The Curious Account of the Jews of England,
Glorious, but not Always
What could be more English than Fish and Chips
Ask Chef Ramsey: He opened one in
Vegas ( not this one)
But ---the fish in the chips was brought there
by Jews!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fish_and_chips
The UK tradition of eating fish battered and fried in
oil was introduced to the country by Spanish and Portuguese Jewish immigrants…They prepared fried fish in a manner similar
to pescado frito,
which is coated in flour then fried in oil. Fish fried for Shabbat for dinner on
Friday evenings could be eaten cold the following afternoon for shalosh seudot, palatable this way as liquid
vegetable oil was used rather than a hard fat, such as butter. Charles Dickens mentions
"fried fish warehouses" in Oliver Twist (1838),[2] and in
1845 Alexis Soyer in his first
edition of A Shilling Cookery for the People, gives a recipe for
"fried fish, Jewish fashion", which is dipped in a batter mix of
flour and water before frying.
1) The British claim they are the true Israelites—they are “ Brit Ish”( Son of a bris). To which the Irish claim to be “ Ir- Ish”( Ir-Aramaic for Angel=Angelic) ( Termed " British Israelites.)
TTruth is, we were relative late
comers, we didn’t swim the channel till:
2)
William
the Conqueror brought the first Jews in to help him administer his newly
conquered England. The later Kings found they could not do without their Jews
to finance their wars.( I e King Richard & Crusades)
https://breakingmatzo.com/history-of-jews/the-history-of-jews-in-england/
The new king wanted the skills and capital of the
Jewish people to benefit his fledgling kingdom. He invited a group of Jews
living in Rouen, Normandy (modern day France) to come to England. William saw
the Jewish people only as an economic boon that could be leveraged in his
country’s favor.
Jew’s primary role in England was to act as
moneylenders. It was forbidden for Christians to loan money with interest (the
sin of usury), so they relied on Jews to do so. Their moneylending became
crucial to the functioning of England’s economy. Many nobles, barons, and other
members of the royal court relied on loans from Jews in order to purchase
castles and pay dues to the crown. Furthermore, wars and journeys of
exploration were similarly funded.
The unique and precarious situation of medieval Jews
in England was codified under the rule of King Henry I. They weren’t true
English citizens, instead functioning as royal serfs, a sort of
servant/property of the king. Their position came with benefits such as free
use of all the royal roads, special legal status, the right to use royal
castles and tunnels for protection, and more. In return they paid higher taxes,
gave what they earned through usury back to the crown when they died. Their
lives and status were at the current king’s whims. For a while the Jews
prospered under this system. They built communities in towns across England and
by 1168 it was estimated that the Jewish community possessed a quarter of the wealth
of the entire country.
There is a famous building-The Star Chamber- which was the seat of a
” supreme court” of medieval England ( an s the locus of some notorious criminal procedings).
Whence the name “ Star” besides
stars on the ceiling?
One theory-from Hebrew “ Shtar” a
legal note, supposedly the repository of the IOU’s to the Jews of the time.
From Cecil Roth: A HISTORY OF THE
JEWS IN ENGLAND
The favour and protection enjoyed by the Jews under the first
Plantagenet ruler were not due (as was the case, with certain reservations,
later on) simply to their importance as tax-payers. …. But they were at the
same time what might be termed Treasury agents, advancing large sums to the
Crown to defray day-to-day expenditure or unexpected calls, and being repait,by
drafts on the sheriffs, secured on the 'ferm of the Shire' or county revenue. …
Example:Aaaron of Lincoln: on
the construction of the famous conventual church at St. Albans, that he used to
boast, with more outspokenness than tact, that it was he who had made the great
window in the church, and had prepared a home for the saint when he had been
without one. When he died, about I I86,
Aaron of Lincoln was probably the wealthiest person in England, in liquid
assets. ( which the King took over upon Aaron’s death)…
It has been estimated that an average of £9,000-that is, something
like one-seventh of the total revenue-was derived at this period from the Jews
every year in the normal course of taxation, without taking into account
occasional windfalls when individual or community were amerced for some real or
imaginary trespass…
.. Thus, the Jewish capital was estimated to constitute more than
one-third of the mobile wealth of the nation-certainly an exaggeration, yet at
the same time indicative of their relative importance to the Exchequer.
All in all, a small community, maybe
2000.
Unfortunately for us Jews, there is
what has been called: Perfidious Albion, an old term for England.
The early Brits, like the rest of
the Europeans, did not take well to us:
They accused the Jews of using human
blood, which lead to the story of Little St Hugh of Lincoln, 1245, supposedly
killed by Jews for his blood: There were numerous other such accusations.
This charge led to the arrest and
execution of Jewish leaders(so the King & lords could expropriate their
properties). Plus, the local church profited from his shrine becoming a site of
pilgrimage and donations.!
in 1290-, King Edward I- was deeply in debt,
imposed a steep tax on his knights, but in exchange, offered to expel all
Jews, with their debts wiped out and property confiscated. Resulted in Edict of
Expulsion .
Also, the Brits discovered that
Italian bankers could do just as well, and they weren’t progeny of the devil.
Here and there, a few Jews crept in,
some allowed after baptism, and, after Spanish expulsion, some conversos came
in- but-lived in the shadows at great risk-
Most notably-
Dr Roderico Lopes,physician to Queen Elizabeth
I
a Portuguese converso, was accused of
attempting to poison his patient, Queen Elizabeth
He was done in by the Earl of Essex ( who,
according to some, was the author of Shakespeare’s works. Was this the inspiration
for Shylock? He has also been suspect for being the Queen's secret lover!)
It is reported that Essex sought revenge
against the doctor for revealing that he had
treated him for syphilis. He used the charge of Dr. Lopes being an agent
of the Spanish ( our equivalent of the Red Scare of the 50’s) to do him in.
Dr Lopes conspiring to poison the Queen( engraving)
(This may have been the inspiration
for Marlowe's The Jew of Malta).
(Perhaps Essex over killed, as finally the Queen, fedup with him, excecuted him as well. What goes around, comes around!)
This concept of the treacherous or vengeful Jew became a staple of English literature:
Chaucer” The Prioress Tale”,
Christopher Marlow-“ The Jew of
Malta”,
Shakespeare’s “Shylock” in Merchant of Venice
Even later—Dicken’s Fagin &
Scrooge-
TS Eliott’s , considered one of the GOAT
of British poetry.(Great Of All Times),
“A lustreless
protrusive eye / Stares from the protozoic slime. . . . The rats are underneath
the piles. / The jew is underneath the lot.”) (Bliestein) He even
insisted on republishing this screed after the facts of the Holocaust were well
known!
To be fair, we did get in at least
one good Jewish character- in Daniel Deronda- but it took a woman-Mary
Ann Sands- writing as a man-George Eliot-to tell the story and later, the most
famous Irishman in modern literature, the half-Jewish Leopold Bloom in Ulysses
by James Joyce)
We did, by the way , get a formal
apology from the Church of England, for the expulsion:
******************************
The Church of England
on Sunday apologized for anti-Jewish laws that were passed 800 years ago and
eventually led to the expulsion of Jews from the kingdom for hundreds of years.
A special service held
at Christ Church Cathedral in Oxford was attended by Britain’s Chief Rabbi
Ephraim Mirvis and representatives of Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby to
mark the Synod of Oxford, passed in 1222.
******************************************
Now, from the period of the book
that Judy Alkalay told us about:The Weight of Ink. Some more about what
actually took place at that time.
Things changed in the 17th
century-primarily result of the shake-up of the English regime, the beheading
of the King, the first attempt at a republic, and influenced by the new Protestant movements of
the period.
“There was interest in
Jewish matters in the leadership of the Commonwealth and Protectorate for two
reasons, one pragmatic and the other doctrinal. The pragmatic reason was that
based on the international trade and commercial connections of the Amsterdam
Jewish community it was recognized that a strong Jewish presence in London
would be advantageous. With flourishing links to the East and West Indies and
to the New World Jewish traders in London could make the city to Amsterdam as a
commercial center.
The doctrinal reason
was the belief amongst godly Protestants, including Cromwell, that the
conversion of the Jews to Christianity was essential before Christ would return
to reign on earth. 1656 was thought by some to be the actual year in which this
would happen.
Cromwell and the Jews —
olivercromwell.org
Add
that a rediscovery of Hebraic roots of Bible, and increased interest in ancient
Israel, and the idea of tolerance of personal faith-created a more positive
atmosphere towards allowing the increasing number of “ hidden” Jews to practice
openly.( Some of these Protestant groups identified with Jews or saw themselves
as Jews).
The
case was sealed by the Chief Rabbi of Amsterdam, Menasseh ben Israel, who understood
their line of reasoning:
Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn
Samuel Menasseh ben Israel (B., Holl.
269; H. 146)
(Auctioned
off: Price realized GBP 5,760
Closed: 5 Dec 2006)
This portrait has traditionally been described as being of
Samuel Menasseh ben Israel, one of the most distinguished members of the Jewish
community in Amsterdam. Born in Lisbon in 1604 he was an intellectual prodigy
who, by the age of eighteen, had been nominated rabbi of the Portugese
community in his adopted city. He lived on the same street as Rembrandt, and
their friendship was both profound and long-lasting. Rembrandt was to
illustrate one of his books in later years (see lot 249), and we know that the
rabbi supplied Rembrandt with various texts and Hebrew writings for use in his
paintings. Menasseh ben Israel died in 1657 during his return from a mission to
Oliver Cromwell to secure the readmission of Jews to England.
Yet another etching, from a book
of his writings:
Latin: We seek by wandering-
image of a wanderer- and Hebrew:Psalms Your words are a lamp unto my feet
Manasseh ben Israel
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/62562/62562-h/62562-h.htm
Reports of 10 lost tribes in the Americas
stimulated speculation of impending
Messianic era.
“John Dury, while at the Hague in
1644, had heard some stories about the Ten Tribes which had very much
interested him. One was to the effect that a Jew, named Antonio de Montezinos,
or Aaron Levy, had, while travelling in South America, met a race of savages in
the Cordilleras, who recited the Shema,[33]
practised Jewish ceremonies, and were, in short, Israelites of the Tribe of
Reuben. Montezinos had related his story to Menasseh ben Israel,"
https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/1450525.pdf
Source
Menasseh
ben Israel's Mission to Oliver Cromwell Author(s): Lionel Abrahams Source: The
Jewish Quarterly Review , Oct., 1901, Vol. 14, No. 1 (Oct., 1901), pp. 1-25
Published by: University of Pennsylvania Press Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/1450525
“Five years afterwards, when Menasseh was consulted by his
Millennarian friends in England as to the restoration of the Jews, it occurred
to him that this story might have an important bearing on the matter. He had
convinced himself from his Scriptural studies that, before the Jews could be
restored, it was necessary that their dispersion over the earth should be
complete. The discovery of the tribe of Reuben in America showed that their
dispersion was already much wider than had been known. Indeed, if they could
only gain admission to England--so the thought must have flashed on him--their
dispersion from one end of the earth to the other would be complete, and their
restoration to the Holy Land, that event which to Jews and Christians was
equally momentous, would be so much the nearer. Satisfied with the validity of
his own reasoning, Menasseh published in 1650 a pamphlet entitled the Hope of
Israel, in which he repeated and defended the story of Montezino, hoping that
the English people might recognize that it was their duty to expedite the
ultimate restoration of the Jews to the Holy Land by allowing them to settle in
England.”
When Menasseh arrived in London in October, 1655, he brought with
him petitions from the Jews of various parts of Europe, and the English
manuscript of his own "Humble Address." The latter was at once
printed and published, and on October 31 he went to Whitehall and presented
copies to the Council of State. The "Humble Address" asked "in
behalf of the Jewish nation" for the free exercise of the Jewish religion,
" that we may have our Synagogues, and keep our own publick worship, as
our brethren doe in Italy, Germany, Poland, and many other places." A
detailed list of the concessions that the Jews desired was then drawn up and
embodied in a petition presented by Menasseh to Cromwell in person. The
concessions were (i) security of life and property, (2) liberty of public
worship, (3) the right to acquire a cemetery, (4) permission to trade " in
all kinds of merchan- dise like other merchants," (5) the appointment by
Cromwell of an officer to examine the passports of Jewish immigrants and to
compel them to swear allegiance to the Government, (6) jurisdiction to be
exercised by the "Chief of the Synagogue" in disputes between Jews,
with a right of appeal to the civil courts, (7) that " if peradventure
there existed any laws against the Jews, they might for the sake of greater
security be rescinded.”
***************
Consequence-
the rights of Jews in North America, now being taken over from the Dutch by the
British, was now secured.
(PS-
This, plus the Chmielnicki massacres in Ukraine, led to a fervor of Messianic
speculation aming Jews and Christians- culminating in the apostacy of Shabtai
Zvi and his adoration as the hidden Messiah.)
In
England, a swift Jewish rise to prominence:
BOXING:
Daniel Mendoza
Daniel Mendoza (1764-1836) is considered to be
the originator of modern boxing and was the most celebrated Jewish athlete of
his time. He became the sixteenth heavyweight boxing champion of England.
The predecessor, in economic theory, of Karl Marx, and a father of modern
capitalism as well:
David Ricardo:
David Ricardo (18 April 1772 – 11 September 1823) was a British political economist. He was one of the
most influential of the classical economists along with Thomas Malthus, Adam Smith and James Mill.[2][3] Ricardo was also a
politician, and a member of the Parliament of Great Britain and
Ireland. ( Wkipedia)
David Ricardo's Contributions to
Economics (victorianweb.org)
Ricardo preempted Karl Marx in
describing adversarial class relations. Marx, in fact, based a great deal of
his economic theory on Ricardo's writings. Although Marx identified
capitalists, not landlords, as the source of societal grief he co-opted Ricardo's
labor theory of value. Marx also utilized Ricardo's forecast of economic
stagnation in predicting a working class uprising.
Baronet Moses Montefiore, Sheriff of London
-
a pioneer of Zionism long before Herzl, founder of the first Jewish settlement
outside of the walls of old Jerusalem. Also, he helped underwrite the loan that enabled the
freeing of the slaves in the British Empire!
Finally, best known:
Benjamin, Dizzy, D’israeli
Novelist and Prime Minister
If today there is a Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan,
of Pakistani origin or a Prime Minister
of the UK, Rishi Sunak, of Indian Punjabi descent—it is on the backs of Jews
who opened the doors 400 years ago, after paying the horrible price of
persecution and expulsion centuries earlier.
And yet there is an unease in the Jewish
community:
Why? Ask Jeremy Corbin
“British Zionists clearly had “two problems: one is
they don’t want to study history and, secondly, having lived in this country
for a very long time, probably all their lives, they don’t understand English
irony either.””
Or Roger Waters,
Pink Floyd,
“In a recent interview with Palestinian
news agency Shehab, Waters employed a range of antisemitic tropes, claiming
that the U.S. is being controlled by Jewish Republican donor
Sheldon Adelson, whom he describes as a “puppet master” who is “filling the
coffers and pulling all the strings” on U.S. policy regarding
Israel/Palestine.In the interview, Waters also directly attacked Zionism,
describing it as “an ugly stain” which “needs to be gently removed.”
https://www.adl.org/resources/blog/roger-waters-extends-his-legacy-antisemitic-rhetoric
Or that
great author of children’s books, Roald Dahl: https://time.com/5937507/roald-dahl-anti-semitism/
“those powerful American Jewish
bankers” and
asserted that the United States government was “utterly dominated by the great
Jewish financial institutions over there.”
…in an interview with the British magazine New Statesman. “There is a trait in the Jewish character that does
provoke animosity, maybe it’s a kind of lack of generosity towards non-Jews,”
he said. “I mean, there’s always a reason why anti-anything crops up anywhere;
even a stinker like Hitler didn’t just pick on them for no reason.”
A few months before his death in 1990, Dahl stated
outright that he was anti-Semitic in an interview with The
Independent.
After claiming that Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon was
“hushed up in the newspapers because they are primarily Jewish-owned,” he went
on to say, “I’m certainly anti-Israeli and I’ve become anti-Semitic in as much
as that you get a Jewish person in another country like England strongly
supporting Zionism. I think they should see both sides. It’s the same old
thing: we all know about Jews and the rest of it. There aren’t any non-Jewish
publishers anywhere, they control the media—jolly clever thing to do—that’s why
the president of the United States has to sell all this stuff to Israel.”
Hence:
From a review of The British Jewish Community Today ,Keith Kahn-Harris (Author), Ben Gidley (Author) in 
https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/turbulent-times-9781847063168/
