Is anti-Semitism deeply embedded in the English psyche?

Jewish Telegraph:

This was the conclusion of historian Lucien Gubbay marking the 350th anniversary of Jewish re-establishment in England at Shaare Hayim Synagogue, Didsbury on Sunday.

He said: "The crudest Nazi anti-Jewish propaganda repeated stereotypes of Elizabethan England."

Argentinian-born Mr Gubbay, who grew up in Didsbury and now lives in London, said: "I was at the Mansion House event to celebrate the 350th anniversary of the Jewish community in England.

"The common theme on the night was that England was good for the Jews and the Jews were good for England."

But Mr Gubbay's research had revealed a different picture.

He said that in 1656, the year of re-establishment, there was such a "strong outburst of antisemitic agitation that Oliver Cromwell was unable to prevail against it".

England was the last country in Europe to allow Jews to enter in 1066. As Christians were not allowed to lend money, Jews became bankers and were the property of the king.

They became very wealthy, but the king extracted huge sums from them.

But, he said, England was the first country to introduce the blood libel in 1144 in Norwich when Jews were accused of killing a Christian child.

The capture of Jerusalem in 1187 increased enthusiasm for the Crusades and with it anti-Jewish feeling.

Three years later, a pogrom took place in London at the coronation of Richard I. Also in 1190, York's Jewish population was massacred at Clifford's Tower (pictured). A century later, and England had the distinction of being the first country in Europe to expel its Jews.

But a few Marranos secretly entered the country between then and 1656. When one of them, Rodrigues Lopez, was accused of high treason in 1594 for threatening to poison Queen Elizabeth, a crowd at Tyburn - where he was executed - shouted: "Jew, Jew, Jew," while he was cut from the gallows while still alive, castrated and disembowelled. Some scholars believe Lopez to be the model for Shakespeare's Shylock and Marlowe's Barabas, he said.

Mr Gubbay commented: "Fear and hatred of Jews was deeply embedded."

It was common knowledge, he added, that a foul smell was attached to each Jew. There was a debate as to whether or not this could be removed by baptism.

Many of the Nazi portrayals of Jews as degrading Christian women and castrating their men found their roots in England. However, King Henry VIII's break with Catholicism led to changing attitudes towards Jews.

Accessibility to English translations of the Bible, based on the Hebrew rather than the Greek original, introduced "glimmerings of sympathy for the Jews," he said.

Mr Gubbay explained that most Jews and Christians of that time believed that God was soon to intervene to inaugurate a utopian age, leading - for Jews - to the Messiah and for Christians to the second coming of Jesus.

The Puritan scenario envisaged Jews being scattered all over the world till they returned to Zion and were converted to Jesus.

The beheading of Charles I intensified the passion for the coming of the millennium, which would precede the end of days.

Oliver Cromwell shared these beliefs. He felt he had been chosen by God to fulfil a prophetic destiny. Mr Gubbay said that, although Cromwell was aware of the wealth of Amsterdam Jews, he did not feel his motivation in welcoming them was purely economic.

Amsterdam, he added, had become a "beacon of hope for the entire Jewish diaspora", as well as the world's leading economy.

But the Lord Protector considered that the settlement of Jews in England would hasten the arrival of the millennium.

A fever of expectation was in the air. Jewish and Christian mystics set the messianic date at around 1648.

In 1644, the Marrano Antonio Montezinos arrived in Amsterdam after visiting South America where he said he had found a lost tribe, claiming to be descended from Reuben.

Rabbi Menasseh ben Israel, a junior rabbi in Amsterdam, became very excited, convinced that Jews had to live in England for the redemption to take place.

He petitioned the English to allow this to happen. Arriving in London just before Rosh Hashanah, 1656, Rabbi ben Israel stayed in accommodation provided by Cromwell, near Whitehall.

London Marranos, Mr Gubbay said, became alarmed at the prospect of Jews becoming so high profile.

And with reason. A furious antisemitic outcry accompanied the petition. A Council of State declared no legal impediment to Jewish settlement but fear of Jews trying to convert Christians and taking over commerce abounded in the city of London.

Cromwell gave way to public opinion. A few weeks later England went to war with Spain. This led to the goods of all Spanish traders in England being confiscated.

Antonio Robles successfully protested that he was not Spanish but a Jewish Marrano. This encouraged six other Marranos to make a "humble petition" to Cromwell allowing them to meet for prayer in a private home and to bury their dead in a cemetery.

The petition was accepted.

Mr Gubbay said: "There was no written assurance. The Jews were not formally re-admitted."

He added: "We are supposed to be celebrating this. But anti-Jewish agitation continued."

It was Charles II, he said, who found Jewish money very useful who officially sanctioned the presence of Jews in England. But again this was accompanied by anti-Jewish agitation, which led to the repeal of the 1753 Jew Bill, which attempted to facilitate the naturalisation of foreign Jews.

Mr Gubbay said that emancipation came late for British Jews. Powerful antisemitic prejudice, he said, affected Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli even though he had been baptised. "He always remained an outsider," he said.

Neverless, all was not black for British Jewry, he said.

"Bonds of sympathy and enlightened self interest," he said, combined to make Jews tolerated and to give them basic human rights.

No government, he added, condoned attacks on Jews.

Christian sympathy for and support of Jews were also instrumental in the Balfour Declaration pledging a national home for the Jews in Palestine.

But social antisemitism was not abated. Dislike of Jewish refugees flared up in 1900. The Protocols of Zion were widely believed. In the 1930s British high society was riddled with antisemitism, he said.

A typical example, he said, was Lord Beaverbrook who said he despised antisemitism, but claimed the Jews were "dragging Britain into war".

Jewish Cabinet minister Leslie Hore-Belisha was forced to resign because of antisemitism.

Mr Gubbay maintained that, although overt antisemitism died after World War II, prejudice was still alive today in allusions to Jewish MPs Oliver Letwin and Michael Howard and also in media coverage of Israel.

He concluded: "I still believe that antisemitism is buried deeply in the English psyche."

He also warned against the "deeply buried prejudice" in Britain's two million Muslims.

The meeting, organised by the Jewish Historical Society, in conjunction with Shaare Hayim Synagogue, was introduced by synagogue president Clement Goldstone and JHS chairman Sara Gremson.

If gentiles are so anti-Semitic then why do so many Jews chose to live in gentile nations?