Return of the exiles

The Jews and the English have always had a rocky relationship

The crowning of Richard the Lionheart at Westminster was a time of great rejoicing for the people, but not all of them. The Jews of the country had only been around since 1066, when they came over from France with William the Conqueror, as bankers and financial consultants. But they were always under suspicion, an attitude hardly discouraged by the Church and this situation came to a head at the coronation. The Jews arrived at Westminster bearing gifts but were refused entry and pelted by mobs, fuelled by rumours that the King wanted them exterminated. This resulted in riots, resulting in the death of thirty Jews and the burning of many Jewish homes. This act was to be repeated all over the country, in places such as York, where Jews committed suicide rather than being killed by a blood-thirsty mob. Their crime? Just being Jews.

A hundred years later the situation had reached the point of no return, particularly as the Italians had been lined up to take over the financial affairs of the Kingdom. There was now no more need for Jewish expertise and the King’s protection was removed, resulting in full blown persecution of the Jews, who were blamed for every calamity going. In 1287, Edward I imprisoned and ransomed 3,000 of them on a charge of doctoring the coinage. The ransom was paid, but it was decided, in 1290, to expel all Jews from England. By November 1st thousands had fled, mostly to France. England was the first country to kick out the Jews and it was to be an exile that lasted 366 years.

Cromwell to the rescue

Oliver Cromwell was growing old and well established as the Lord Protector of England, when he felt empowered to invite the Jews back. Although he was deeply religious and positively inclined towards the Jews on account of the Puritan partiality for the Old Testament, it was the politician in him that was the key factor. It was a time of alliances among the European nations, and it was important to know what your enemy was up to. Who better to have on your side than the Jews, true internationalists, with their interests in Spanish and Portuguese trade and influences stretching from Germany to the Dutch East Indies? Who better to bring trade to the country and also to act as spies on his behalf?

In 1655 he summoned the Dutch Rabbi, Manasseh ben Israel, to plead the case for the re-admission of Jews to England. He did so in a document called the Humble Address. In this he felt it was necessary to address the three major accusations made by Christians against the Jews, back in the days when they were living in England. Firstly, the question of usury, the charging of excessive interest on loans. He insisted that the rate of interest charged was the same as that charged by Christian moneylenders and that their religion had always forbidden them to do otherwise. Secondly, he insisted, in the strongest terms, that Jews did not kill Christian children to make Matzoh bread for Passover. Thirdly, that Jews did not actively proselytise and were not in the business of enticing innocent Christians into Judaism.

This was OK for Cromwell, but not for many of his advisors, who were still holding onto the old prejudices. A committee met in the Council Chamber at Whitehall that December. The only thing they really agreed on was that the 1290 expulsion of the Jews had been illegal, but they were unwilling to act on this realisation. So Cromwell convened another meeting with an extra few delegates whom he thought would be more favourable towards the Jews. But the outcome was the same and an air of hostility had soured the proceedings.

So Cromwell played the religious card, saying that as the Bible speaks of their conversion, they need to be in a place where the Gospel is being preached, i.e. England! He then mocked this assembly, accusing them of cowardice, being afraid that the Jewish merchants would take away their livelihood. But it was for nothing, so he vacated the chair and closed the conference. Now it was up to the God of history to intervene.

It was an open secret that there were some Jews already in England. These were the secret Jews, the Marranos (literally “pigs”). These were Spanish and Portuguese Jews who, as a result of the Inquisition, had “converted” to Christianity but continue to practise their Judaism in secret. Forty Marrano families had settled in England and one, Roderigo Lopez, had even become a medical attendant to Elizabeth 1st in 1586.

After the conference had broken down, war broke out with Spain and the Spanish Marranos were now unable to live in England as Spanish citizens, and in 1656, relying upon the decision that the expulsion of 1290 was no longer valid, they openly threw off their disguise and assumed the position of Jews. Cromwell agreed to this, particularly after a petition was made to him by Manasseh ben Israel and six other prominent Jews, asking whether they can meet openly without fear of molestation and bury their dead in peace. Interestingly, there is no recorded answer to this petition, as the relevant Council minutes have never been found. What is certain, though, was that they were subsequently confident enough to rent a house to be used as a Synagogue and Jews began to trickle back into England for the first time in nearly 400 years.

Finding a home

History shows us that the Jews who were taken in by England in the 17th Century, protecting them from the hatreds shown towards them in Europe, were to flourish in their new country, becoming bankers, statesmen, even producing a prime minister and confidants to royalty, thus playing a major part in the growth of the British Empire, at the expense of those countries they had left behind. These Jews were Spanish and Portuguese Jews, Sephardi Jews, who had fled their native lands because of the persecutions initiated by the Inquisition. They had found temporary refuge in Holland, where they made massive contributions to what was the golden age of Dutch commercial enterprise and helped make Amsterdam the richest city in the World at that time.

The site of the first synagogue in England for these Sephardi Jews is commemorated by a blue plaque, in Creechurch Lane, on the eastern fringes of the City of London. One day in 1663 Samuel Pepys, the great diaryist, paid them a visit and was greatly perturbed by their exuberance “… But, Lord! To see the disorder, laughing, sporting, and no attention, but confusion in all their service, more like brutes than people knowing the true God … I never did see so much, or could have imagined there had been any religion in the whole world so absurdly performed as this.” In fact he had stumbled on a celebration of Simchat Torah, a festival known for its exuberance and one would expect a similar reaction if a modern orthodox Jew had witnessed a modern charismatic Christian worship service!

Very soon the congregation had grown too large for the synagogue and a new one was built in 1701. This was Bevis Marks synagogue, built within the City walls and still functioning today as the oldest synagogue in England. In fact, some of the benches there in current use actually pre-date the original synagogue and are said to be the largest collection of Cromwellian benches in the world. The architect, Joseph Avis, was a Quaker and it is said that he refused to make a profit from building a house of God and returned all profits to the congregation.

A trickle becomes a flood

This was not the whole story because as well as the Sephardis there were other Jews making their way over from Holland. These were the Ashkenazi Jews – of Dutch, Polish and German descent. They intended to build a synagogue and there was even talk of the possibility that St Paul’s Cathedral, recently rebuilt after the Great Fire of London, was to be offered to the Jews, but that sufficient funds couldn’t be raised! So they built their own synagogue, the Great Synagogue at Duke’s Place, just further along the old wall from Bevis Marks. (This place remained until the Second World War when it became another victim of the Nazi war effort). So the Jews settled and prospered, building their synagogues and mainly living close to these synagogues. More synagogues were built in the following years and the Jewish community began to spread out through the region as a whole. In 1795 it was estimated that there were around 25,000 Jews in England, with around 75% of these in London.

Then came the third and largest wave of Jewish immigration to these shores. It numbered in the tens of thousands and they came between 1880 and 1905, fleeing from persecution in the lands to the East, mainly Russia and Poland. Jewish immigration to the area came to a full stop when, after much pressure from the indigenous population, parliament passed the Aliens Act in 1905, refusing entry of undesirable aliens to Britain. This of course meant Jews from the east and reduced immigration by 40%. Nevertheless, in the period since 1881, over 100,000 Jews had found refuge in Whitechapel and Spitalfields and a grateful Jewish population commemorated this fact by tossing their pennies into a large coffer and had a monument built to King Edward VII in 1911.

This is an excerpt from Steve’s book, Outcast Nation, available for £10 from www.sppublishing.com