Petition of the Marranos toOliver Cromwell, 24 March 1656, by Menasseh Ben Israel (inset)

JEWS IN GREAT BRITAINby Clemens N Nathan

A short history of theJewish people in theUnited Kingdom

Jews arrived in this country in a series of migrations.Firstly they came mainly during Norman times from medievalEurope, secondly at the time of the Spanish Inquisition, in the16th Century, and thirdly, by far the largest group arrived duringthe 19th Century from Eastern Europe, fleeing from the terriblepersecutions there. Then in the 1930s they found a haven herefrom Central Europe and avoided total annihilation during theperiod of the Third Reich. Recently small numbers have comefrom Arab countries, especially Egypt, Iraq and Iran. Eachgroup has brought its own unique national and theologicaltraditions, some more traditional, others more an amalgam of19th and 20th Century Western European attitudes towards aphilosophy of life, religion and science. Each kind had to adjustand to re-orientate itself to survive in a new environmentamong Gentiles and Jews whose patterns and attitudes to lifewere quite different. Some of these migrations were parallelwith others fleeing or seeking a new home here; at other timestheir arrival was quite separate.

I have selected a few particular and general examplesfrom these movements from the medieval and Puritan periods,prior to the total integration of Jews into the fabric of thiscountry. I thought that a few illustrations of the causes andeffects in the struggle to become emancipated would beinteresting as would the consequences and effects of thisemancipation. Perhaps we can then discuss the lessons whichcould be learned from these different phases as they apply to thedifferent strains making up this country.

In early medieval times Jews were by and large living asunabsorbed communities in most European countries, withtheir own highly developed laws and traditions. The writing and

completion of extremelyimportant books took place.The Babylonian Talmud is anexample. It is a vast work whichtoday translated covers inEnglish 35 volumes andcontains a very thoroughanalysis and discussion of everyaspect of Jewish oral andwritten law, religion, health,social life, biblical criticism andstories. The Talmud wasinterlinked with other majorworks. All these works weretypes of ‘Hansard’ ofRabbinical debates andGovernment ‘White Papers’,extracted from the many records of academic discussions ofgenerations of scholars and jurists in many academies overmany countries and covering several hundred years of work.The discussions in these books went up to 500 CE. Manythousands of books have been published subsequently and havebeen used for interpretations as theological codes and responsa.The Talmud is nevertheless, still by far the most importantsource book and is the foundation stone of religious educationamongst Orthodox Jews, who may spend their lives studyingthis.

This biblical tradition had an impact on Westernthought, in carrying forward biblical concepts to many Christianand Mohammedan scholars in their desire to improve their

Extract from the Talmud

understanding of the Old Testament. Jews were, of course,one of the important medieval links between Christendom,Greek and Arabic thought for centuries. The centres of Jewishlearning were also particularly important on the Iberianpeninsula where Jewish astronomers, mathematicians andphilosophers thrived at Toledo, Cordoba, amongst other places.

When the Venerable Bedewrote his fascinating account ofthe emerging Church in SaxonEngland and Celtic Britain, in 731CE, European Jewish centres oflearning had already built up vastlibraries of manuscripts. Thesecovered commentaries on theTalmud, some of which had beencompleted 200 years previously,at the time the Saxons settled inWessex. No doubt, the earlyEnglish monasteries and theirAbbots were influenced by theseworks, from Jarrow andLindisfarne to Canterbury. Rashi(R Solomon Yitzaki 1040-1105)was one of the later brilliant Jewish commentators living inFrance in such an enclave. Apart from being known for hisfamous vineyards in Troyes, he was considered an outstandingmedieval scientist and philosopher.

I think it would be sensible to start the influence of Jewsin Britain from this period which is well-documented. Rashilived at the time of the Norman invasion when many Jews

Venerable Bede

accompanied the King and came over here. Edward theConfessor had previously made them his vassals and they werethe private property of the King. Henry III later even assignedand delivered all the Jews to his brother the Earl of Cornwall forrepayment of debts. Their close involvement with many townssuch as Norwich, York and Bristol, and especially with theTower of London, is well- documented. The Plea Rolls of theExchequer of the Jews, a department of the Great Exchequerof the Realm, especially highlights a multitude of commercialtransactions in financing and building monasteries and castles,and raising loans for noblemen. When one of the wealthiestJews, Aaron of Lincoln, died in 1185, a special branch of theExchequer was required just to handle his complex financialaffairs covering vast loans to a multitude of institutions,monasteries and people. The King wanted all of his estate.

The Jews who came and lived in this country, broughtwith them a highly complex body of law with large numbers oflegal forms and devices which were far more mature than whatwas known in English law in the 11th and 12th Centuries.These were based on complex Talmudic interpretations. Anexample of one of these was the Jewish Gage. This was a formof present and future fixed and moveable lien. These ancientconcepts are included in our system of law today, although theirorigins are little known. When negotiations took place Jews andGentiles met on equal terms and religious prejudice betweenthem was thrust into the background.

Financing was one of the only businesses permitted toJews. The Church had restricted the means by which they couldearn their living to an extremely narrow range of activities,mostly those forbidden to Christians. The protection and

support of the King were the cornerstone of their survival andeven more important than the Church. The King had very realneed of their financial skills. He taxed them heavily especiallywhen there were wars or ransoms to be paid. The Normancastles were the centres of gravity and Jews lived nearby. It washere that protection, power and trade most required theireconomic services.

During the Crusades, Jews were forced to raise largefunds and were cruelly treated. The suicidal massacre of theJewish community in York is well known to most of us. It wasone of the many attacks by mobs prior to leaving for theCrusades. On the other hand, Jews from the Iberian Peninsulawere often the doctors who went with the Crusaders. Someeven became Knights Hospitallers, a military order with specialresponsibility for pilgrims and the sick which became theHospital of St John of Jerusalem ultimately. The St JohnAmbulance Brigade is an off-shoot of this today.

Although the financing of projects by Jews wasimportant, by the time of the reign of Henry III the Lombardson the Italian Peninsula had developed the same skills andpeople relied on them as well. In 1275, the famous Statutum deJudeismo enacted at Worcester restricted the economic activitiesof the Jewish community, and they were finally expelled in 1290.King Edward I no longer needed them. The community hadfailed to integrate and had been too dependent on too fewactivities and on too narrow a group of people to support themover difficult times. The Justices itinerant of Kent, however,did convict for murder and subsequently hanged a master andhis mariners for stealing the entire treasure of many Jews leavingthis country on a large ship at the mouth of the Thames and

drowning them. The law here did apply but was rather late. Afew scattered communities and individual Jews did howeverremain here, as is the tradition in Lord Mancroft’s family inNorwich. The records of the intellectual and religious life atthis time are however very scant, apart from the Jewishmanuscripts which were brought to this country, and which arestill here. A few Hebrew scholars, mostly converts, taught atOxford in the middle ages.

Another King with an image of a Renaissance Princehailed as a humanist at first with a desire to rival Francis I andCharles V, and author of a book against Martin Luther, was ofcourse Henry VIII. When seeking to get rid of his wifeCatherine of Aragon he apparently sought to obtain a verdicton the basis that their marriage was against biblical law. Hisemissary went to Italy where he consulted Jacob Mantino, a

Jewish translator ofHebrew into Latin living inVenice who later becamephysician to Pope Paul III.Mantino gave his verdictagainst Henry VIII andearned himself enemies.Interest in Hebrew and theBible however grew whenin 1540, Henry VIIIcreated Regius Professor-ships in Oxford andCambridge which were toteach Hebrew as well asLatin and Greek. Perhaps

Page from Mantino’s dictionary

this was the foundation ofnew attitudes towards the OldTestament. The return ofJews in the 17th Centuryunder Oliver Cromwell isconsidered the foundationperiod for the integration ofJews in this country.

Prior to the Jewishreturn, Puritan thought haddeveloped in an interestingway throughout the whole ofEngland. It was a time for the

growing conscience of the individual and the beginnings ofeducation. Attitudes toward religion were altering again and thenation was fascinated by the Scriptures first printed in themiddle of the 16th Century by Tyndale. The AuthorisedVersion was printed in 1611. The commentaries by Rashi andother Jewish scholars were used as the foundation for thistranslation.

When people discovered that the Hebrews were theJews whom they had only known through plays like TheMerchant of Venice or The Jew of Malta, they were sometimeshorrified. (Mostly they did not relate the Hebrews to any typeof Jew.) Incidentally, it is believed that neither Shakespeare norMarlowe actually met a Jew.

It was amazing how uncritical Puritans were in readingthe Bible. They derived simplistic ideals from it. They wererarely aware of Jewish history or of the Talmud and othertheological interpretations. The witchcraft statutes were

Oliver Cromwell

repealed only in 1736. The religious awakening probably cameabout with the defeat of the Spanish Armada. Puritans herebelieved that they were the chosen people of God among allthe people of this earth. The rich poetry of the biblicalprophets and the Psalmists was read enthusiastically. ThePuritans did not seem to be aware of Micah’s verse, “To dojustice and love mercy and walk humbly with thy God”. Theydid, however, believe in a love of liberty. The rebellions inJewish biblical history were popular. The sermons of JohnKnox went even further. Persecution and vengeance werepermissible. The Plymouth Brethren at one stage wantedHebrew and the Talmud to be the language and law of America.The creation of a haven without persecution became to them,as also for others who crossed the Atlantic on the Mayflower,a deeply imbedded concept.

To the persecuted Jews escaping from the Inquisitionthe possibility of coming to England was however their hopefor a future. The few baptised Jews living secretly as Jews, andknown as Marranos, in England during Elizabethan times hadkept very much to themselves. They were fearful that theInquisition would come here during the reign of Mary. Afterthe defeat of the Armada they revealed themselves publicly asJewish refugees from the Inquisition. They were notenthusiastic at the idea of larger numbers of Jews coming tothis country who could undermine their own delicate position.This fear has often reappeared in many parts of the world forthose Jews who had not been able to integrate into the fabric ofthe country where they lived. The level of tension created bynew Jewish immigrants towards the local Jewish communitieshas often been a measure of their emancipation.

Oliver Cromwell, however, strongly welcomed thereadmission of the Jews. He viewed the Jews as “the people ofthe Old Testament” but also had not been unaware of theirmercantile skills in the Northern Provinces where they had fledfrom Spain and Portugal. He hoped they would bring theseskills here. His special committee dealing with the Council ofState was dissolved when he realised that it would not supporthim on this issue. He did not actually pursue the matter further,but Jews did begin to come over. Though Jews had beenexpelled in 1290 they had never been forbidden to return.

Under Charles II, Jews were fearful that he would be lesstolerant. Yet both he and James II supported Jews in aremarkable way. When prosecutions took place under theElizabethan Recusancy Laws, James II ordered the Attorney-General to stop all proceedings. William of Orange alsodeliberately encouraged Dutch Jews to settle here. He had beenhelped to finance his English and Irish expeditions by Jewisharmy contractors.

It took nearly 60 years after the return of Jews to thiscountry for them to be confident enough to ask for help fromGeorge II and his Government. In 1744 Bohemian Jews wereabout to be deported by Empress Maria Theresa. London Jewsasked for help. Their petition was accepted and the majorityof the Bohemian Jews were not deported after the King’sintervention. Later other Jews felt confident enough to askParliament to ease the naturalisation of foreign-born Jews livinghere. An Act was passed by Parliament in 1753, only to berepealed two years later in a vicious attack by the Tories, whoused it as a pretext to link the Whigs with the Jews. Some Jewshad indeed been important supporters of the Whigs. The

community was helpless and, sadly, religious fanaticism affectedthe 8,000 Jews living here. The struggle for full Jewishemancipation still took a very long time and came about onlyafter the Catholics and Dissenters had been emancipated.

The majority of Jews meanwhile were far too busy tocare about emancipation. They were trying to earn their living.Life was hard for most people. The education and welfare ofthe community was well organised. The first schools wereopened in 1664. Jewish children mostly went to these schools.Parents were reluctant to send their children to other schoolswhere missionaries might convert them. Much later the ForsterActs under Gladstone in the 1880s were followed bycompulsory education. The Jewish schools generally did notmatch up to the new educational structure and the majoritygradually declined. The old grammar and public schools playedan insignificant part in the general education of the Jewishpopulation, although most communal leaders had beeneducated in them and were keen on emancipation.

The struggle for full integration was opposed by some,especially Rabbis who were theologically frightened that itwould lead to spiritual suicide. Rabbis in Northern Europe werescholars and statesmen and responsible for the community.They were never priests in the Christian sense of the word. Thedeveloped liberal climate of England in the 19th Century wasstrange to some foreign-born and highly educated Rabbis. Theyhad been brought up in European countries, where Jews wereliving in a far narrower society controlled with communaltaxation. Its institutions and community were rigidly inter-dependent. Jews here were possibly better educated Judaicallywith outstanding scholars from the large seminaries acting as

stimulus. Economically and spiritually some were very badlyoff.

Persecution, especially in Russia and later in Romania,Galicia and several other countries forced vast numbers ofextremely poor Jews to flee. Some went from Russia toPalestine and the beginning of a national awakening was theonly hope for many. Others arrived in this country or travelledthrough on the way to the United States of America. Theliberalism of England and the NewWorld gave them hope thatlife would be easier. They saw little of the beauties of theEnglish countryside, only the grim factories where they livedout their lives, in the East End, Leeds, Liverpool andManchester. Despite this they were able to stand erect, re-trainand continue to study and practise their faith. They lived inrelative freedom, compared to elsewhere. The Jewishpopulation increased substantially, but was still a very smallproportion of the rapidly growing total population. The strainon the Jewish community of absorbing new immigrants createdpressures, but the structure to help them already existed andthey settled reasonably quickly into the new industrial andcommercial worlds.

The older-established wealthier Jewish communitywanted an opportunity to participate in politics. Others wereinfluenced by socialist ideals which diverted them from theirJewish origins, such as those of Karl Marx. The secondCongress of the “League of the Just”, which developed intothe Communist Party, took place in London in 1847. Socialismfor Jews in the last century was virtually nonexistent in thiscountry, compared to Germany, Austria, Russia and France.The Trade Union Movement here also did not build up Jewish

sections as the sweat shop labourers did in the United Statesand Poland. Jews, however, did care about their oppressedbrethren elsewhere. Many Christian Englishmen also supportedJews in their fight for emancipation and to help those in distressabroad.

Among the founders of the Athenaeum* were somesupporters of the Reform Acts including a few distinguishedJews.

Isaac Disraeli, an early member, had, however, towithdraw his son’s name from also being a member. Benjamin’smalicious wit and strong party sentiments had made him toomany enemies. Later as Leader of the Conservative Party andChancellor of the Exchequer he was easily elected under Rule2. The contribution of members likeThomas Macaulay in advocating theremoval of Jewish disabilities in theHouse of Commons in 1833, wasdeeply moving. William EwartGladstone, on the other hand, was ofa different opinion and more complexin his attitudes. He felt for a long timethat Jews would erode the Christianstructure of Parliament and deeplyresented the international appeal ofBritish Jews for help to the Jews ofthe Balkans. He lost much support from Jewish members inthe Club, including Frances Goldsmid, a founder member.However, Balfour was also a member. Distinguished Jews whowere not members like the Rothschilds also switched allegiance.John Simon, Sergeant-at-Law and a Liberal champion for the

Thomas Macaulay

cause of alleviating Jewish persecution, in a famous letter toThe Times, deeply criticised Gladstone - “is all sympathyreserved for Christian subject races and none to spare for theunhappy Jewish people?”

Other British Jews went on long visits abroad. Thelegendary Englishman of the Jewish faith, Sir MosesMontefiore, a Sheriff of the City, visited those living in ghettosand under persecution in lands from Russia to the OttomanEmpire. He made a deep impression on many.

In 1884 the 100th birthday of SirMoses Montefiore was celebratedthroughout Russia where ChaimWeizmann, then 13 years old, lived. Ithad a profound impact on him. Twentyyears later, Weizmann received a teachingpost at Manchester University. In hisautobiography Weizmann wrote,“nowhere in Europe could a Jew have asgood a chance as in England of beingfree to make his way on his merits. MyZionist views have led me to look uponEngland as the one country which is

likely to show a genuine sympathy for a movement like ours.”The huge impact of 19th Century British politics on Zionismis another subject. It surely was influenced by the Puritanconcepts of a haven without persecution.

There were many other British Jews who helpedinternationally to strengthen this country. Perhaps LordReading is one of the most remarkable examples. Othersexpressed themselves through the arts, science, trade, industry,

Moses Montefiore

the opera and public work. They were all able to succeed in theframework of a society which accepted them and gave themthe opportunity to develop as Chaim Weizmann described.Those who arrived during this century from the horrificpersecutions of Hitler, from Iraq, Iran and elsewhere found aneasier structure within which their scientific knowledge,scholarship and industrial experience could quickly be of serviceto this country. Many continue to play an important role today.The Athenaeum has welcomed some of them.

I have not spoken about the fascinating changing patternof Jewish belief in this country. What is left today after 900years? In a recent market survey the symbolism of lightingcandles, blessing wine and bread by Jewish mothers and fathersin their home, was shown to be one of the most popularmanifestations left, even more so than going to Synagogue.However, a revival of learning more about Judaism over the last10 years is showing results. We have several small centres ofRabbinical excellence highly regarded by Jews elsewhere. Thechildren of many of those Jews who fought for emancipationhave disappeared from the Jewish scene totally. Our Jewishpopulation of 330,000 today is shrinking at the rate of 2000 ayear, though those left are probably more committed and bettereducated and more aware of their origins than would have beenthe case a generation earlier.

The relationship between Israel and the Diaspora isunresolved. Despite strong disagreements on Israel’s policies attimes, the relationship of this country with Israel is good. Thiscountry has nurtured two of Israel’s Presidents: ChaimWeizmann and Chaim Herzog.

British Jews today are a diverse, loosely-knit group ofcommunities. Anti-Semitism world-wide and the State of Israelare of deep concern for all Jews. There is no monolithicideology for British Jews any more than for others living here.Perhaps it is the diversity of thought, the flexible attitudes andthe opportunity to be creative which makes living here in thiscountry so worthwhile and stimulating.

Freedom for the individual under our common law hasalways regarded a man’s race or colour as just as irrelevant inascertaining his rights and duties as the colour of his hair. Aslong as this remains so, political and religious refugees willcontinue to find this country one of the havens where they canprosper.

Chaim Weizmann and Chaim Herzog

Produced by the Clemens Nathan Research CentreFlat 10, 3 Cambridge Terrace, London NW1 4JL

T: 020 7034 1986 F: 020 7034 1981www.clemensnathanresearchcentre.org

* This paper was originally presented at the Athenaeum Clubin London, hence the references to the Club’s foundation