Jeremy Rosen
The Jew Bill of 1753
Jeremy Rosen - The Jew Bill of 1753
- You might not know that in the 19th century, in 1753, 1753, the House of Commons, the House of Lords, passed a bill giving Jews equal civil rights. Not only that, but King George actually signed off on the bill as law. The uproar in Britain was so extreme from the church who claimed that the Jews were going to convert the country to Judaism and forbid pork to the businessmen who claim the Jews would steal all their business from them, from all workers, it was so violent that actually for the first time it was withdrawn and cancelled. And it took something like another 100 years before the Jews were able to get their civil rights. So much for British antisemitism. And indeed the prime minister who succeeded Lord Newcastle was Horace Walpole. And Horace Walpole wrote of the events that, “In the age of Enlightenment, as it’s called, "we see how people in our country are still enslaved "to the grossest, most vulgar prejudices "before an act passed for naturalising Jews "was passed without observation, "but some people whipped up the mob to such an extent "that it was cancelled.” So that was in 1753. How do we get to that position? I mean, Britain now is a small country. The Jewish community is not very significant as it once was. And I would just like to give you a little bit of background to the Jewish position in England that led up to this momentous occasion. You will know that the Jews came to Britain first with the Romans. The Jews were part of the Roman Empire, and a very significant part. It is estimated that the empire counted some 70 million of whom the Jews were somewhere between 7 and 10 million. Now if you consider that ratio and that proportion, we ought to be in the millions now, but we aren’t. Sorry, the billions, but we aren’t, and yet we’re here and we’re doing pretty well.
The Jews left when the Romans left, and they came back in significant numbers with William the Conqueror in 1066 because Jews of France at the time had been supporting his campaign and he brought them into England and they settled in various places along the River Thames or around the ports. And they were primarily, they were tradesmen, except they couldn’t belong to any guilds because all guilds and trades were Christian institutions and they were excluded. They couldn’t own land. There were so many restrictions that were on them, but nevertheless, they were welcomed to trade, and they did, and they traded and they spread. And there were scholars even, Ibn Ezra spent some time there, and they travelled around. And the Jews of England were very closely allied to the kings. They raised money for them. They supported them. At one stage even they rescued King Richard the Lionheart who had been held captive in Europe and they ransomed him. And they, in terms of their position in the country from the point of view of financial power, were most significant. But round about 1,000 years ago was the period of the Crusades, and the Crusades sparked off a massive torrent of antisemitism. So bad it was, and England was the worst, that for example in England in 1144 was the first case of the blood libel where Jews were accused of killing Christian children to drink their blood and eat their flesh and mix ‘em with a matzah and the four cups of wine on Pesach. And there were altogether 45 blood libels in Britain during that period of time.
Then there was of course the famous Clifford Tower in York where they burnt a Jewish community who had fled to the tower for refuge from the antisemites and burnt them to the ground. And slowly this popular hatred grew so large, and at the same time the king started taxing the Jews so heavily that they actually petitioned the king to let them leave. He wouldn’t, but eventually in 1290 the Jews were expelled from England. And that expulsion order actually has never been retracted, but I’m going to come to that in a minute. So for a period of time, from 1290 until the reign of Queen Elizabeth, there is no record of Jews in England, except during her reign there is a record of Marranos. That is outwardly Catholics who privately were Jews. One of them, a Dr. Lopez, was the physician of Queen Elizabeth and heavily very much admired, but the court plotted against him claiming he was a Jew and a traitor, and he had his head chopped off. Afterwards, Elizabeth was very sorry that he’d been framed and she recompensed the wife and set her up comfortably. So there were Jews Marranos, but nothing really significantly changed until the civil war. Civil war, 1642, so we’re talking about a 400-year period. 1642 to 1651 brought Oliver Cromwell to power. But also remember there’d been a significant change in the religion of England. It was no longer Catholic officially, but it was now Protestant, and the Protestants had a different attitude towards the Bible. They regarded the Old Testament as being very significant and having some value in their religious life, and therefore began studying and the universities began studying the Old Testament.
And this brought about a certain degree amongst the academics and some of the churchmen of a different kind of respect for Judaism. At the same time, the biggest Jewish community near to Britain was no longer France, it was in Amsterdam. Jews were expelled from France later on too and didn’t come back in any significant numbers 'til later. Amsterdam was basically a Marrano Jewish community made up of those who’d fled the Iberian Peninsula. They’d come via London, first of all via Portugal, then they were kicked out of Portugal. But Portugal they moved to Antwerp, but Antwerp was still Catholic. Amsterdam became Protestant, and therefore Amsterdam was a haven for the Jews. And, of course, you know, Spinoza was from Marrano stock, except like many Marranos they were ambivalent about their Jewish identity because they’d spent so much time as pretending to be Catholics and had a certain anti-religious streak to them. But nevertheless, that was the major centre. And in that centre there was a famous man, a Marrano himself who became a rabbi, Menasseh ben Israel. And Menasseh ben Israel wanted to get the Jews back to England for trade reasons, for family reasons, for all kinds of reasons. And he wrote a book called “Spes Israel,” “The Hope of Israel.” And in this he said, “Look, "it’s been part of Christian theology "that the Jews are destined and fated to wander and drift "because they rejected Jesus. "And Jesus will only come back a second time "when the Jews are really scattered over the world.” “Now Jews from Iberia and Spain,” he said, “are already in the Caribbean.
"They’ve already been welcomed in parts of America, "but they’re not welcome in England. "And therefore I’m saying "if you want to be the good Protestant you are, "you’ll let the Jews come back to England "in the hope that then your Messiah will come.” Very clever way of arguing. And he persuaded Cromwell, and Cromwell was very much impressed by this and he convened a meeting of Parliament to officially annul the expulsion, let the Jews come back, and give them full citizenship. Unfortunately, he did not succeed. Parliament refused to accept it mainly a combination, again, of parts of the church and many parts of the trades and the financial and other industries. But what Cromwell did do was to allow Jews to come back not as citizens, but as foreigners coming back to profess their Jewish faith within England, and that was the first step to allowing Jews to come. They were not given rights. They were not given freedom. And not only that, but the merchants in campaigning against them claimed that they were foreign agents of Spain and therefore they should be treated as foreigners and therefore should be taxed heavily as foreigners. And under Cromwell, the attempt of the court to pass these laws and to confiscate Jewish property were firmly put down and were blocked.
And so from that period of the end of the 17th century, Jews started coming back as Jews to England and settled primarily in London, but also in Portsmouth and certain other ports around the United Kingdom. It’s interesting that one of the places that they then settled in outside of London was a place called Wallingford. And Wallingford, which is just south of Oxford, happened to be the place where my father found land to set up a Jewish school where I was brought up and where we lived for many years. And interestingly enough, the Jews from Wallingford had been expelled from London, from Wallingford, before the expulsion from England in general at the request of the monks. Now there’s no trace of monks in Wallingford, but the place just outside Wallingford that my father acquired for Carmel College was called Mongewell Park. And interestingly enough, there were in work done on the estate discovered a well from the Roman times and some tombstones from the period before the expulsion of the Jews. So the place essentially was Mongewell Park, and the Jews that were expelled from Mongewell Park came back so many years later and set up a Jewish school there, which now sadly is no longer a Jewish school and everything’s gone off to Israel, which is where things are really booming and exploding.
So the Jews that came to England and set up the first Jewish synagogue were all Spanish and Portuguese. Spanish and Portuguese called Sephardim, but not as we use Sephardi now to mean Oriental Jews who are nowadays called Mizrahim more, but they were called the Spanish Jews and the synagogue in London was called the Spanish and Portuguese, as indeed is the synagogue in New York on West Central Park called the Spanish and Portuguese. And they had their own customs unique to them as they still do to this day. And slowly they got involved in commerce and in finance, and men like a famous banker of the name of Medina, which is of course a very Spanish name, became knighted, Sir Solomon Medina, for the help that he gave to the Hanoverian dynasty. Previously, Queen Anne had been very pro-Jewish, had actually donated money for the beams for the synagogue in London, and she had supported them. And the Hanoverians, who came from Germany, supported them too. But what the Hanoverians also did was because they were German, for the first time they welcomed in German refugees, and that began to change the complexion of life for Jews in England. Up to this moment, the Jews had all been members of the Spanish and Portuguese. They’d not allowed the Ashkenazim to join. They regarded them as inferior second-rate citizens. Nothing’s changed. And to this day they have preserved their natural independence. But slowly, as more Jews came from the continent, they too began to have an impact on Jewish life in Britain.
But the Jews coming from a continent consisted of two kinds. There were Jews who came as tradesmen, as bankers. We’re going to know about the famous Nathan Rothschild and the Rothschild family. But there were others before, very important ones. The most famous one was a man called Sampson Gideon, who was also a man who was knighted, and he supported the government when there was a rising against the government of Bonnie Prince Charlie and the Great Pretenders in they call the Jacobite Rebellion in 1745, and he became one of the most influential Jews in England. And it was largely because of his position that people began to say, we’ve got to be able to do something to make life easier for the Jews, to allow them to own property, to allow them to come into trades, to allow them to come into the stock exchange, to participate in these various activities that bring wealth to the country that they were up to this moment prejudiced against and unable to pursue the way they wanted to. So this sudden import brought a lot of strange people, amongst them a very strange pretender of a mystical rabbi called Dr. Falk, called Falk the Baal Shem Tov, who was a kind of a mind reader that all the English aristocracy was interested in meeting this guy and having their palms read by him. And this was also a time when masonry emerged in England, and Jews were involved in masonry. There was no restriction against them for that. And as a result, they made friends and contacts. And also out of this time in came a lot of crooks.
A lot of very, very poor Jews were able to come across cheaply across the Channel, and many of them were of a very different class to the aristocratic Sephardim and the upper class rich Jews of the Ashkenazi world. And this brought about a lot of anti-Jewish feeling. There was the famous case of the Chelsea murders where a gang of Jews had gone into Chelsea had ransacked the house and murdered their inhabitants. And as a result of this, they ended up being hanged. Jews were attacked in the streets of London. Even wasn’t officially a chief rabbi, but most important rabbi, had to go around with a bodyguard with protection because he feared the attacks that were made against the Jews. So you had this ambiguous relationship, those who supported them and those who were opposed to them. But as I say, the opposition came mainly from the tradesmen and the professional workers and the bishops, and, of course, plenty of antisemitic aristocrats as well. In 1743, the British Parliament had actually passed a naturalisation law for Ireland. In other words, Jews in Ireland were given equal citizenship, but not in England. And it was this 1753 bill that they brought that they hoped was going to do the same thing in England, this bill that was passed. But, as I’ve already mentioned, it was passed and then it was cancelled. And instead what was offered to the Jews was something called endenizement, which basically is the equivalent of the American temporary residence. You’re allowed to have certain residency in this country quite legally, and you can benefit from the law, but you’re not a citizen.
Now for the commercial side so much that was a minor hassle. It meant they couldn’t have certain positions in the city of London. They couldn’t actually carry out business in the city of London, although they could in other places. They couldn’t join professions because all professions involved taking an oath by our saviour Jesus Christ. And all the attempts that were made originally in this Jew bill to remove that and say you can make a vow by swearing by the Old Testament or by your God, they were not allowed. And so all those limitations carried on into the next century. But you had people, very powerful people then, who are having an influence at government level. Of course you know you’re going to have, under Victoria you’re going to have Disraeli, the prime minister, except he was a non-Jew. But you did have Montefiore, the Jewish banker, who was knighted by Victoria even though initially she objected to knighting a Jew in her government. But it seems that the help coming from her German husband helped persuade her. And during this period, the Ashkenazi community began to grow. But when I say grow, essentially we’re talking about 30-40,000 Jews living mainly in London divided between the Spanish and Portuguese and the rising power of the Ashkenazim who set up their main big synagogue in the centre, Duke’s Place as it was called, to rival the big Sephardi synagogue, Bevis Marks, which you can still see today though there are not very many Jews living in the area anymore, but it’s in the city of London. And that’s what they were allowed to do.
They were allowed to build a synagogue but still couldn’t become alderman of the city, couldn’t become a mayor of the city, were restricted by these and lots of other rules and laws. Montefiore actually, together with his French co-leader Cremieux, was sent by Queen Victoria actually as a delegation to Syria when there was this horrible blood libel in Syria and the Jewish community was imprisoned and half of them were killed before there was intervention. So they were playing important parts. And then you have famous men like the Rothschilds, like the Goldsmiths, like the Montefiores, who have now risen to positions of absolute power in the sense of wealth and aristocracy. But also what is happening at the same time is a massive process of assimilation that the Jews, both Sephardi and Ashkenazi, are throwing off their Jewish traditions, cultures, learning, and they are marrying into the non-Jewish world. And although they are still called Jews by everybody else, they are not acting in a Jewish way. I’m sure you all know the famous taunt against Disraeli when he was in Parliament accusing him of being a Jew and how terrible it was and why should England be ruled by the Jews, to which Disraeli, who no practising in any way whatsoever, got up and he said in Parliament that, “While your forebears were running around covered in wode "as barbarians in these isles, "my forebears were high priests in the temple of Jerusalem.” Nice idea, but you get the point.
He was trying to say, “Don’t think you’re so special. "Who the hell do you to look down on us as Jews?” But nevertheless, the feeling against Jews was there, and the proof that it was still there was that in 1833, 1833, so during reign of Victoria, Jews were for the first time allowed to vote, but not allowed to sit in the House of Commons or anywhere else. And the reason was because to do that you have an oath and an oath, a Christian oath, and not a Jewish oath. And so for example, you had somebody who was elected actually in the city of London, David Solomon, and he up to this particular moment had never been allowed to have any senior position in the running of the city of London. But eventually he was allowed in the 1845 to come and hold a position in the city of London in an official capacity because he was allowed at that stage to vow the way he wanted to vow, not the way they wanted him to vow. On the other hand, in 1847, Nathan de Rothschild, one of the great Rothschild family, was elected to Parliament overwhelmingly. And when he came to take his seat he was barred because he was not allowed to sit without taking an oath. He offered to take an oath on the Jewish Bible, but that was not allowed. And so the poor man for almost 10 years was not allowed to take his seat in Parliament however many times he tried.
It wasn’t until 1858 that his cousin was able finally to take his seat in Parliament. So Nathan couldn’t, Lionel did, and he came to Parliament, he took the oath, walked out, and was never seen again. But from that moment you can say in 1858 there were no longer any official bars to Jews in Britain of a political and a citizenship level. There were still and remained lots of societies, lots of trades and guilds, lots of unions, as they were called, not to mention golf clubs and other areas and so forth and so on. And you know, I might tell you an amusing little joke that reflects pictures of that time. The story of Mr. Cohen who makes a lot of money on the stock exchange in London and does what everybody else did who made money in those days, go out and buy a stately home in the countryside. And in the countryside he sits in his pile, as they call it, sends out invitations to all the neighbours around, and asks them if they would be kind enough to come and pay a visit and join him for a meal or for some a glass of wine or sherry to show what good neighbours he was, and unfortunately he got no reply. So he asked his butler what the reason was and he says, “Well, the only way to fit in here is to join the hunt.” So Mr. Cohen joined the hunt. He went to London, he got kitted out in the right gear, he bought a horse, he learned how to jump, and he went on a hunt, and he had a wonderful time. A wonderful time. But when he came home there was a letter from the master of the hunt, and the master of the hunt said, “Dear Mr. Cohen, "we enjoyed having you with us on the hunt today "and we hope to see you on other occasions. "However, we would like to remind you "a small point of etiquette, and the etiquette is this. "That when you sight the fox, "the customer is to cry out 'Tallyho’ "and not , "which is, ‘There goes the bastard’ in Yiddish.”
So this shows something of the atmosphere. But this atmosphere too in a way changed dramatically with the Russian antisemitism towards the second half of the 19th century when significant numbers, hundreds of thousands of Jews, started migrating. And a lot of them are coming, in fact millions started migrating, those came to America, but several hundred came to British shores. And they began to build up a different kind of more middle class, less upper class Jewish life in England. And this was in a sense the presence of Anglo-Jewry at the time of the British Empire where it was probably the most significant Jewish community in the British Empire and probably around the world because the chief rabbi as then was of England was a chief rabbi of South Africa, of Australia, of Canada, of other places that were part in the Jewish Empire. And they were a generation where the first generation served in the First World War, the second generation served in the Second World War, and this had a dramatic impact on the Jewish community in terms of assimilation and marrying out too. And so the community that at one stage was 500,000 is now a community of about 250,000. And there’s one other anecdote that I want to say, mention before I draw to a conclusion. I was the rabbi of a synagogue called the Western Synagogue in London. It was founded in London in the first generation of Ashkenazi Jews who came to England, and they founded it in 1757. 1757 was actually, it was the second synagogue in London. There was another one in the East End.
This was called the Western ‘cause it was in Westminster and no longer in the East End. And it had hundreds of members and carried on for many years until eventually after I left it merged with Marble Arch, which was the biggest synagogue around the corner to them. But they had always remained independent, independent Orthodox, hadn’t been members of any other block, and there were very few synagogues in England then and now there are many more that were independent. When I joined the synagogue in 1985, the first task I was given was to try and deal with a problem of an old burial ground cemetery in the Fulham Road that belonged to the Western Synagogue. It was their second actually burial site which had been filled up and closed at the beginning of the 20th century. And it had within its sum 500 graves. And the idea was in theory suggested that we should move the bodies, exhume them, move the bodies to Israel, and then they would be able to sell that land for a nice real estate bargain. Of course, everybody in the established community opposed this on the ground that if you’re starting to move bodies around for real estate, then there’s no end not only to the opportunities that might exist, but also the scandal and the reputation we would have of desecrating the dead for the sake of a quick profit. But what they had done before they put the proposition to me was they realised that to get permission to exhume, they’d have to go to the descendants.
And so they had the list in their archives of all the people buried there, all their names, and they were able to track their descendants, every one of them that was still alive they could track, and what they discovered is there was no longer one of them who had a Jewish descendant alive. Every single one of them had assimilated. And this pattern starting with what happened after the Roman Empire, going through what has happened in England, we’ve come, we’ve built up, we’ve assimilated, we’ve disappeared, others have come, built up, assimilated, we’ve disappeared. And now actually religious life in Britain is far stronger than it’s probably ever been before in the same way that we can say religious life in Israel is probably stronger than it’s ever been before. So although the character of Anglo-Jewry, which was very Anglicised, which believed in which its chief rabbis and its clergyman should wear canonicals, sometimes at one stage they wore dog collars and gaiters in which they had mixed choirs and formality, that aspect of Jewish life is shrinking. And the other side of Jewish life, the more Haredi side, is rising, getting stronger, and imposing its values on others. And, of course, wherever that happens, where anybody tries to impose religion on anybody else, there’s always a reaction against. And on that very updated comment, I will turn over to questions.
Q&A and Comments:
Myrna Ross, “I read that Jews drank white wine at Pesach "so anyone spying through their windows "wouldn’t see the red blood in glasses.”
Yes, you know, I’ve heard that said of Marranos in different parts of the world, in different places. I’ve always found it very interesting that the blood libel is based on Christianity, on the fact that in the mass when you have communion, the communion gives you, the priest gives you a wafer and a sip of wine. And in the Catholic Church, this ceremony under the term of transubstantiation means that a miracle happens when you take communion and the wafer turns to the body of Christ and the wine turns to the blood of Christ, and this identifies you. So this whole idea could never have come other than from there that Jews drink blood. We’re not allowed to. Eat human flesh. We’re not allowed to. That we don’t make matzah with Christian bones and we don’t have the four cups with wine. But it just shows you how superstition and misunderstanding and prejudice is so easily spreadable. As we’re seeing now, the amount of prejudice on the website is enormous and numerically greater than it is ever, ever, ever been before. Thank goodness we have laws that try to keep it in check.
“Marrano is a pejorative term.”
You’re quite right. Converso is a much better term. But they were described by others as Marranos by the Spanish because Marrano basically is another way of saying you’re a pig. So it’s true that Marrano is a term of abuse and converso would be a better one, but in most of the documents of the time, historically the term Marrano was applied.
Q: “Why did Jews want to leave Amsterdam "for England under Cromwell?”
A: No, they didn’t necessarily want to leave. They wanted to trade. And trade meant having your representative there. They wanted to trade all over the world. Remember at that time Holland was the richest and most powerful country, trading country, in the world. More than England, until eventually the English defeated them. More than France. More than Italy. More than Germany. Remember the East Indies, sorry, what now is called Indonesia was part of the Dutch, and the Philippines, the Dutch Empire. So it was very, very powerful from a trading point of view. Britain was up and coming, and although they were at war at various times they were still trying to compete and trade, and so they wanted to move there. But also the Amsterdam community was a very close community and it also didn’t like Ashkenazi coming from Germany, and so they were blocked from going to Amsterdam and therefore saw in London and Britain a better opportunity to thrive and do well in business.
Q: “Why did the Jews want to leave Amsterdam for England?”
A: Yes, I’ve just dealt with that one.
“I was married in the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue "in Montreal, one of the older congregations in Montreal.”
Yes, indeed. The Spanish and Portuguese there and also on the West Coast of America as well, so there, I should have mentioned that and I didn’t, but thank you for mentioning it.
“After COVID, Bevis Marks Synagogue "has become a bit more lively with meaning on Shabbat.”
I’m glad to hear that.
“There are shuls in greater London "that can no longer manage that.”
Yes, that’s right because the Jews have moved up because more and more Jews are becoming religious, or are religious, and want to live in religious communities within walking distance of synagogues and Jewish shops and Jewish stores. And those are all now to the north of St. John’s Wood in areas like once was Hampstead very much. Now it’s moved into Golders Green. Now Golders Green has moved further north all the way, a long way north. So that these areas are the Jewish ghettos, if you like, of the era that we’re living in. And those other places, that’s why the Western Synagogue closed. That’s why Marble Arch could barely get anybody and the New West End, these other synagogues in the West End of London are hard put to find dominion other than people who come in to work.
Q: “Did you say 500,000 reducing to 250,000?”
A: Yes, I did. Those were the figures I gave.
Q: “What books on Anglo-Jewry can you recommend?”
A: Well, actually, it’s interesting. There are two books I recommend. One of them is a very old one. The preeminent historian of English history is a man called Cecil Roth who was born in the Victorian era, no longer alive, but he was a great historian and he wrote the first book, and it wasn’t until recently superseded by others, called “The History of the Jews in England.” And it’s in a very archaic style. It’s like going back to a Victorian style of writing. He was very much that person. He was the first Jewish professor in Oxford, and he was a religious man in his own way. And his book is by far the easiest and simplest book that you can still find in secondhand bookshops around the country. But if I can just get you another one, which is not a bad one, not as detailed and more limited, and this is one called “The History of the Jews of England "from 1485 to 1850” by a man called David Katz. But I know there’s a more recent one, and for the life of me at this moment I can’t discover what it is, and that might be your best bet. So I suggest you go on to Amazon Prime or to Google, type in “History of the Jews in England” and see what you come up with from that.
Q: “This morning Trudy gave a lecture on Solomon Schechter. "A century ago Solomon breathed life "into the Conservative movement. "She suggested I ask you the question I posed her. "What will breathe life into Conservative Judaism today?”
A: Wow, that’s a very, very good question. I don’t think today anything on a mass level is going to breathe life into Conservative Judaism because after the time of Schechter, the Conservative movement, certainly in the last 50 years, has moved so far away from Orthodoxy to the left. Once upon a time it was very much closer. Now it’s moved further away, and the further you go away from Orthodoxy, the weaker it becomes. Having said that, there are still some very vibrant Conservative communities headed by great men. And not only that, but I think one of the most important features is that the Conservative movement has a yeshiva called Mechon Hadar, which is one of the most significant and important study centres in New York headed by rabbis who are scholars by any standard. And there is a shrinking division between the Orthodox wing of the Conservative movement and the Modern Orthodox wing of the Orthodox movement because within the Modern Orthodox there are some more radical movements now who ordain female rabbis, are much more open and flexible. We don’t want to go as far as the Conservative movement or identify with them, but are in that position. And in that position, that no man’s land, the overlap between Orthodox Conservative, traditional Conservative, and more progressive Orthodox is the area of growth. So I don’t write off the Conservative movement, but I do not believe the Conservative movement any more than the Reform movement will ever gain the numbers they once had simply because of the rate of intermarriage. I hope that answers it, but if not, by all means come back.
“Your lecture reminds me of Vytautas the Great "who granted Jews the right in Lithuania.”
Oh indeed, yes. “Believing they would not the transgress "the obligations of being polite guests.” Yes, it was in Lithuania. It’s true. The Jews were welcomed in Lithuania. Initially the Jews were welcomed by Casimir and other Polish emperors in Poland, but unfortunately the influence of the Catholic Church in Poland had a destructive impact on that and they suffered more there. Under Lithuania, they did extremely well. But it means, and my father went there to study yeshiva before the Second World War, which makes it again so surprising that despite the fact you had people welcoming them in and they played an important constructive part, the antisemitism never died. So, you know, if people ever try to say there’s a rational reason, I don’t think there is.
Q: Arlene Goldberg, “What are the gaiters?”
A: Gaiters? Well, when you look at bishops’ dress, and the bishops remember sit in the House of Lords to this day, they have a special hat with a cockade, a bishop’s little badge on it. They wear a dog collar, and they wear what look like black socks plus four type of gear in black with buttons down their legs. So these gaiters also cover down the tops of their shoes as well. So gaiters, garters, are interconnected.
Q: “What was the outcome of cemetery of synagogue?”
A: It’s still there. Nothing’s changed. It’s still a walled-up place next door to the Brompton Hospital.
Q: Myra, “I had to take a call. I may have missed something. "It seems you said Jews were accepted in the 19th century, "but not as citizens. "How were British citizens merely tolerated?”
A: Because they were given permission to live, an official status, which is the equivalent of the status of a temporary resident. Temporary residents they were.
“Thank you,” says Ralph, “for a fascinating session.
Q: "Was Protestantism never more tolerant "towards Jews than Lutherism? "Luther certainly expressed his dislike of Jews vocally.”
A: Yes, Protestantism in England and in the Netherlands was much more tolerant. There were still people who were intolerant. I can give you an experience. My own experience of intolerance that at a conference of headmasters when I was asked to give in England, and these were some of the top headmasters and the top clerics, bishops and priests of England, at a conference, and somebody had asked me to say grace. And indeed I did say grace and 15 of them walked out because they said this is a Christian organisation and we object to a rabbi giving grace. So yes, unfortunately there are prejudice and narrow-minded people on all side, but generally speaking you could say that Protestantism was more tolerant. Now it’s the opposite. Now the worst hatred of Israel comes from the Protestant Churches and the most shall we say positive comes from the Catholic. But even within the Catholic there’s a difference between the top layer of the people and the masses. And once I remember a cardinal of Vienna saying to me, “I’ve tried very hard to get my country priests "to stop their antisemitism, but I am not succeeding.”
Q: Gabriel and Kitty, “There was not an anti-immigration law passed in 1914 "to limit London Jews to settle in England?”
A: Yes, there was in England. In America too. In England it was in 1904. In 1914, I think it was in America. But yes, they tried very hard to restrict what they saw as undesirables. So that carried on. Listen, the American Ivy League were restricting Jewish entry because they didn’t want undesirables, and that didn’t end until the 1950s. So in this country there are still places that won’t give membership to Jews.
Myra, “Glad you’re feeling better.” Thank you, Myra. Just you should know that it was a false alarm. There’s nothing wrong. I had all the tests done and thank the Lord I’m in rude health, but thank you very much.
Q: Shelly, “In Britain, 70% of Jewish families "send the children to Jewish schools. "Not so in the U.S. Why do you think that’s so?”
A: Because most Jews in the U.S. are much less religious than the Jews of England, but also because in England the government supports Jewish schools. So Jewish education is not as expensive as it is in the United States. In the United States, in New York, it’ll cost you $30,000 a year for one child in a Jewish school. A lot of people can’t afford that. In the Haredi world, education is free. So that’s the great strength of the Haredi world. They provide for their education, but outside of that they don’t. And so for that reason you can get a Jewish social education, not necessarily religious education, but a social education, in a Jewish school which is supported not exclusively but largely by the state. That’s the big plus of Jewish education in Britain. And it’s only happened relatively recently. It was never there before the 1950s, something like that.
“What we call Conservadox.” Yeah, it could be. That’s a way… I hate labels, I really dislike labels, but yeah, you could use that term if you want to.
“Very interesting session. Thank you. "Re: conversos, I invite you to read ”‘The Mezuzah in the Madonna’s Foot.’ “This was told to me by a rabbi in St. Thomas "some years ago. "Very interesting.” Look, frankly, as far as I’m concerned, that kind of Kabbalah is trivial, it’s nonsense, and I honestly don’t pay any attention to it. Serious Kabbalah is a serious business, but the hocus pocus, feel good, Madonna type of Kabbalah as far as I’m concerned is fake and in the same category as Scientology.
Q: “To what extent did English masons and Jews "invest financially in the Russian Revolution?”
A: You know, I don’t know the answer to that. I know they heavily supported the various wars of the 17th, 18th, 19th, and 20th century, but I don’t know how many did. But remember, a lot of Jews who came to Britain remained and still are Marxists and secularists, so it wouldn’t surprise me if they did, but I don’t have the information.
“ is not Conservative. "I don’t believe they call themselves proudly egalitarian, "non-denominational.” Well, thank you, Marcia, for putting me right. I’m glad to hear that. In which case it reinforces what I was saying that there’s this middle ground. I had thought they were probably because the rabbis who founded it themselves originally were, and maybe they’ve left. But nevertheless, I really appreciate you letting me know this, and forgive me my mistakes.
Elaine, “‘A History of the Jews in Britain’ by V.D. Lipman ”‘Since 1938.’“ Thank you. That’s very good. Right, I didn’t know about that. That’s V.D. Lipman. I’m reading it out and I will send this to anybody who asks for it. "1858, the History of Jews in Britain Since 1958.” Thank you very much.
Hindi, “Unaffordable to enroll in Jewish schools.” Yes, I know. This is one of the problems and it has to be dealt with, and I think Jewish communities will increasingly have to face this problem.
“The Madonna was not Madonna the singer about ‘Mezuzah’ "in the cult of a great story.” I’m sorry, then I don’t know. You’ll have to tell me who that Madonna was then.
“Only Rabbi Held from JTS.” Thank you very much. I thought he wasn’t the only one, but fair enough. Thank you for telling me because I thought Ethan Tucker was from JTS too, but I appreciate you putting me right.
Once again, I learn from you and I appreciate that and look forward to seeing you next time.