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A Brief Journey through English Jewish History

Author: Published on: Published in: Diaspora

(Author: Bernard Katz, Vol. 68, No. 3, Chanukah 2013)

 

Jews probably lived in Britain from as early as mid-Roman times. After the destruction of the Second Temple in CE 70, the Roman world was flooded with Jewish slaves and it is likely that a number of these would have landed up in Britain.1 It is also possible that in the subsequent Anglo-Saxon period some Jews would have had trading activities extending to Britain, although no evidence exists to substantiate this.2 According to Cecil Roth, if such a community existed, at some point it ceased to exist; no permanent settlement was formed, no community was established and no synagogue was built.3

The First Anglo-Jewish Community: From the Norman Conquest to the Expulsion

In 1066, the Normans under William the Conqueror conquered England. The virtual absence of an English middle class and a scarcity of money provided an opportunity for Jews then living in northern France to follow William to England.4 This early community was comprised almost entirely of financiers and their dependants.5Roth is of the view that a settled and relatively numerous Anglo-Jewish community owes its origin to the massacres at Rouen in northern France in 1096, although no documentary proof exists to support this.6 The Jews were initially treated tolerantly by the Norman kings and it is likely that Henry I (1100-35) issued them a favourable charter. The text of the charter has been lost although it was clearly important for it was referred to for nearly two centuries as a model document.7 A notorious first for England, however, was the first recorded blood libel, which took place in Norwich in 1144 following the death of a boy named William.

During the period of Henry II (1154-89) England was at peace and during this time Aaron of Lincoln (c. 1125-1186) was the leading Jew in England, the most outstanding financier and reputedly the wealthiest man in the country. The Saladin Tithe introduced in 1188 to finance the Third Crusade was the first English tax on private property. Jews were taxed at 25% compared to 10% for the rest of the population and Jewish capital at the time is estimated to have comprised one-third of the mobile wealth of the country.8

The crusading spirit of Richard I ended the period of relative tolerance for the Jews. The tragic event in York in 1190 took place soon after Richard’s coronation. The Jewish community of York took refuge in Clifford’s Tower and after a siege lasting several days Rabbi Yomtov persuaded his community to avoid massacre by dying by their own hands. The following day, the few remaining surviving Jews promised to submit to baptism but after the gates were opened they were all murdered.

By the 13th Century, the Jewish community were regarded only as a source of revenue and were exploited by tallage after tallage.9 This merciless exploitation, together with the introduction of laws prohibiting lending (1275), led to the ultimate ruin of the community. By the time Edward I became king the Jews were so impoverished that their importance to the treasury was diminished.10After some vacillation on how to deal with the Jewish problem he decided on the expulsion route, which was affected on 18 July 1290 (Tisha B’Av). England was thus the first country to expel its Jews – a second notorious first. Encyclopaedia Judaica puts the number of Jews at this time as perhaps fewer than 400011 but Roth quotes a number of around 16000.12

Oliver Cromwell and the Jewish return to England

Then followed a period of almost 400 years during which no Jews lived openly in England. Their readmission is dated 1658 and two events combined to facilitate this. Firstly Menasseh ben Israel, a rabbi from Amsterdam who wished to hasten the coming of the Messiah, came to England in 1655 and presented Oliver Cromwell, the Lord Protector, with a petition requesting that the laws preventing Jewish entry into English be repealed. Cromwell supported the petition and referred it to the Council of State who in turn referred it to a Conference, but given stiff opposition no decision was taken. Of significant importance arising out of the Conference was that its two leading judges advised that there was no law forbidding readmission because the expulsion of 1290 had been an act of royal prerogative and applied only to the specific people concerned; therefore there was no act to repeal. The course of these discussions evoked enormous public interest and a number of bizarre rumours did the rounds, including one that the Jews had made an offer of £500 000 for St Pauls Cathedral which they intended to convert into a synagogue and that this transaction would have succeeded had parliament not insisted on increasing the purchase price to £800 000.13

Secondly a Marrano living in London, Antonio Rodrigues Robles, had two ships and their cargoes confiscated on the grounds that they were enemy property – at the time England was at war with Spain. Robles petitioned Cromwell on the grounds that he was not a Spaniard but a Portuguese “of the Hebrew nation.” His petition was granted but no answer to Menasseh’s has been found.14 The effect of all this was that permission to Jews to settle in England had been granted informally.15The benefits of this informality had advantages, since elsewhere in Europe emancipation came with conditions whereas in England there were none.16

Roth writes that the intensity of Cromwell’s personal interest in the question of the readmission of Jews is certain although the complex reasons which motivated him are difficult to fathom.17In the period prior to readmission, Puritanism in England had reached its peak and with it an interest in Hebrew studies and the Old Testament. This and the economic revival under Cromwell likely created a favourable attitude towards Jews.18 Winston Churchill later referred to the expulsion and readmission of Jews in terms of it being a Calvinist (Protestant) ruler who rescinded the ban imposed by a Catholic king.19

England’s Sephardi community grew from about 150 in 1660 to some 600 in 1700. They were soon joined by Ashkenazim, who by 1700 numbered about 300.20 The Sephardim built a synagogue in Bevis Marks in the East End of London in 1701 and in the 1690s the Ashkenazim opened their own synagogue, later known as the Great Synagogue, in Duke’s Place near Bevis Marks. Sephardim continued arriving in England in the 18th Century, including from Holland and Italy, where the grandfathers of Benjamin Disraeli and Sir Moses Montefiore came respectively. By the end of the 18th Century, they numbered only about 2000, despite the amount of immigration, from which can be deduced that many had assimilated into the non-Jewish population. By then, the Ashkenazi population had reached 20 000.21

The 19th Century: Emancipation, the Rothschilds and Disraeli

The Napoleonic Wars created the opportunity for the Rothschild family in particular to occupy an important place in finance and society. Mayer Amschel Rothschild, who had founded the dynasty in Frankfurt, sent his son Nathan to open a branch in London. Roth describes Nathan as perhaps the greatest financial genius the world had or has yet known.22 It was he who, attempting to keep up prices on a falling stock market, brought news of Wellington’s victory at Waterloo to an anxious prime minister.23 Nathan fell ill (and shortly thereafter died) at the wedding of his son Lionel to Charlotte, daughter of his brother Karl in 1836. Of the 58 marriages by descendants of Mayer Amschel in the century following the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, exactly one-half were between first cousins.24 When the Rothschilds spoke about “marrying out” they did not mean out of Jewry but out of the family.25

Lionel Rothschild was elected to parliament from the City of London for the first time in 1847 but could not take his seat as he refused to recite the oath which contained the words “on the true faith of a Christian.” In 1858, after having been elected by the City of London for the fourth time, a compromise was reached – the House of Lords, which had continuously blocked the enabling legislation, agreed that each House could settle its own oath. The House of Commons was thus able to drop the offending words and Lionel Rothschild took his seat. This event is widely regarded as the completion of Jewish political emancipation with Jews being citizens on the same basis as everyone else.26 In a curious irony, having fought so hard to be admitted, Lionel Rothschild spent 15 years in the House of Commons without making a single speech.27 Lionel’s son Nathaniel became the first Lord Rothschild and his son, Lionel, the second. It was the second Lord Rothschild who became a committed Zionist and to whom the Balfour Declaration was addressed.

Sir Moses Montefiore, after amassing significant wealth, devoted himself to Jewish causes. The most public of these was the Damascus Affair of 1840, when members of the Damascus Jewish community were accused of ritual murder, imprisoned and tortured. With the support of the British government, he negotiated the release and recognition of innocence of the nine surviving prisoners of the thirteen imprisoned.

Benjamin Disraeli, who became prime minister in 1868 and again in 1874, was baptised at the age of 13 after his father had had a disagreement with the Bevis Marks Synagogue. He was open and proud of his Jewish heritage, once retorting to an insult in the House of Commons, “when the ancestors of the right honourable gentleman were brutal savages in an unknown island, mine were priests in the temple of Solomon.” In a debate on Jewish emancipation in parliament before becoming prime minister he said, “Where is your Christianity if you do not believe in their Judaism?…On every altar…we find the table of Jewish law….All the early Christians were Jews….If you had not forgotten what you owe to this people…you as Christians would be only too ready to seize the first opportunity of meeting the claims of those who profess this religion.” It was said that he jeopardised his political career to make this speech.28

Disraeli’s purchase of the Suez Canal in 1876 ushered in a quarter of a century of imperial expansion, one unequalled since the conquests of Alexander the Great. In the view of Barbara Tuchman, it made the physical possession of Palestine inevitable.”29 When the shares in the Suez Canal became available for sale Disraeli sent his private secretary Montagu Corry to Rothschild to tell him the prime minister wanted £4 million “tomorrow”. The story goes that Rothschild asked, “What is your security?” to which Cory replied “The British government” and Rothschild said, “You shall have it”.30

By 1881, at the commencement of large-scale immigration from Eastern Europe, there were around 65 000 Jews in England. By 1914, it is estimated that together with immigration of 150 000 and natural increase that number had swelled to approximately 300 000.31 The Aliens Act of 1905 initially reduced Jewish immigrants, but after the Liberal Party came to power in 1906 immigration soon increased to its previous levels.32

Zionism and the Birth of Israel

At the time of the issuing of the Balfour Declaration in 1917, most prominent Jews in England were antagonistic to the Zionist project. Herbert Samuel and his cousin Edwin Montagu became the first two Jewish cabinet ministers. The former was a prominent supporter of the Declaration whereas the latter was a vociferous opponent. The origins of Britain’s role in the restoration of Israel, according to Tuchman, “are to be found in two motives, religious and political. One was a debt of conscience owed to the people of the Bible, the other was a strategy of empire which required possession of their land.”33 She writes that when, in 1538, Henry VIII issued a proclamation that the English translation of the Bible was to be placed in every church in England, the moral law of the Hebrew nation became the most powerful influence on English culture and that without the English Bible it is doubtful that a Balfour Declaration would ever have been issued in the name of the British government.34

It is little known that Henry VIII owned a complete set of the Talmud, which he acquired at the time of his desired divorce from Catherine of Aragon. He knew that Jewish law permitted divorce and wished to find support for his predicament. Jack Lunzer, an Orthodox collector of Judaica, discovered these in the library of Westminster Abbey but they would not sell them to him. When he later purchased the 900 year-old title deeds to Westminster Abbey, however, they were prepared to exchange it for the set of Talmud.35

The two leading architects of the Balfour Declaration were Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour and Prime Minister David Lloyd George. The draft put to the cabinet was tearfully opposed by Edwin Montagu. Weizmann, who had been asked to wait in another room was called for to rebut the arguments raised by Montagu but the messengers sent could not find him and so the draft was withdrawn.36 The compromise watered down the original intent, created ambiguous wording and undermined its ultimate effectiveness. The letter to Lord Rothschild “favour[ed] the establishment in Palestine of a national home.”

The motivations of Balfour and Lloyd George have been much debated by historians. Balfour’s appears to have been Biblical. His niece and biographer Blanche Dugdale observed that his “life-long” interest in Judaism “originated in the Old Testament training” and that he considered that the “Christian religion and civilization owe[d] to Judaism an immeasurable debt, shamefully ill repaid.”37

Weizmann first met Balfour in 1906 at Balfour’s request. Balfour was interested to understand why the Jews had rejected the Uganda offer. In his memoirs Weizmann records part of the conversation,

Then suddenly I said, “Mr Balfour, supposing I were to offer you Paris instead of London, would you take it?”

He sat up, looked at me, and answered, “But Dr Weizmann, we have London”.

“That’s true,” I said, “but we had Jerusalem when London was a marsh.”38

The motives of Lloyd George were more complex and confusing. Many historians regard them as being political and Lloyd George in his memoirs substantiated this by claiming that it was a reward for Weizmann for synthesizing acetone used in the production of explosives (something Weizmann disputed).39 Lloyd George further argued that the Balfour Declaration was intended as a means of gaining sympathy from Jewish financiers in America and Jewish Bolsheviks in Russia, although these Jews were hardly sympathetic to Zionism. Tuchman is of the view that Lloyd George doctored the facts as in the 1930s, the time in which he was writing, the problem of Britain’s Mandate had become acute and he could hardly admit that his decision had been based in large part on sentiment (Biblical).40Weizmann records that Lloyd George advocated a Jewish homeland long before he became prime minister.41 Balfour had once recounted how he had been told by him that “when Dr Weizmann was talking of Palestine he kept bringing up place names which were more familiar to me than those of the Western front.”42

The San Remo Peace Conference in 1920 awarded Great Britain the Mandate for Palestine. In 1922, the Churchill White Paper clarified the Balfour Declaration and excluded the area of Transjordan. In 1937, the Peel Commission recommended the partition of Palestine – a proposal which was accepted with reluctance

by the Jews but rejected by the Arabs. The Chamberlain White Paper of May 1939 abandoned the Peel proposals and limited Jewish immigration into Palestine at a crucial time to 75 000 over five years. The Labour Party described this White Paper as “an act of moral betrayal”; however, after it came to power in 1945 it reversed its previous support of Jewish statehood. Its chief protagonist in this matter was foreign minister Ernest Bevan, who at a Labour Party conference in 1946 dismissed with contempt an American proposal that 100 000 Jews be allowed into Palestine immediately, saying that America’s support was only because they “did not want too many of them in New York.”43

Relations between Britain and the Yishuv deteriorated further with the assassination of Lord Moyne in 1944 and the hanging of two British army sergeants in 1947. Eventually, Britain passed the Mandate on to the United Nations in 1947 and abstained from the United Nations partition resolution which established the state. It only recognised Israel in January 1949.

Tuchman asks the question whether Israel exist today because of the British or despite them. In her view, as with the American colonies Britain laid the foundations of a state and then resisted the logical development of what she had done until the original bond frayed out of bitterness and strife. The answer to the question, she concludes, is neither one thing or the other, but partly both – one of those unsatisfactory truths with which history so often defeats its interpreters.44

In the 1930s and 1940s a net addition of 55 000 Jewish refugees resulted in the Anglo-Jewish population peaking at around 400 000 in the early 1950s.45 Although a smaller immigration than that of the Russian Jews of 1881–1914, it was qualitatively as important as this immigration was mainly middle class and from Central Europe.46

Winston Churchill’s official biographer, Martin Gilbert, is a great admirer of Churchill and in particular his unfailing support for Jewish and Zionist causes. In the preface to his 2007 book Churchill and the Jews, her records a remark by General Sir Edward Louis Spears, a friend of Churchill’s, who told Gilbert, “Even Winston had a fault. He was too fond of Jews.”47

In an article written in 1920 titled ‘Zionism versus Bolshevism’, Churchill wrote, “Some people like Jews and some do not; but no thoughtful man can doubt the fact that they are beyond all question the most formidable and the most remarkable race which has ever appeared in the world.” Later in the same article he continued, “We owe to the Jews in the Christian revelation a system of ethics which, even if it were entirely separated from the supernatural, would be incomparably the most precious possession of mankind, worth in fact the fruits of all other wisdom and learning put together.”48

Churchill has been criticised for the White Paper of 1922, which excised the portion that is today Jordan from Palestine. Yet many Zionists, including James de Rothschild, understood that by removing Abdullah from any control over Western Palestine, Churchill had ensured the survival of the Jewish National Home. Thirty-four years later, Rothschild wrote to Churchill, thanking him: “You laid the foundation of the Jewish State by separating Abdullah’s kingdom from the rest of Palestine. Without this much-opposed prophetic foresight, there would not have been an Israel today.”49 Churchill was also scathing towards the Peel Commission partition proposal and viewed the 1939 White Paper as a betrayal of the Balfour Declaration.

Despite the hostility of the British army to a separate Jewish military unit, a 25 000-strong Jewish Brigade was eventually formed in 1944. Johnson writes that the experience gained in the Jewish Brigade, which without Churchill’s support would not have been formed, was critical to Israel’s success in 1948.50

When the Labour Party became the government in 1945, an unprecedented number of Jews were elected to parliament – all of whom were Labour except for one Independent Conservative and one Communist. After 1970, the number of Jewish Conservative Party MPs increased while those representing the Labour Party decreased. Of the 28 Jews elected to Parliament in the 1983 election, 17 Jews were Conservative and 11 Labour. In 1986, Margaret Thatcher’s cabinet contained five Jews.51

The Chief Rabbis, 1913-2013

Rabbi Dr J H Hertz was Chief Rabbi of the British Empire from 1913-1946. His outspoken support of Zionism brought him into conflict with the communal leadership. Israel Brodie became chief rabbi in 1948. The first British-born Chief Rabbi, he had been educated at Oxford and Jews’ College and had served as senior chaplain to His Majesty’s Forces. Chaim Bermant writes that he was an amiable man who at the time of his appointment “lacked a doctorate, a beard and a wife, but quickly acquired all three.”52

Immanuel Jakobovits (later Lord) was Chief Rabbi from 1966-1991. He was brought up in the German tradition of Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch and remained loyal to the ideology of strict observance combined with an engagement with the outside world. In his inauguration speech he said “I am resolved to preserve the Orthodox traditions ….I cannot bend or compromise Jewish law which is not mine to make or unmake, but I can administer it with compassion….”53

Jakobovits’ hard-line stand on social issues and identification with Thatcherism troubled many non-Orthodox Jews. Margaret Thatcher recalled how impressed she was at the remark he made to her during their first meeting. At the time she was Secretary of State for Education. Jakobovits said to her, “You are really the Minister of Defence”54 Thatcher regarded him as “her archbishop” having little sympathy with the Church of England at the time.55 Jakobovits provoked controversy by being the first Orthodox rabbi of any eminence to speak out against Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.56

Jonathan Sacks (also later Lord) served as chief rabbi from 1991-2013. During his term he came under increasing pressure from the rabbinate on the one hand and assertive non-orthodox movements on the other.57 In 1995 he was attacked for endorsing the peace process and the principle of withdrawing from the West Bank58

Sacks is a prolific author. In Future Tense, he bemoans the fact that Jews are either engaging with the world and losing their Jewish identity, or preserving their identity at the cost of disengaging from the world. The book is in essence a plea for a modern orthodox vision of a synthesis and integration between the worlds of Torah and modern culture.59 His book The Dignity of Difference was condemned by some Orthodox rabbis as being “heretical” with reference to the views expressed on the validity of other religions. A new edition was later issued which altered or deleted a number of passages including “In the course of history, God has spoken to mankind in many languages: through Judaism to Jews, Christianity to Christians, Islam to Muslims,” and “No one creed has a monopoly on spiritual truth.”60 In The Great Partnership: God, Science and the Search for Meaning, Sacks writes, “To believe in God, faith and the importance of religious practice does not involve an abdication of the intellect….It does not involve reading Genesis literally. It does not involve rejecting the findings of science.”61

Rabbi Sacks was succeeded as Chief Rabbi by Ephraim Mirvis in 2013. Rabbi Mirvis grew up in Cape Town and was a pupil at Herzlia. His father served as the rabbi at both the Claremont and Wynberg Hebrew Congregations.

Antisemitism in England

In his book Trials of the Diaspora, Anthony Julius identifies four distinct kinds of antisemitism in England:

  • A radical and intense form of antisemitism prevalent during the medieval period (1066-1290) and specifically from the middle of the 12th Century, characterised by defamation, expropriation of wealth, killings and injuries, discriminatory and humiliating legislation and finally expulsion.62
  • A literary antisemitism, which kept antisemitism alive during the period of banishment (1290-1656) and continues to the present time. Jew-hatred is a feature of Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Taleswhich contains the blood libel accusation and the unflattering depictions of both Shylock in Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice and Fagin in Dickens’ Oliver Twist. Other authors accused by Julius of antisemitism include Christopher Marlowe, T S Eliot, Rudyard Kipling, H G Wells, G K Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc.
  • A modern antisemitism (1660s–1960s) of insult and partial exclusion, pervasive but contained and characterised by non-lethal or minor antisemitism.63
  • A new configuration of anti-Zionism (late 1960s to the present). This emerged after the Six Day War and became pervasive in the 1990s and 2000s.64 It takes Israel and the Zionist project as its collective term for the Jews and treats Zionism and the State of Israel as illegitimate Jewish enterprises. It has reinvigorated antisemitism and given it a future which now constitutes the greatest threat to Anglo-Jewish security and morale.

Julius concludes his introduction on a sombre note: “Trials of the Diaspora has been written across a period of rising violence and abuse directed at English Jews. Of the present conjuncture, then, my provisional judgement is that it is quite bad, and might get worse. Certainly it would seem that the closed season on Jews is over.”65

In 1978, in the presence of the Chief Rabbi and the Archbishop of York, a commemorative plaque was unveiled at the city of York’s Clifford’s Tower. This read, “On the night of Friday, 16 March 1190, some 150 Jews and Jewesses of York, having sought protection in the royal castle on this site from a mob incited by Richard Malebisse and others, chose to die at each other’s hands rather than renounce their own faith.”

It is popularly believed that a cherem (ban) was placed on Jews living in York because of this incident, even to the extent of their being discouraged from eating a meal or spending the night there. However, there appears to be no evidence of an official ban and Jonathan Romain, an expert on medieval Jewry, believes that no such ban existed.66

Gertrude Himmelfarb, in her book Philosemitism in England, states that her motivation in writing it was not to diminish the problem of antisemitism but rather “to complement it by revealing another aspect of Jewish experience – the respect, even reverence, for the Jews and Judaism displayed by non-Jews.”67 She observes that the history of philosemitism may well have started with England which, more than any other country, has produced over the past several centuries a rich literature of philosemitism, reflecting the principles and policies that have made modern England a model of liberality and civility.68

After the Hellenic period of the 18th Century, an Evangelical Revival ushered in a return to Hebraism in England, with the importance of the Bible in the following century being almost as pervasive as during the Cromwell era.69 During the 19th Century, an entirely new genre of philosemitic literature also emerged. This featured “admirable, even heroic Jews”, and included such works as Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe, Benjamin Disraeli’s Tancred and George Eliot’s Daniel Deronda.70 By the time of the latter’s publication in 1876, blatantly antisemitic novels were no longer respectable.71 Dickens, whose Oliver Twist was published in 1838, protested the characterisation of Fagin as antisemitic, arguing rather that it was unfortunately true that “that class of criminal almost invariably was a Jew” and that other wicked characters in his book were Christian.72 (Dickens nevertheless made amends later by featuring a saintly Jewish character in his last completed novel, Our Mutual Friend).

Himmelfarb laments that the resurgence of antisemitism is most ominous in England because it is “so discordant, so out of keeping with the spirit of the country.”73 In 1999, William and Hilary Rubinstein concluded that in England, “antisemitism in the mainstream has declined to such an extent that it has virtually disappeared”74yet less than a decade later a new book by William Rubinstein bore the subtitle “The Fall and Rise of Antisemitism.”75 In a speech delivered in March 2013, Chief Rabbi Lord Sacks warned of the rising levels of antisemitism in England and Europe. He said “In the Middle Ages Jews, were hated because of their religion. In the 19th and 20th Centuries Jews were hated because of their race. Today….they are hated because of their state….Anti-Zionism is the new Antisemitism.”76

Ed Miliband, who as leader of the Labour Party has a realistic chance of becoming Britain’s first Jewish prime minister in modern times, recently had a Q&A session with Britain’s Jewish community. Miliband grew up with a Marxist father and admitted that the family was “not very involved” from a Jewish point of view. He nevertheless described himself as being a Zionist, although this did not mean that he supported everything Israel’s government did, and said that he had “respect, admiration and indeed a debt to Israel.” He also stated that he would oppose boycotts of Israel and was prepared to say so to trade union members who had been at the forefront of the Boycott, Disinvestment and Sanctions campaign, even though they were also largely responsible for his election as Labour leader.77

Anglo-Jewry Today

Historically and still today, some two-thirds of the Jews in England live in London. Immigrants from Eastern Europe primarily lived the East End, where at one time 125 000 Jews lived in an area of 1.5 square miles.78 These days, the population comprises mainly Asian immigrants. As the Jewish peer Lord Greville Janner put it, “they’re speaking Hindustani where mamaloshenused to be spoken.”79

Bevis Marks Synagogue in the East End is the oldest synagogue in the British Commonwealth. It was consecrated in 1701 and modelled after the Portuguese synagogue in Amsterdam. On the lectern in front of the Aron Kodesh are ten large brass candlesticks symbolising the Ten Commandments. These days the synagogue is lit by electricity but when candles are used on Shabbat it is said that it takes ninety minutes to light them. Twelve columns supporting the gallery symbolise the twelve tribes. The oak benches are from the 1657 synagogue, the first built after the resettlement. A plaque on the current building on that site, located a short distance from the Bevis Marks Synagogue, reads, “Site of the First Synagogue after the Resettlement, 1657-1701.” There is a long-standing, if unconfirmed, tradition in the community that an oak beam from a ship of the Royal Navy was used as a roof girder. Another is that on the day of its consecration Joseph Avis, a Quaker who built the synagogue, returned all the profit he had earned since he refused to make a financial gain on the erection of a “House of God.”80

The Marble Arch Synagogue located in the West End is the successor of the Great Synagogue – London’s first Ashkenazi congregation which was destroyed by German bombs in 1941. After the war the decision not to rebuild the synagogue in the East End recognised the demographic changes that had occurred. The British Museum includes many documents from the biblical period, while the Jewish Museum covers the history of the Anglo-Jewry. The Jewish Chronicle, established in 1841, continues to appear to this day, making it the oldest continuing Jewish newspaper in the world.81

Manchester is home to the second largest Jewish community in England, numbering 25 000.82 Outside the Jewish Museum is a commemorative plaque which reads: “Dr Chaim Weizmann (1874-1952) Scientist, Zionist leader and the first president of the State of Israel (1948) lived in Manchester 1904-1917)”. Further north the Gateshead Yeshiva, founded in the town of that name in 1929, has become a centre of learning of international significance in the Jewish world. Its Jewish population grew by 92% between the censuses of 2001 and 2011, and is now approximately 3000, reflecting the Orthodox composition of the community.83

From its peak of around 400 000 in the early 1950s, the UK’s Jewish population has declined significantly as a result of intermarriage and declining birth rates. Based on the 2011 Census, the Jewish population of England and Wales is estimated to be around 284 000, which reflects a static Jewish population compared to the previous census in 2001. A more detailed analysis of the numbers reveals two distinct demographic processes taking place within the Jewish population, with significant increases in areas of large Orthodox concentrations and substantial contractions in areas of largely non-Orthodox concentrations.84

 

Bernard Katz, a frequent contributor to Jewish Affairs, is a Chartered Accountant who works for an investment bank in Johannesburg.

 

NOTES

  1. Roth, Cecil, A History of the Jews in England, Oxford University Press, Third edition, 1964, p1.
  2. Encyclopaedia Judaica, Keter Publishing House, Second edition, 2007, 6:410 hereafter cited as “EJ”.
  3. Roth, op cit, p2
  4. Ibid, p4
  5. Roth, p4 and EJ 6:410
  6. Roth, op cit, p6
  7. Ibid, p6
  8. Ibid, p17
  9. “A compulsory tax levied by the Norman and early Angevin kings of England upon the demesne lands of the crown and upon all royal towns” (tallage: meaning and definitions | Infoplease.comhttp://dictionary.infoplease.com/tallage#ixzz2iXBJvPlE).
  10. EJ, 6:411
  11. Ibid, 6:412
  12. Roth, op cit, p91
  13. Ibid, p162
  14. Lipman, VD, A History of the Jews in Britain Since 1858, Leicester University Press, 1990, p3.
  15. EJ, 6:413.
  16. Lipman, op cit, p4.
  17. Roth, op cit, p158.
  18. EJ, 6:413
  19. Churchill, Winston, A History of the English Speaking Peoples, Volume I, The Birth of Britain, Cassel and Co., 1956, p228.
  20. Lipman, op cit, p4.
  21. Ibid, pp4-5.
  22. Roth, Cecil, The Magnificent Rothschilds, Robert Hale, 1939, p23 hereafter ‘The Magnificent Rothschilds’.
  23. Lipman, op cit, pp4-5.
  24. The Magnificent Rothschilds, op cit, p62.
  25. Johnson, Paul, A History of the Jews, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1987, p317.
  26. Lipman, op cit, p9.
  27. Himmelfarb, Gertrude, The People of the Book, Philosemitism in England, >From Cromwell to Churchill, Encounter Books, 2011, p79.
  28. Tuchman, Barbara, Bible and Sword, England and Palestine >From Bronze Age to Balfour, Alvin Redman Ltd, 1956, p141.
  29. Ibid, p161
  30. Ibid, p165
  31. Lipman, op cit, p49
  32. Ibid, p73
  33. Tuchman, op cit, Foreword
  34. Ibid, p52
  35. Clarfield, Geoffrey, The Redemption of the King’s Talmud, New English Review, July 2011
  36. Sachar, Howard, The Course of Modern Jewish History, Vintage Books, Revised and updated, 1990, p447
  37. Tuchman, op cit, p199
  38. Weizmann, Chaim, Trial and Error, Hamish Hamilton, 1949, p144
  39. Ibid, p191
  40. Tuchman, op cit, p215
  41. Weizmann, op cit, p192
  42. Tuchman, op cit, p206
  43. Sachar, op cit, p562
  44. Tuchman, op cit, p223
  45. Lipman, op cit, p232
  46. EJ, 6:418
  47. Gilbert, Martin, Churchill and the Jews, Simon & Schuster, 2007, pxv
  48. Churchill, Winston, The Collected Essays of Sir Winston Churchill, Centenary Limited Edition, Volume IV: Churchill at Large, Library of Imperial History, 1976, Zionism versus Bolshevism, p26. Article appeared in the Illustrated Sunday Herald, 8 February 1920.
  49. Gilbert, op cit, p57, quoting letter of 1 February 1955: Churchill papers 2/197.
  50. Johnson, op cit, pp520-521.
  51. Lipman, op cit, p236.
  52. Bermant, Chaim, Lord Jakobovits, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1990, p67.
  53. Ibid, p 87.
  54. Persoff, Meir, Compiled and edited by, Immanuel Jakobovits: A Prophet in Israel, Vallentine Mitchell, 2002, p269.
  55. Ibid, Obituary in The Times, p307.
  56. Bermant, op cit, p5
  57. EJ, 6:428.
  58. Ibid, 6:431.
  59. Sacks, Jonathan, Future Tense, A Vision for Jews and Judaism in the Global Culture, Hodder & Stoughton, 2009, p2.
  60. Petre, Jonathan, Chief Rabbi revises book after attacks by critics, Telegraph, 15 February 2003.
  61. Sacks, Jonathan, The Great Partnership: God, Science and the Search for Meaning, Hodder & Stoughton, 2011, p1.
  62. Julius, Anthony, Trials of the Diaspora, A History of Anti-Semitism in England, Oxford University Press, 2010, p108.
  63. Ibid, pp242, 247.
  64. Ibid, p441.
  65. Ibid, plviii.
  66. Death in York, www.bbc.co.uk.
  67. Himmelfarb, op cit, p3.
  68. Ibid, p4.
  69. Tuchman, op cit, p116.
  70. Himmelfarb, op cit, p84.
  71. Ibid, p111.
  72. Ibid, p112.
  73. Ibid, p3.
  74. Rubinstein, William and Rubinstein, Hilary, Philosemitism: Admiration and support in the English-Speaking World for Jews, 1840-1939, Macmillan Press, 1999, p189.
  75. Rubinstein, William, Israel, the Jews and the West: The Fall and Rise of Anti-Semitism, 2008.7
  76. Sacks, Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan, Speech titled “The Will to Life,” Delivered to The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (“AIPAC”), 4 March 2013.
  77. Shaviv, Miriam, The Times of Israel, www.timesofisrael.com, 8 March 2013.
  78. Lipman, op cit, p51.
  79. Frank, Ben, A Travel Guide to Jewish Europe, England, Pelican Publishing Company, Third edition, 2001, p122.
  80. Meek, HA, The Synagogue, Phaidon Press, 1995, p146.
  81. EJ, 6:415.
  82. Institute for Jewish Policy Research, 2012 Census Results (England and Wales): Initial Insights about the UK Jewish Population, 12 December 2012.
  83. Ibid.
  84. Ibid.

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