
What’s also interesting is, about the East End Jews, the majority of them are going to do very well in British society, and many of them are going to climb out in one generation. They remain left, by the way. There were some good schools that are going to produce incredible writers like Harold Pinter. Many of the great writers of Britain now, are you know, of Jewish extraction originally from the East End. Then of course you’re going to have the middle Europeans coming over, and they’re going to completely change English society. There’s not a great emphasis on Jewish learning. And is that because of that English expression, “You are too clever by half,” I often ponder? I know a lot of incredibly clever English, but they don’t push it down your throat. That is rude, interesting.
Q: “Where did the idea of all Jews returning to Israel would hasten the Second Coming?”
A: This is biblical Messianism. It starts in Puritan times. 666, the year 1666, the sign of the Beast. There were lots of horrific events around that period. From a Jewish point of view, the Khmelnytsky massacres, there was a Messianic claimant, Sabbatai Zevi, he was a false Messiah. Martin Gilbert points to, in Jewish history there have been 16 false and failed messiahs. Barcocker was a failed Messiah.
Q: What’s the purpose of Messiahship in Judaism?
A: To free the Jews and return them to Israel. To Christianity, messiah means divine. That is nothing Jewish about that at all, but it’s the waiting of the Second Coming. So 666, 1666, they must have had a terrible fright when London burnt down in the Great Fire.
“London’s East End is Indistinguishable from New York’s Lower East Side.” Abigail, except the Lower East Side is much bigger, far more came. And I think it was different because I think America was so much more a country of immigration at that time. I’m trying to remember, I did know the immigration figures from 1800 to 1914. I know it’s a crazy number. Perhaps one of you online will know it. I think it’s 75 million that come to America between 1800 and 1914, The Jewish immigration is just one.
This is Ingrid. “My father was born in 1913 in the East End. His parents were immigrants from Eastern Europe, and must have been illiterate at his birth. He signed with the mark of his father.” Thank you Ingrid. Arlene, “The East End looks a lot like the Lower East Side,” yeah.
This is from Carrie, hi Carrie. Carrie is very knowledgeable, I wish you’d get in touch. “Thank you very much, thinking about the jobs Jewish women did in the East End, where most of those who worked, in addition to often having huge families, also involved with tailoring like my grandpa and catering, like my great-grandfather, my hero Tilly.” Maybe so, well yes of course. You see, a lot of those traditional men also still studied. I know my mother-in-law’s family, they came from Vilna. No sorry, they came from Lodge, that branch of the family. Her sisters, were children. She was, her mother was pregnant when they got to the country and they made matchboxes in the back room while the father was a Hebrew teacher. And the mother died young, they ran the shop. Now all their children became professionals or were university educated. They went into professions, university. That was very much, not all of them, but a lot of them made their way up. They had this thirst to survive.
This is from Janet. “Unfortunately, both the Quakers and the Rowntree Foundation are now vehemently anti-Zionist, merging on the anti-Semitic.” Yes. it’s a very, very deep problem. Ah, there’s a very, very cynical comment I’m going to give you on this. I’m staying with my daughter down in Cornwall, and she had to write a big piece on Glastonbury because they were going to show a terrible Corbin anti-Semitic film, and luckily it’s been withdrawn. And a wag said, “The problem with the Jews is they have to fail more, people would like them better.” And don’t forget also Howard, I’m throwing a line at you, but I want you to think deeply about it. They can’t forgive us the Holocaust. Most of the criticism now of Jews is centred in Israel. And I’m not making any political judgement whatsoever. The question is, is it proportionate?
“Our new head of police has just spoke about his choice to mingle with the homeless and indigenous community by joining them in their habits, and he wants the policeman also to have six weeks of living in homelessness as part of their training.” That’s interesting.
Q: Can I say more about Charles Booth?
A: There’s so much written about him, he’s a fascinating individual. I haven’t got, yes remember I’m teaching Jewish history. I’ll talk to William to see if, I think some of these characters, we should do more biography. In fact, when I get together with Wendy, I think we should be concentrating more on these fascinating characters.
Abigail Hirsch, “The Asian community immigrant communities also have immigrant aid societies to introduce Asian immigrants by giving them work in Asian,” yes, of course. You know the communities that succeed in Britain, and this is absolutely fascinating, and I’m sure the same is true in America, and those who come from a strong cultural tradition. Communities who’ve been robbed of their culture or don’t bring it with them are those who fall behind. And that’s an issue that has to be addressed. I mean the Chinese community, if you look at those who are succeeding in English education, it tends now to be the Chinese community, the Korean community, the Hindus, the Hindu community more than the Muslim community. It’s fascinating. I don’t want to make any value judgements about it. I’m just giving you statistics.
This is Harvey. “My grandfather arrived in London from Bialystok in 1903, together with his fiance and two brothers. The two brothers went on to America, but my grandfather couldn’t afford the fare, so he married his fiance and remained living in Cable Street.” Yes, there are so many, many stories. I went to Bialystok, what a fascinating city. It had once been a very, very important city, and of course it was the home of Zamenhof. He wanted to create the universal language. And we were taking a trip to the Zamenhof Memorial when this old man shuffled up to this. And in Poland, all the men were wearing yarmulkes, whether they were religious or not. And I’ll never forget, the man asked us, he actually, he asked us if we were Jewish and he spoke Yiddish. Luckily my colleague Jerry had Yiddish. It turns out he’d been saved in the war by his Catholic girlfriend, and he took us back to his home where there were pictures of the Pope everywhere, and he pronounced he was a co-faith, and he pronounced the priestly blessing. You know Jewish, it’s mad. That’s the Jewish story, absolute madness. And now there isn’t a minyan in Bialystok, there were 70,000.
This is from Jay. “My mother immigrated to New York City from Moldova in 1924 just before they closed the door.” Because of course the British are going to do it earlier, and I’m going to talk about the Aliens Act. And of course in America they do it after the First World War, mainly because of fear of communism, which they see as Jewish. Wasn’t, but that’s how they see it.
Oh, I’ve said, okay I will ask them. I’ve never, “I dare not give my email answer a line, ba ba ba ba.” Send one more, could you send it to Judy Ferrera? Send it specifically to Judy asking her to put it me straight in touch, thank you Carrie. I haven’t received it.
“From Google, nearly 12 million between 1870 and 1900.” I think it was something ridiculous from 1800 to 1914, it was either 50 million or 75 million. Yes, more biography.
Q: Oh, “Is there an archive you recommend?”
A: Now what I use a lot Bev is “The Jews of England: A Portrait of Anglo Jewry through Original Sources”. I use source books, and they’re very useful. I worked slightly on that particular one. And for general Jewish history, it’s “The Jew in the Modern World” by Mendes-Flohr and Jehuda Reinharz.
Anyway, I wish you all a lovely evening. We’ve got an interesting talk next by Jeremy Smild who, he’s going to be talking about how the Anglo Jewish community dealt with the French Revolution. So I think that will be very interesting for you, at 7:00. All right, God bless everyone, bye.