Trudy Gold
Edward VII and his Jewish Circle, Part 1
Summary
Known as “the Playboy Prince", Edward was the eldest son of Queen Victoria. Upon her death he became King of England and surrounded himself with a circle of fascinating cosmopolitan, wealthy Jews. This two-part presentation will tell the story.
Trudy Gold
Trudy Gold was the CEO of the London Jewish Cultural Centre and a founding member of the British delegation to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA). Throughout her career she taught modern Jewish history at schools, universities, and to adult groups and ran seminars on Holocaust education in the UK, Eastern Europe, and China. She also led Jewish educational tours all over the world. Trudy was the educational director of the student resources “Understanding the Holocaust” and “Holocaust Explained” and the author of The Timechart History of Jewish Civilization.
It’s more complicated than that, Shelly. Winston Churchill actually liked Jews. So did Randolph Churchill. The cleverer ones, yes. It’s a mixed picture. You know, you’ve got to remember, antisemitism in Britain is of a different order, and I will deal with it.
Oh, no, not really. But she did have some of the prejudices of her class and she thought that was a step too far. She resisted making Lionel a peer. She did, in the end, assent to Lord Rothschild becoming a peer in 1885. So she was an unusual woman. She didn’t have many of the prejudices one would expect, and Prince Albert. And she adored Felix Mendelssohn. So she thought he had a very beautiful Jewish face. So again, it’s mixed. Don’t forget that, if you are a Christian, which Victoria was, you do have this baggage. It’s a terrible baggage. It’s 2,000 years old. And I sometimes wonder, and I’m going to stick my neck out here, I sometimes think it’s too deep to ever eradicate, even in the most benign person, because it’s in the culture. I think you have to do a lot of work to get rid of Jew hatred. And so many, inverted commas, decent people… Look, think about it, it’s in the culture. And I’m going to stick my neck even further. And I’m not making any political comments about the state of Israel. But I do believe it has more opprobrium poured on it than any other country in the world. And I ask myself why. And I’m not making a political comment. So don’t go that way ‘cause I refuse to get involved in political situation in Israel.