Influences on the standing of the Jews in England
Encyclopedia
Improvement of Jewish relations
One reason for an improvement in the public image of the Jews at the end of the Eighteenth century and beginning of the 19th can be found in positive attitudes towards Jewish pugilists. A further cause for kindlier feeling on the part of at least the Middle classMiddle class
The middle class is any class of people in the middle of a societal hierarchy. In Weberian socio-economic terms, the middle class is the broad group of people in contemporary society who fall socio-economically between the working class and upper class....
es of Englishmen
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
toward the Jews was supplied by the revival of conversionist
Religious conversion
Religious conversion is the adoption of a new religion that differs from the convert's previous religion. Changing from one denomination to another within the same religion is usually described as reaffiliation rather than conversion.People convert to a different religion for various reasons,...
hopes at the beginning of the Nineteenth century. Misled doubtless by the tendency to desertion shown by not a few of the Sephardim many evangelical
Evangelicalism
Evangelicalism is a Protestant Christian movement which began in Great Britain in the 1730s and gained popularity in the United States during the series of Great Awakenings of the 18th and 19th century.Its key commitments are:...
s anticipated the conversion en masse of the Jewish population, and on the initiative of Lewis Way the London Society for the Promotion of Christianity Among the Jews was founded in 1809. This and kindred societies wasted large sums of money with indifferent results. But politically they helped to increase sympathy for the Jews among the non-conformists, who formed the bulk of their contributors and were at the same time becoming a leading factor in the formation of Liberal
Liberal Party (UK)
The Liberal Party was one of the two major political parties of the United Kingdom during the 19th and early 20th centuries. It was a third party of negligible importance throughout the latter half of the 20th Century, before merging with the Social Democratic Party in 1988 to form the present day...
policy.
British Israelism
Similarly, at a much later period the craze of British IsraelismBritish Israelism
British Israelism is the belief that people of Western European descent, particularly those in Great Britain, are the direct lineal descendants of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel. The concept often includes the belief that the British Royal Family is directly descended from the line of King David...
made many of the narrower Bible
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
Christian
Christian
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...
s more sympathetic toward the Jews. On the other hand, the great influence of Dr. Thomas Arnold
Thomas Arnold
Dr Thomas Arnold was a British educator and historian. Arnold was an early supporter of the Broad Church Anglican movement...
in the Liberal ranks was ultimately directed against the Jewish hopes. The more Erastian he was, the more he desired to see the legislature exclusively Christian.
Rise of German Jewish community
In the meanwhile the lead among the English Jews was passing from the SpanishSpanish and Portuguese Jews
Spanish and Portuguese Jews are a distinctive sub-group of Sephardim who have their main ethnic origins within the Jewish communities of the Iberian peninsula and who shaped communities mainly in Western Europe and the Americas from the late 16th century on...
to the German
Ashkenazi Jews
Ashkenazi Jews, also known as Ashkenazic Jews or Ashkenazim , are the Jews descended from the medieval Jewish communities along the Rhine in Germany from Alsace in the south to the Rhineland in the north. Ashkenaz is the medieval Hebrew name for this region and thus for Germany...
section of the community. The bankers Goldsmid acquired both influence and culture, and their efforts to raise the community were soon to be supplemented by those of Nathan Rothschild
Nathan Mayer Rothschild
Nathan Mayer, Freiherr von Rothschild , known as Nathan Mayer Rothschild, was a London financier and one of the founders of the international Rothschild family banking dynasty...
, the ablest of Mayer Rothschild
Mayer Amschel Rothschild
Mayer Amschel Rothschild was the founder of the Rothschild family international banking dynasty that became the most successful business family in history. In 2005, he was ranked 7th on the Forbes magazine list of "The Twenty Most Influential Businessmen Of All Time"...
's sons, who had settled first in Manchester
Manchester
Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...
and afterward in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
. The times were in a measure propitious for a new effort to remove the civil disabilities
Disabilities (Jewish)
Disabilities were legal restrictions and limitations placed on Jews in the Middle Ages. They included provisions requiring Jews to wear specific and identifying clothing such as the Jewish hat and the yellow badge, restricting Jews to certain cities and towns or in certain parts of towns , and...
of the Jews. The example of France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
had not been without its effect. The rising tide in favour of religious liberty, as applied to dissenters generally and to Roman Catholics in particular, might have been expected to carry with it more favourable conditions for the Jews; but a long struggle was to intervene before "Englishmen of the Jewish persuasion" were to have equal rights
Rights
Rights are legal, social, or ethical principles of freedom or entitlement; that is, rights are the fundamental normative rules about what is allowed of people or owed to people, according to some legal system, social convention, or ethical theory...
with other Englishmen.
See also
- History of the Jews in EnglandHistory of the Jews in EnglandThe history of the Jews in England goes back to the reign of William I. The first written record of Jewish settlement in England dates from 1070, although Jews may have lived there since Roman times...
- History of the Jews in England (1066–1200)
- Edict of ExpulsionEdict of ExpulsionIn 1290, King Edward I issued an edict expelling all Jews from England. Lasting for the rest of the Middle Ages, it would be over 350 years until it was formally overturned in 1656...
- History of the Marranos in EnglandHistory of the Marranos in EnglandThe History of Marranos in England consists of the Marranos' contribution and achievement in England.-Arrival of Marranos:Toward the middle of the 17th century a considerable number of Marrano merchants settled in London and formed there a secret congregation, at the head of which was Antonio...
- Resettlement of the Jews in EnglandResettlement of the Jews in EnglandThe resettlement of the Jews in England was a historic commercial policy dealing with Jews in England in the 17th century, and forms a prominent part of the history of the Jews in England.-Background:...
- Menasseh Ben IsraelMenasseh Ben IsraelManoel Dias Soeiro , better known by his Hebrew name Menasseh Ben Israel , was a Portuguese rabbi, kabbalist, scholar, writer, diplomat, printer and publisher, founder of the first Hebrew printing press in Amsterdam in...
(1604–1657)
- Menasseh Ben Israel
- Jewish Naturalization Act 1753
- Board of Deputies of British JewsBoard of Deputies of British JewsThe Board of Deputies of British Jews is the main representative body of British Jews. Founded in 1760 as a joint committee of the Sephardi and Ashkenazi Jewish communities in London, it has since become a widely recognised forum for the views of the different sectors of the UK Jewish...
(1760) - Emancipation of the Jews in EnglandEmancipation of the Jews in EnglandThe Emancipation of the Jews in England was the culmination of efforts in the 19th century over several hundred years to loosen the legal restrictions set in place on England's Jewish population...
- Early English Jewish literatureEarly English Jewish literatureEnglish Jewish Literature:-Effects of restrictions:The increasing degradation of the political status of the Jews in the thirteenth century is paralleled by the scantiness of their literary output as compared with that of the twelfth...
- Rothschild banking family of EnglandRothschild banking family of EnglandThe Rothschild banking family of England was founded in 1798 by Nathan Mayer von Rothschild who first settled in Manchester but then moved to London. Nathan was sent there from his home in Frankfurt by his father, Mayer Amschel Rothschild...
- History of the Jews in ScotlandHistory of the Jews in ScotlandThe earliest date at which Jews arrived in Scotland is not known. It is possible that some arrived, or at least visited, as a result of the Roman Empire's conquest of southern Great Britain, but there is no direct evidence for this...