1

Who put the ‘Great’ into ‘Great Britain’?

By Graham Senior-Milne (grahammilne001@btinternet.com)

September 2013

Spectators watching the Thames Diamond Jubilee Pageant on 3 June 2012

If you were to be asked to draw up a list of the things which made Great Britain ‘Great’, or

quintessentially ‘British’, you would almost certainly include the following:

1. The British Empire.

2. The Royal Navy.

3. The Industrial Revolution.

4. Parliamentary Democracy.

5. Constitutional Monarchy.

6. Banking and Finance (and London as the financial capital of the world).

7. The English country house.

Let’s add tea-drinking, that quintessentially British pastime, just for interest.

This essay shows how all of these things either originated with, were developed with the help of or

received a critical driving impetus from, the Jews. A novel proposition? Certainly. Remarkable?

Undoubtedly. True? Positively.

My gradual realization of the significance of the part played by the Jews in British history grew out of

my researches into my own family history and I will use that history to illustrate the part played by a

single Jewish family, but not just in relation to British history in their case.

I have been researching the Jewish ancestry of my mother’s family for a number of years now. They

were Sephardic (i.e. Spanish) Jews surnamed ‘Senior’, which was derived from ‘Senor’, the Spanish

for ‘sire’ or ‘lord’, in the same way that ‘Monsieur’ in French is derived from ‘Mon sieur’ and actually

means ‘My lord’. The founder of the family (i.e. first person who used the surname) and its leading

member at the time of the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492 was Don Abraham Senior (1412-

2

1493), Chief Rabbi and Supreme Magistrate of the Jews of Castile, who was instrumental in

arranging the marriage in 1469 of Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile (which led to the

unification of Spain), Treasurer of the Catholic ‘Santa Hermandad’ (‘Holy Brotherhood’), Factor-

General and financier of the armies that drove the Moors from Spain and a financial backer, along

with other leading Jews or conversos (forced converts), of the 1492 voyage of discovery of

Christopher Columbus. A member of his family, Pedro Fernandez Coronel, accompanied Columbus

on his second voyage in 1493 and was appointed ‘Lord High Constable [Alguacil Mayor] of the Indies’

(See the letter from Columbus to the King and Queen dated January 1494 quoted in Young, Filson,

‘Christopher Columbus’, E. Grant Richards, London, 1906, Book II, Chapter VII) .

Don Abraham was referred to as ‘Exilarch’ in a letter of 1487 from the Jews of Castile to the Jews of

Rome and Lombardy*. ‘Exilarch’ (‘Rosh Galut’ or ‘Head of the Exiles’ in Hebrew) was the title used by

the Kings of Judah in exile in Mesopotamia and had been hereditary in and exclusive to the House of

David from the Babylonian Captivity of 597 BC until 1401 AD when Tamerlane the Great sacked

Baghdad, a period of almost 2000 years. Because, as far as we are aware, the title was never

accorded to or used to describe anyone not acknowledged by rabbinic authorities to be a senior heir

of the House of David (the title was elective amongst the senior members of the family and subject

to rabbinic approval), we can conclude, on the balance of probabilities (the standard of proof used in

civil courts), that, at that time, Don Abraham Senior was believed by the Sephardic Jews to be a

descendant of the House of David and we can reasonably infer that Don Abraham actually was

descended from one of those branches of the House of David that have been traced to Spain (see

the Jewish Encyclopaedia under ‘Exilarch’) and that the Jews attempted to revive the office of

Exilarch in Spain after it had been ended in Mesopotamia (as had also happened in Egypt in 1081

during an interregnum), an attempt evidently cut short by the expulsion of 1492.

*the letter refers to Don Abraham as ‘the staff from Judah that is our Exilarch’; that is, King of Judah

in exile, in accordance with the Blessing of Jacob (Genesis 49:10) (‘Spain and the Jews: The Sephardi

Experience, 1492 and After', Thames & Hudson, 1992, ed. Elie Kedourie, p. 70). See also Beinart,

Heim, ‘The Expulsion of the Jews from Spain’, Littman Library, 2002, p. 420, where the Hebrew is

translated as ‘the tribe of Judah, he the Exilarch who is over us, in whose hands there is the seal of

the communities’).

Don Abraham Senior, together with most of his family, converted to Christianity in 1492, partly as a

result of pressure from Ferdinand and Isabella, who were godparents at his baptism (along with

Cardinal Mendoza and the Papal Nuncio), partly on account of his age (he was 80 at the time) but

mainly, it seems, as a result of threats of reprisals against the Jews if he did not convert (a theme

that has become depressingly familiar). He adopted the surname Coronel, which means ‘coronet’,

and became Fernando Perez Coronel, taking the name Fernando after the King. He died in 1493 and

is buried in the chapel he founded, the Chapel of the Descent (from the Cross), in the Monastery of

Santa Maria del Parral, Segovia.

Even today, after 500 years, I get a strong sense that Don Abraham Senior has not been forgiven for

his ‘betrayal’ of his faith and his people (almost everything good that he did has either been

overlooked or has been attributed to others – including paying the ransom of 450 Jews, mainly

women and children, captured during the fall of Malaga). Had he been a less important figure he

would certainly not have been blamed in the way he has (it is estimated that some 50,000 Jews

converted to Christianity to avoid expulsion, possibly one-fifth or more of the total) and there would

have been more understanding of the factors that made him decide to do what he did; his age and

infirmity (he was 80 at the time) and compulsion and threats of reprisals by the King and Queen.

3

Furthermore, I have reason to suspect that the Jews agreed secretly amongst themselves that

prominent members of or families in their community (who had the standing to be above suspicion;

and Don Abraham’s standing was such that once he even sued the Inquisition – and won) would be

left behind to take over, as far as possible, the property the Jews were forced to leave behind and

even to collect gold and valuables hidden by the Jews before they left (they were not allowed to take

their valuables with them). We certainly know that such smuggling took place (see Soyer, Francois,

‘The Persecution of the Jews and Muslims of Portugal’, Brill, 2007, p. 107).

I also have reason to suspect that in the years following the expulsion the Senior/Coronel family was

involved in the smuggling of large quantities of gold and jewels (and people) from Spain into

Portugal so that it could be restored to the rightful Jewish owners (though we cannot know whether

this was actually achieved). My suspicions in this regard were aroused when I discovered that

members of the family had moved to a rural backwater miles from anywhere; a backwater that had

no possible merit (as far as I can see) – other than the fact that the town was divided in two by a

river and on the other side of that river was – Portugal. It has recently been discovered, I believe,

that houses backing onto the river Miño on the Spanish side (Salvaterra de Miño) were used to

smuggle Jews into Portugal (Monção) and that some of these houses had secret cellars for this

purpose. One can imagine the scene; a boat secretly moored amongst the reeds at the bottom of

the garden, a party emerging stealthily from the house in the middle of the night and making its way

silently to the riverbank, the whispering of farewells, the hurried embrace, the mounting of the oars

in padded rowlocks, the gentle pushing of the boat from the shore, a veiled light flashing briefly from

the darkness on the other side of the river, the boat merging into the blackness of the night, the

murmured blessings for a safe journey - they are gone, to be received into the house of a

‘Portuguese merchant’ (secret Jew) in Monção (and, yes, the Senior/Coronel family established a

presence there as well). It, or something like it, must have happened; there is no possible way that

the Jews would not have tried to salvage their wealth by some such means and they could only have

done this if some person or persons had remained in Spain for that purpose. Who better than the

richest and most powerful Jewish family in Spain at the time, intimate with the King and Queen

themselves (the King’s godson, no less, and his Private Secretary amongst others), immune, it

seemed, even from the Inquisition, above suspicion, untouchable? It makes sense.

The expulsion of the Jews from Spain.

4

Although the Senior/Coronel family was both rich and influential in Spain after 1492, over time they,

like many ‘conversos’ (forced converts), sought refuge in countries where they would be allowed to

openly re-adopt and practice their ancestral faith, rather than having to practice that faith in secret

as Crypto-Jews in constant fear of arrest, seizure of property, humiliation, interrogation, torture and

death at the hands of the Inquisition. Thus, over several generations after 1492 the Senior/Coronel

family moved from Spain to Portugal and from there to Holland and Germany, spreading also to

Brazil, the West Indies and other countries in the ‘New World’, then to New Amsterdam (which

became New York) after the Jews were expelled from Brazil in 1654 (following the re-conquest of

Brazil in that year by the Portuguese) and, eventually, England – which is where my branch of the

family settled. Branches of the family also spread to Turkey, Egypt and elsewhere.

As I tracked the Senior/Coronel family around the world and down the centuries (not an easy thing

to do given that most Crypto-Jews has several aliases) I gradually became aware of the extraordinary

way in which they seemed to have flourished in the countries they moved to, in a way that often

involved contacts and relationships with the rulers of those countries, and how they seemed to

amass (or perhaps take with them) considerable wealth. Consider the following:

Firstly, of course, there is Don Abraham Senior (Fernando Perez Coronel) himself, who was

not only Exilarch of the Jews (and therefore the Prince of his people) but also a trusted

advisor of Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile, who was instrumental in arranging

their marriage (and therefore the unification of Spain), who persuaded King Henry IV of

Castile to accept Isabella as heir to the throne of Castile, who was instrumental in ending the

Second Castilian Civil War, who financed and supplied the armies that drove the Moors from

Spain (they would almost certainly have failed without Jewish finance) and who, along with

other Jews or conversos, financed Christopher Columbus’ voyage of discovery to America in

1492. Don Abraham (and Isaac Abravanel) also pleaded with Ferdinand and Isabella to

reverse the decree of expulsion.

'The Expulsion of the Jews from Spain' (1889) by Emilio Sala y Frances

5

Don Abraham’s son-in-law, Meir Melamed (who became Fernando Nunez Coronel in 1492),

was the King’s Secretary and a member of the Royal Council.

In 1493 Pedro Fernandez Coronel accompanied Columbus on his second voyage of discovery

and was appointed ‘Lord High Constable of the Indies’, as stated above.

Voyage of Columbus

6

Maria Coronel, a grand-daughter of Don Abraham Senior, was the second wife of (and

mother of the two sons of) Juan Bravo (x 1521), the popular Spanish hero who led a revolt

against the Emperor, Charles V, the War of the Communities (1520-22), the first popular

revolution in history, and who was a member of the most distinguished family in Spain, the

Mendoza family, Dukes of Infantado (his mother was María de Mendoza, daughter of the

Count of Monteagudo).

Juan Bravo (x 1521), statue in Segovia.

7

Diego Laínez (1512-1565), who was one of the founders of the Society of Jesus (i.e. The Jesuits), along with Ignatius of Loyola (born Íñigo López de Loyola), a Spaniard of Basque origin, Francisco Xavier from Navarre (modern Spain), Alfonso Salmeron, Nicolás Bobadilla from Spain, Peter Faber from Savoy and Simão Rodrigues from Portugal, may have been a member of the Coronel family. 'The Jesuit Order As a Synagogue of Jews: Jesuits of Jewish Ancestry and Purity-Of-Blood Laws in the Early Society of Jesus', 2009, by Robert A. Maryks states (p. 58): 'There [Almazan], Loyola and Favre encountered, among others, Diego's two younger brothers, Marcos and Cristobal, who would later enter the Society. Perhaps at those occasions they also met Diego's sister, Maria Coronel, who later married Juan Hurtado de Mendoza - a member of one of the most prominent family [sic] in Castile - and bore him two sons who would follow their uncle Diego's vocation in the Society.' In other words, Diego Laínez's surname was Coronel (derived from his paternal grandmother, Dona Violante Gertrudis Coronel, buried in 1524 in the Lainez chapel in the Church of Our Lady of the Bell Tower, Almazan – using the surname of a rich or noble ancestor was common at that time). It is accepted that he was descended from a family of Converso Jews and the only family of Converso Jews with the surname Coronel were the family of Don Abraham Senior. It seems that Maria Coronel, the second wife of Juan Bravo, married Juan Hurtado de Mendoza after Juan Bravo's execution in 1521. He declined the office of Pope on the death of Pope Paul IV in 1559.

Diego Laínez (1512-1565) Ceremony at the statue of Diego Laínez in his birthplace of

Almazan (Soria, Spain) in 2012, marking the 500th anniversary of

his birth.

In 1497 Nicolao Coronel, a physician to the royal family, accompanied Isabella, daughter of

Ferdinand and Isabella and heir to the throne of Spain (and eldest sister of Catherine of

Aragon, wife of Henry VIII), to Portugal on the occasion of her marriage to King Manuel I of

Portugal. He became physician to the Portuguese royal family and his descendants were

made ‘Nobles of the Royal Household’ (‘Fidalgo da Casa Real’).

His son, João, may have been the ‘Mestre João’ (‘Master John’) who accompanied Pedro Alvares Cabral on his voyage of 1500 and who wrote the famous letter to King Manuel I concerning the discovery of Brazil (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/João_Faras and

8

pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carta_do_Mestre_ João). This possible identification has not been made before today (18/9/2013). ‘Mestre João’ has not been positively identified but he (1) described himself as a physician to King Manuel I, (2) was almost certainly a converted Sephardic Jew who had recently arrived in Portugal from Spain (we know this from his preference for writing in Spanish) and (3) signed himself ‘Johannes Emeneslau’ (which looks to me like a mis-reading or ‘mis-combining’ of initials or abbreviations appearing after his name). João, son of Nicolao Coronel, was (1) son of a physician to King Manuel I (and so may well have been a physician himself – and worked in the royal household), (2) a converted Sephardic Jew recently arrived from Spain (in 1497) and (3) known as ‘João de Leão’. Of course, thousands of Jews went from Spain to Portugal in or after 1492 but how many were called João and, of those called João, how many were in the royal household? So ‘João de Leão’ looks like a very good candidate. The expedition of 1500 was to India (Calicut), where the expedition went after the discovery of Brazil, so if ‘Mestre João’ is in fact ‘João de Leão’ this would mean that two members of the Coronel family took part in famous voyages of discovery; Pedro Fernandez Coronel with Columbus in 1493 and João de Leão with Cabral in 1500; that is, one to the West and one to the East; something which, to my knowledge, no other family has done.

Louis Nunez Coronel (d. 1531) was born in Segovia in the mid to late fifteenth century and was a scientist and theologian. He became a Professor at the University of Paris, and was the author of ‘Tractatus de Formatzione Syllogismorum’ (1507) and ‘Physicae Perscrutationes’ (1511), works on mechanics. He was a friend and ally of Erasmus and, from 1519, a confessor and councillor to the court of the Emperor, Charles V (“Coronel, Luis Nuñez”, Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography, 2008, Encyclopedia.com, 29 July 2013). He became Secretary to Alonso Manrique, Archbishop of Seville and Inquisitor-General of Spain, and later held a position at the Abbey of San Isodoro of León.

His brother, Antonio Nunez Coronel, also a Professor at the University of Paris, was the

author of important works on logic, including 'Questiones logice, secundum viam realium et

nominalium, una cum textus [Porhyrii] explanatione', (Paris, 1509), 'Expositio super libros

posteriorum Aristotelis' (Paris, 1510), 'Duplex Tractatus Terminorum' (Paris, 1511), 'Prima

pars Rosarii... in qua De propositione multa notanda. De materiis propositionum. De

contradictoriis in obliquis. De conditionatis et conversionibus ex libro consequentiarum

eiusdem assumptis. De modalibus. De propositionibus de futuro contingenti et de modo

arguendi ab affirmativa ad negativam (Paris, 1512), 'Secunda pars Rosarii logices... continens

septem capitula, primum de suppositionibus, secundum de generibus suppositionum, tertium

de relatavis, quartum de regulis suppositionum, quintum de ascensu et descensu, sextum de

ampliationibus, septimum de appellationibus' (Paris, 1512), 'Tractatus Syllogismorum' (Paris,

1517). According to Wikipedia (under 'John Major', accessed 24/1/2014) he taught both

John Calvin (see Parker T. H. L., 'John Calvin: A Biography', Westminster John Knox Press,

2007, p. 28) and (probably) Ignatius Loyola at the Collège de Montaigu (University of Paris),

two of the most important figures of the Reformation/Counter-Reformation and thus in

European and world history. Under the leadership and tutelage of John Major (or Mair)

(1467-1550), Antonio Coronel was part of that 'brilliant and diverse group of men' of the

University of Paris (Ashworth E. J., 'Language and Logic in the Post-Medieval Period',

Springer, 1974, p. 7) who were the fount of human rights law, including the rights to liberty

and property of the indigenous peoples of America. From 1519 he was, with his brother

(Louis Nunez Coronel above), a confessor and councillor to the court of the Emperor Charles

V.

Paul Nunez Coronel (d. 1534), who converted to Christianity, was Professor of Hebrew at the

University of Salamanca and was a co-author of the Latin translation of the Hebrew Bible for

9

the first polyglot (multi-lingual) Bible, the Complutensian Polyglot Bible of 1514-17

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complutensian_Polyglot) , one of the sources of the King

James Bible, 'the most influential version of the most influential book in the world, in what is

now its most influential language'.

A branch of the Coronel family (the da Mata Coronel family) settled in Portugal and amassed

a fortune in the spice trade, mainly pepper. They used this fortune to buy a monopoly of the

postal service in Portugal, by which means they amassed an even greater fortune (like the

Princes von Thurn und Taxis in Germany). They inter-married with descendants of the

Portuguese royal house (the de Sousa Coutinho family, Counts of Marialva and Marshals of

Portugal), built two enormous palaces (the Palace of Correio-Mor, Loures, near Lisbon, and

the Palace of Penafiel in Lisbon), adopted the name da Mata de Sousa Coutinho by marriage

and became Counts and Marquises of Penafiel, as well as Knights of the Order of Christ (the

successors to the Knights Templar). The 1st Count was a prominent commander in the

Peninsular War. This branch remained Catholic.

The Palace of Cerreio-Mor, Loures, nr. Lisbon, seat of the Counts and Marquises of Penafiel.

Another branch of the Coronel family in the female line (the d’Evora e Viega family) became

Marquises of Sao Payo in Portugal. They were also enormously wealthy and were ancestors,

in the female line, of the Marquises of Rodes and Counts of Lichtervelde in Belgium. They

also remained Catholic.

Solomon Senior/Juan Perez Coronel was the right-hand man of (and almost certainly related

to - via the Benveniste family) Joseph Nasi, appointed Duke of Naxos and the Seven Islands

(Duke of the Aegean), Count of Andros and Lord of Tiberias by the Sultan, Selim II (1524-

1574). Joseph Nasi encouraged the revolt of the Dutch against Spanish rule, which led to the

80 Years War (1568-1648), prompted the Sultan to make war on Venice and the Christian

maritime powers of the Mediterranean (this led to the Battle of Lepanto in 1571) and to

seize Cyprus (of which it was intended he would become Viceroy) and attempted the Jewish

resettlement of the Holy Land (C. Roth, ‘The Duke of Naxos: Of The House of Nasi,’, (1948),

p. 87). Interestingly, Joseph Nasi was very probably the basis of Marlowe’s play ‘The Jew of

Malta’, on which Shakespeare based his ‘Merchant of Venice’; Joseph Nasi was also behind

an attempt to blow up the Venice Arsenal.

His son, Francisco Coronel (or Coronello), administered the Duchy of Naxos (i.e. the Aegean)

on behalf of Joseph Nasi and defended it against the Venetian fleet in 1571.

Diego Teixeira Sampayo/Abraham Senior Teixeira (d. 1666), a descendant of Don Abraham

Senior in the female line, whose mother had been governess to King Sebastian of Portugal

(1554-78), was ennobled at Anvers (Antwerp) in 1643 (with the arms of the Marquises of

10

Sao Payo), having travelled from Portugal in that year. He later settled in Hamburg, where he

was known simply as the 'rich Jew'. He rode in an ornate carriage upholstered with velvet,

had liveried servants, and kept a princely house, which, in 1654, was for some time the

residence of Queen Christina of Sweden, to whom he had been recommended by the

Spanish ambassador, Don Antonio Pimentel (see the portrayal of him – Don Antonio - as the

lover of Queen Christina in the 1933 film, ‘Queen Christina’, starring Greta Garbo). At his

intercession in 1657 King Frederick III of Denmark granted the Jews privileges, which were

later confirmed by King Christian V. For several years he was the head of the Spanish-

Portuguese community in Hamburg, and at his son's wedding he presented the congregation

with a ewer and a basin of silver plated with gold, while in 1659 he contributed 15,000

marks for the erection of a synagogue. He supplied the copper roofing for the great Church

of St. Michael in Hamburg, and when the elders asked for his bill he requested them to

accept it receipted without payment (Jewish Encyclopaedia under ‘Teixeira’).

His son, Don Manuel Texeira/Isaac Haim Senior Texeira/Isaac Senior (1625-1705), left Lisbon

with his father in 1643. He was resident minister from the Court of Sweden to the City of

Hamburg (1661-1687/9) and was a great favourite of Queen Christina of Sweden (1626-89,

abdicated 1654) who, in 1661, lived for a year in his house in Hamburg. He and Queen

Christina intervened in the expulsion of the Jews from Vienna in 1670 (which was reversed in

1673). Don Manuel must have removed to Amsterdam before 1699, since in that year he

was head of the Spanish-Portuguese congregation in that city (Jewish Encyclopaedia under

‘Teixeira’).

David Senior/Duarte Saraiva Coronel (b. about 1575 in Portugal, d. 1650 in Brazil) was a

leading member of the Jewish community in Recife, Brazil, in the early to mid-1600s, and its

richest member, where he developed and owned sugar plantations. The first synagogue in

the Americas, the Kahal Zur Israel (Rock of Israel) Synagogue, was initially based in his house

(Morasha.com, Issue 32, April 2001). Interestingly, another branch of the family settled in

Curacao, where they invented the well-known orange-based liqueur, Curacao of Curacao,

which is still made in their factory today.

11

‘House of a Portuguese nobleman in Brazil’ by Frans Jansz Post (1612-1680). The ‘Portuguese

nobleman’ was almost certainly a Jew.

Curacao of Curacao – invented by the Senior family of Curacao.

12

María Coronel y Arana (1602-1665), Abbess of Ágreda, Spain, better-known as the Venerable

María de Jesús de Ágreda or ‘The Lady in Blue’ (sometimes also ‘The Blue Nun’ and ‘The

Flying Nun’) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mar%C3%ADa_de_%C3%81greda), was very

probably of the family. She was the daughter of Don Francisco Coronel and his wife Catalina

de Arana, both of Ágreda, who were described as noble but not wealthy. According to

http://www.desertusa.com/mag08/jan08/ladyinblue.html: ‘She had descended on her

father's side from a Jewish convert, or "converso", who had served as the chief tax collector

for the Catholic Monarchs, Ferdinand and Isabella, after they had energized the Inquisition

primarily for the purpose of persecuting the Jewish people in Spain.’ This is Don Abraham

Senior. Professor José Vilahomat, Professor of Spanish at Hendrix College, Conway, Arizona,

citing Kendrick, T D, 'Mary of Agreda: The Life and Legend of a Spanish Nun' (London,

Broadway House, 1967, pp. 8-11) states, in his 2004 paper 'Sister Maria de Jesus Agreda: The

authority of faith', that Francisco Coronel was ‘of Jewish descent’ - and the only Jewish

Coronel family was the Senior/Coronel family.

She was the authoress of the 8-volume ‘The Mystical City of God’ of which Father Laurent

wrote 'It is under the dictation of the Mother of Jesus Christ that she retraces the mortal life

of the Queen of Heaven; so that this work, fallen from the pen of a simple girl without

acquired knowledge, and living in the obscurity of a cloister, is perhaps, the most

extraordinary, and the most astonishing book that ever issued from mortal hands.'

'When Philip IV, King of Spain, heard that Mother Mary of Jesus had written a life of the

Virgin Mary, he requested a copy from her. At first she was unwilling, but finally yielded to

his entreaty. He was astonished at the depth of doctrine it contained, and submitted it to

eminent theologians for examination. One of them said that "he would wager upon a whole

room full of theologians, that this woman possessed the divine science."' - Doctor Carlos E.

Castañeda, Catholic historian.

'Whoever shall read this work with good will shall become learned; and whosoever shall

'pray' and meditate on it, will desire sanctity.' - Rev. Andrew Mendo, S.J., Professor of the

University of Salamanca, quoted by Doctor Carlos E. Castañeda, Catholic historian..

'P.D. Diegus de Silva, Abbot of the order of St. Benedict and Bishop of Guardia, delegated by

King Philip IV to examine the first edition of the Mystical City of God, seems to us to sum up

the total of all these praises in this sentence: "With the exception of Sacred Scripture, the

heavenly wisdom which it contains has never before been revealed to mortals."' - Doctor

Carlos E. Castañeda, Catholic historian.

The process of her beatification (declaring her 'Blessed'; the step between being declared

'Venerable' and being canonized as a saint) began in 1673 and is not yet complete. The main

reason for the reluctance of the Church to complete the process seems to be a concern,

expressed by Pope Benedict XIV (reigned 1740-1758), that it would result in ‘The Mystical

City of God’ being considered to be the '5th Gospel' of the New Testament (i.e. it would

become the first addition to the Bible in over 1500 years). According to Marilyn H. Fedewa,

in her 'Maria of Agreda: Mystical Lady in Blue' (p. 257), every Pope, on his accession to the

Throne of St. Peter, reads a note (or 'Judicium') prepared by Pope Benedict XIV about Maria

de Jesus of Ágreda to the effect that the Church should avoid turmoil in the Church by not

taking sides in the matter (i.e. the Church should neither approve or disapprove of 'The

13

Mystical City of God'). But if the work is accepted as divinely inspired (if not actually divinely

dictated, as the authoress stated), as it has been by numerous weighty authorities, then it

should be given its proper place in the canon of the works of the Church. It is clear that she

would have been canonized were it not for the Church's reservations concerning 'The

Mystical City of God', since she qualifies for sainthood on the grounds of the number of well-

attested miracles attributed to her (as well as the incorruptibility of her body, which is taken

as another sign of sainthood).

She is best known for having converted certain Indian tribes of New Mexico/Texas, including

the Jumanos, by means of bilocation (being in two places at once – she described herself

bilocating to America over 500 times, sometimes several times a day). She never left her

convent but was able to accurately describe many exact details of her visits to New

Mexico/Texas, including people (a one-eyed Indian chief called Tuerto for instance) and

events which could only have been known to someone who had actually been there (and

were independently confirmed by such people). In addition, the Indians of these tribes

described the visits of a 'Lady in Blue' who came down from the sky and who (from her

clothes) clearly belonged to the same order as Maria de Jesus de Ágreda and was also young

and beautiful (as she was). It was said by the Indians that the morning after her last visit they

found the countryside covered in blue flowers as a memento of her; the 'bluebonnet', which

became the state flower of Texas. She wrote the first accurate description of the appearance

of the earth from space.

'That Agreda really and truly visited America many times is attested to in the logs of the

Spanish Conquistadors, the French explorers, and the identical accounts of many Indian

tribes. Every authentic history of the Southwest of the United States records this mystic

phenomenon, unparalleled in the entire history of the world.... Of the two great landings in

America in 1620 - the Pilgrims in the north at Plymouth, Massachusetts, and Agreda in the

south - the mystical one has, and will yet have, far greater influence upon the history of the

world.' - Doctor Carlos E. Castañeda, Catholic historian. Spanish is now the most widely-

spoken language in the USA.

She became a spiritual and political advisor to King Philip IV of Spain and exchanged over

600 letters with him. He said of her 'Except for Sor [Sister] Maria's counsel, the unity of Spain

would never have been preserved.' She was involved in the negotiations preceding the

Treaty of the Pyrenees of 1659, which led to the marriage of Louis XIV to Maria Theresa and

eventually to the Bourbon succession to the throne of Spain and the War of Spanish

Succession of 1701-14 (when France wanted peace the first person they approached was

María de Jesús de Ágreda).

The latest of the many miracles ascribed to her is described by Marilyn Fedewa as follows:

'On February 20, 1867, Dr. E. Hanon, M.D., of Nivelles, Belgium, wrote the following: "Mary

Catherine Plas of Strombeck, [known] in religion [as] Sor M. Colette of the monastery of

Conceptionists in this city, aged thirty-two years, has been under my treatment since March

1863." Dr. Hamon described the progressive inflammation and deterioration of Sor Colette's

dorsal vertebrae, resulting in muscle deterioration, grave pain and palpitations, and

ultimately complete paralysis. Additionally, the patient vomited blood and could retain no

food. By the end of 1866, further treatment was deemed futile, and Sor Colette prayed

unsuccessfully for an end to her suffering through death. Then on January 27, 1867, the

14

abbess and all the nuns, including Sor Colette, began a novena in honour of Sor María of

Ágreda and her inspiring work in Mystical City of God. Each day, for nine consecutive days,

they prayed fervently that if it was God's will, Sor Colette would be cured through the merits

of Sor María. Throughout the nine days, Sor Colette held in her hands a small image of Sor

María. On Wednesday, February 6, 1867, the convent's spiritual director noted Sor Colette's

grievous condition. He heard her confession, believing it to be her last. The abbess, firm in her

faith for a cure, nevertheless instructed two nuns on the following day to bring Sor Colette to

the choir to give thanks. On February 7, the two nuns arrived at Sor Colette's room to find her

up and fully dressed. Understandably thinking that she would still be weak, the nuns

convinced her to sit on a chair, on which they would carry her downstairs to the choir. Soon,

however, Sor Colette realized the full extent of her cure. She descended the stairs on her own,

walked into the choir, and knelt before the altar fully recovered." The Rev. Mother Abbess

assured me", wrote Dr. Hanon, "that no remedy had been applied since my treatment had

ceased... Sor M. Colette's health was so perfect that on the following day she was able to

resume her usual occupations, and to recite the office with her sisters both by day and by

night. . . . I am willing to affirm this declaration by a solemn oath."'

The death of María de Jesús de Ágreda is described as follows:

'When she was given Extreme Unction, the serenity of her spirit shone on her countenance,

which became beautiful and smiling. She gave her last advice and blessing to each sister

saying: "I recommend to you, virtue, virtue, virtue." On the Feast of Pentecost at the very

moment of the day (nine o'clock) when, according to tradition, the Holy Ghost descended

upon the Virgin Mary and the Apostles, she, who had enjoyed so many visions, was called to

the eternal Beatific Vision. At the moment she died, she was seen radiant with heavenly light

in a church in Agreda by John Carrillo, a teacher who frequently communicated with the

Venerable María and to whom she had foretold her death. He had just received Communion

in the Church of St. Julian of the Franciscan Fathers, when he saw the servant of God

surrounded by a globe of light ascending toward heaven. María died at the age of 63 years

on the 24th of May, 1665, having been a nun 46 years, 35 of which she was Abbess. Her

sisters testify that in her last moments they heard a most sweet voice repeat: "Come, come,

come." At the last call, Sor María de Jesus de Agreda breathed forth her soul. Most Rev.

Joseph Zimenez Samaniego relates that at the precise hour of her death, Sor María was seen

ascending into heaven by persons of eminent perfection in several places far distant from

Agreda - thus fulfilling in a pre-eminent degree the promise of the Holy Spirit regarding His

Spouse, the Virgin Mary: "Qui elucidant me, vitam aeternam habebunt." - Ecclus. 24:31' -

Doctor Carlos E. Castañeda, Catholic historian.

She was the subject of a 'Da Vinci Code'-style novel, 'The Lady in Blue', by the leading

Spanish novelist and New York Times Best-Seller List author, Javier Sierra, which won the

2008 International Latino Book Award for the best English-edition historical novel. In this

novel the Coronel family are portrayed (p. 307-8) as hereditary angels of the lineage of Jesus

(the author cannot have been aware that Maria de Ágreda actually was descended from the

House of David, being of the family of the Exilarch, Don Abraham Senior).

Interestingly, the arms of her family (presumably Coronel), as shown above the main door of

her birthplace (now the convent), are not listed amongst any of the arms attributed to the

Coronel family at heraldicahispana.com. However, a coat of arms (or what looks like a coat

15

of arms) can be seen through the glass of the sarcophagus containing her uncorrupted body

(in the Convent of the Order of the Immaculate Conception in Ágreda), which looks rather

like the arms of Coronel (five eagles displayed), but these arms may not be related to the

sarcophagus, and even if they are, may not be five eagles (it is difficult to tell what they are -

possibly the five wounds of Christ). See also http://www.mariadeagreda.org/rdr.php. She

should not be confused with another Maria Coronel, Maria Fernández Coronel (1334-1409)

(see http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mar%C3%ADa_Fern%C3%A1ndez_Coronel), whose

uncorrupted body is at the Convent of St. Agnes, Seville, who was a member of the Coronel

family (who may have been Jewish in origin) from which Don Abraham Senior/Coronel took

his name and arms, being the great niece of Maria Alonso Coronel (d. 1332), whose tomb

with the Coronel arms can be seen at

http://www.genealogics.org/showphoto.php?personID=I00533057&tree=LEO&ordernum=1.

Arms (apparently) of the family of María Coronel y Arana.

Arms (or what appears to be arms) beside the sarcophagus of María Coronel y Arana. Five eagles?

Arms of Don Abraham Senior or Coronel and his descendants.

María de Jesús de Ágreda (María Coronel y

Arana) converting the Indians of New Mexico. María de Jesús de Ágreda (María Coronel y

Arana) with the Holy Mother and Child.

16

Sarcophagus containing the uncorrupted body of María de Jesús de Ágreda. The

arms can be seen behind the sarcophagus.

Bluebonnets, Ennis, Texas.

17

The Convent of the Order of the Immaculate Conception, Ágreda

Ágreda today, with the convent on the left behind the trees.

18

Statue of María de Jesús de Ágreda outside the Provincial Government

building, Calle Caballeros, Soria, Spain. The quill pen refers to her authorship of

'The Mystical City of God'.

King Charles II of Spain and Don Juan José of Austria praying to María de

Jesús de Ágreda in 1677.

19

Statue of María de Jesús de Ágreda outside the Convent of the Order of the

Immaculate Conception in Ágreda, Soria, Spain.

An altar cloth created by María de Jesús de Ágreda showing flora and fauna that she

encountered during her bilocation visits to New Mexico and Texas. The cloth shows

what appears to be a Hoopoe, which does not occur in that part of the world.

However, there is a bird native to that area called the Northern Flicker, which

(uniquely for a woodpecker) also feeds frequently on the ground like a Hoopoe and

which could easily be mistaken for a Hoopoe by a non-expert.

20

Pilgrims from Spain visiting a monument in 2012 erected by the Concho River in San

Angelo, Texas, which commemorates the mission to the Jumano Indians established

following María de Jesús de Ágreda's bilocation visits to that tribe. The inscription

reads: '1632-1966, Memorial, The Reverend Fray Juan de Ortega established a

mission near this site for the Jumano Indians, 1632. Erected by Texas Society

Colonial Dames XVII Century.'

21

The altar in the Convent of the Order of the Immaculate Conception in Ágreda, Soria,

Spain. The panel at the front of the altar table shows María de Jesús de Ágreda at

her desk writing 'The Mystical City of God' at the dictation of the Holy Mother. Behind

the altar María de Jesús de Ágreda stands beside and below the Holy Mother in a

sunburst.

Hernando de los Ríos Coronel may have been a member of the family (in the female line) but

I have no evidence of a connection other than his last name (which is the name of his

mother); his antecedents are unknown. He was a soldier and military leader, explorer,

navigator, cartographer, mathematician, scientist (he invented, inter alia, an astrolabe and a

device for converting sea water to fresh water), administrator (Factor-General in the

Philippines), representative of the Philippines in the Royal Court of Spain (Procurator-

General), author (of a 'Memorial' of 1621 and extensive sea-logs of his journeys - there are

200 documents written by him in the Archivo General de Indias in Seville) and eventually a

priest. Professor John Newsome Crossley, in his 'Hernando de los Ríos Coronel and the

Spanish Philippines in the Golden Age' (Ashgate, 2011) says that he was a selfless, even

fearless individual, prepared to stop the abuses of superiors and protect indigenous people

from arbitrary exploitation (pp. 80, 156); that he was 'the single most important person of

22

his time from the Philippines' (p. xii) and that 'without him the Philippines might well have

been lost to the Dutch or swapped for Brazil, or, even worse perhaps, the Islands could have

been completely forgotten by Spain. But they were not. What mattered most to him, and he

was quite explicit about this, was that he had always done his duty, to king and to God, and

thereby to his fellows, without fear or favour' (p. 181). In 1593, on behalf of the then

Governor (Luis Pérez Dasmariñas), he supervised the making of the famous Marian icon 'Our

Lady of the Most Holy Rosary of La Naval de Manila', now in Santo Domingo Church, Quezon

City, Philippines, which was credited with five miraculous naval victories over the Dutch in

1646 (La Naval de Manila). She was granted a canonical crown by Pope Pius X in 1906.

'Our Lady of the Most Holy Rosary of La Naval de Manila'

23

Hernando de los Ríos Coronel overseeing the creation of Our Lady.

Sir Augustine Coronel-Chacon was a Portuguese Jew who was one of the founders of the

Jewish community in London but he later converted to Christianity. He supported Charles II

during his exile and was the first to advocate the marriage of Charles II to Catherine of

Braganza, who introduced tea drinking to England. He was the first English Jew to be

knighted (but after he had converted). Critically, Catherine of Braganza’s dowry included the

port of Bombay (Mumbai) and it was Bombay that provided England with the critical toe-

hold in India that led to British domination in India, the jewel in the crown of the British

Empire. Thus it can be said that it was a Jew who ultimately provided the key to the British

Empire in India.

A branch of the Senior family (who later took the name Husey-Hunt, of Compton Castle,

Compton Pauncefoot, Somerset (recently on the market for £22 million) – but whose

connection to the Senior/Coronel family has not yet been proved) was granted an estate of

2000 acres in Jamaica in 1690 by King William III following his seizure of the English throne in

1688 (House of Lords Proceedings 1831-32, Appendix to CCCVI-CCCVII). It is likely that this

grant was effectively the repayment of a debt, which would probably mean that the Senior

family were backers of the Glorious Revolution of 1688 (other Jews certainly were, as shown

below).

A member of the Coronel family was sent by the Sultan (presumably Mahmud I) as Envoy

Extraordinary to the Empress, Maria Theresa (1717-1780), leading to the reversal of her

decree of expulsion of the Jews from Bohemia in 1745 (Jewish Encyclopaedia under ‘Amigo,

Meir’ and Encyclopaedia Judaica under ‘Bohemia’).

Moses Aaron Senior (d. 1736), a ‘West Indian Jew’, my first Senior ancestor in this country,

moved to England, converted to Christianity and was naturalised by Act of Parliament in

1723. He married a cousin of William Pitt (1708-1778), Prime Minister and 1st Earl of

Chatham, whose family fortune came from the acquisition of an enormous diamond (the

Regent diamond, which ended up in a diadem worn by the Empress Eugenie, whose father,

the 17th Marquis of Moya, was descended from Andreas de Cabrera (1430-1511), 1st Marquis

of Moya, a close relation, according to the Jewish Encyclopaedia, of Don Abraham Senior,

24

whose first wife was Violante de Cabrera). He played no part in politics though his wife’s

family was responsible for the impeachment and trial of the Lord High Chancellor (the 1st

Earl of Macclesfield) for high crimes and misdemeanours.

The Regent Diamond – the most beautiful diamond in the world.

View of Bissex Hill, Barbados, on the left, looking towards the east coast. Senior’s Plantation, St. Joseph’s Parish, is on the other side of Bissex Hill. There seems to have been another ‘Senior’s Plantation’ in Bruce’s Vale, St. Andrew’s Parish. They also owned plantations called Baldrick’s and Pool’s.

A property in what was Senior’s Plantation, St. Joseph’s Parish, Barbados. The Senior’s plantation house was apparently called ‘Content’ (St. Thomas), just west of Dukes (the Seniors and the Dukes inter-married) and between Rock Hall and Bennets.

His elder son, Nassau Thomas Senior (d. 1786), was Governor of the Company of Merchants

Trading to Africa, which made him effective Governor of the Gold Coast (i.e. West Africa)

and all the coast of Africa between Morocco and the Cape of Good Hope (South Africa).

Remember though that the Company had taken no part in the slave trade since 1731.

25

Nassau Thomas Senior (d. 1786)

Cape Coast Castle, Gold Coast, seat of the Governor of the Company of Merchants Trading

to Africa.

His younger son, Ascanius William Senior (1728-1789), narrowly escaped the Black Hole of

Calcutta and made a fortune in India, where he was a favourite of the Nawab (Prince) of

Bengal, Najam-ud-dowla (whose succession to the throne he played a key role in) and a

member of the ruling council. It was during this Nawab’s reign that Bengal became a mere

client state of Britain and so firmly established the British Empire in India. He married a

daughter of Jane Nevill (d. 1786), de jure 4th Baroness Bergavenny of the 6th creation,

premier baron in the peerage of England. He acquired a country estate (Pylewell near

Lymington) and became High Sheriff of Hampshire.

26

Pylewell House, near Lymington, in about 1830.

Nassau Thomas Senior’s grandson, Nassau William Senior (1790-1864), of Hyde Park Gate,

London, a barrister and prominent political economist (he was Marx’s ‘toady of the

bourgeoisie’, but then an insult from Marx is a compliment of a kind - ‘Kapital’, vol. IV, ch.

IV), was an adviser to successive British governments on important issues such as education,

trade unionism and Ireland, and was offered (but refused) the Governor-Generalship of

Canada, as well as the consequential peerage. He also declined a seat in the House of

Commons in 1834. He framed the proposal that prevented a war between Great Britain and

the United States during the Oregon Dispute of 1844-6 and he also used his political

influence to assist the Unionist North during the American Civil War by helping to prevent

British-built warships being sold to the Confederate South (Hughes, Sarah Forbes, ‘Letters

and Recollections of John Murray Forbes’, Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston & New York,

1899, vol. II, p. 19). He was the author of the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834, which gave

people a legal right to emergency medical treatment (and the infirmaries established under

the Act were the foundation of the National Health Service), and he was described by Count

Cavour, the founder of modern Italy, as 'the most enlightened thinker in Great Britain'.

27

Nassau William Senior (1790-1864), in his Eton uniform aged 12, 'the most enlightened

thinker in Great Britain' according to Count Cavour, by Elizabeth Mary Booth, a pupil of John

Opie.

Interestingly, his only son, Nassau John Senior (1822-1891), my great-great-grandfather,

who became a barrister, was frequently taken, as a little boy, from his home in Hyde Park

Gate for a walk in Kensington Palace Gardens where he often met, and became the ‘little

favourite’ of, the young Princess (later Queen) Victoria (Simpson, Mary Charlotte, ‘Many

Memories of Many People’, Edward Arnold, London, 1898, p. 3). He was painted playing

with his dog at this time by Sir Thomas Lawrence (This must be Lawrence’s painting ‘The boy

and dog’, p. 4). It is curious to think that the young woman who was destined to become

Empress of the greatest empire in history should have had such personal, innocent and

unknowing contact with a scion of the ruling dynasty (far, far older and infinitely more

exalted than her own) of a people which had contributed, as I show below, so critically to

the growth of that empire. His wife, Jane Elizabeth Senior (née Hughes) (1828-1877), was

one of the co-founders of the British Red Cross and was the model for Dorothea, heroine of

George Eliot’s ‘Middlemarch’, the greatest work of literature in the English language

(‘Oldfield [in ‘Jeanie, an ‘Army of One’’, Sussex University Press, 2008] goes on in Chapter 9

to argue convincingly for Jeanie as the inspiration for George Eliot's most famous heroine,

Dorothea in Middlemarch, clinching her argument by quoting Eliot's letter to her "Dear

Friend" about the diffusive effects of her goodness. Oldfield is not the first to suggest this:

"Dorothea is you," a friend wrote to Jeanie in 1873, "in her great loving heart, in her desire to

benefit all the world, and in her perfect self-forgetfulness she is just you" (qtd. in Oldfield

142).’ - www.victorianweb.org/history/oldfield.html, accessed 8/1/2014).

28

Engraving of ‘The boy and dog’ (detail) by Sir Thomas Lawrence (1827/8) – Nassau John

Senior (1822-1891), the ‘little favourite’ of Princess (later Queen) Victoria (1819-1901).

Over a period of about 400 years therefore (roughly the 1450s to the 1850s) the Senior/Coronel

family was actively involved, at various times, with the ruling houses/royal families/governments of

Spain, Portugal, Holland, several German states, Austria/Bohemia, Denmark, Sweden, England (and

then Great Britain), the Ottoman Empire and the Americas (including Brazil and the USA) and

possibly the Philippines; the family played a part (sometimes a leading part) in several key historical

events or developments, including the unification of Spain (the marriage of Ferdinand and Isabella in

1469 is deemed by one advocate of Chaos Theory to be the most important event in world history

because it led to the discovery of the New World and what followed afterwards, the empire of

Charles V, the growth of Protestantism, the Dutch Revolt and so on), the discovery and settlement of

the New World, the expulsion of the Moors from Spain (after 800 years), the revolt of the Dutch

against Spanish rule and the subsequent ’80 Years War’, the expansion of the Ottoman Empire in the

Mediterranean (and its alliance with France against the Hapsburgs), the attempted Jewish re-

settlement of Palestine, the abdication of Queen Christina of Sweden, the Restoration of the English

monarchy in 1660 and - it appears - the Glorious Revolution of 1688 in England, as well as the

American Civil War; they occupied high positions in the government of (or, in one case, were offered

but refused the governorship of) the Indies (i.e. the Americas), the Gold Coast (West Africa) and the

whole coast of Africa from Morocco to the Cape of Good Hope, India (Bengal), Canada, the Eastern

Mediterranean (the Aegean, Cyprus and Palestine) and possibly the Philippines and were leaders or

leading members of the Jewish communities in Spain, Portugal, Holland, Germany, Brazil, the

Ottoman Empire, the Aegean/Eastern Mediterranean and England. On three occasions members of

the family tried to prevent the expulsion of the Jews from countries; Spain in 1492 (unsuccessful),

Vienna in 1670 (unsuccessful, but expulsion reversed in 1673) and Bohemia in 1745 (successful).

Members of the family knew and influenced, and even taught, some of the outstanding intellectual

and religious figures in European (and therefore world) history, including Erasmus, John Calvin and

Ignatius Loyola. One member of the family, Diego Laínez (1512-1565), refused the Papacy.

29

Many families have achieved prominence in one country and such prominence has sometimes

extended over several generations but few have done so as part of a disadvantaged, excluded and

persecuted minority (most of the others are, of course, other Jewish families, such as the

Rothschilds).

The remarkable story of my mother’s wider family eventually led me to appreciate the critical (but

unsung) part played by the Jews in many of the key events/developments in history, including the

growth of the British Empire, as described below.

England (which united with Scotland in 1707 to form Great Britain) was a late arrival on the

international scene as a maritime and imperial power and, indeed, hardly figured as such for about

150 years after the discovery of America in 1492. The great maritime empires of the Age of

Discovery (from the mid-15th century into the 17th century) were those of the Portuguese, then the

Spanish and later the Dutch, and it was these three nations that discovered and developed the trade

routes to India and the Far East and discovered, conquered and settled the Americas. England may

have singed the King of Spain’s beard but this was little more than an annoyance and was not

significant in European or global political terms. It was ‘Calais’, a secondary French town, that Queen

Mary I (of England) said was engraved on her heart in 1558, not ‘America’, so she was already out of

date and looking in the wrong direction. Thus the ‘known world’ was initially carved up between the

Spanish and Portuguese by the Treaty of Tordesillas of 1494 on a meridian of longitude 370 leagues

west of the Cape Verde Islands, somewhere between 42°W and 50°W depending where you start.

Essentially, Spain was granted (by the Pope) the whole of the Americas excluding Brazil and Portugal

was granted Brazil and everything to the east (Africa, India, the East Indies etc.).

In spite of earlier attempts at settlement, it was only in the 1620s, well over a century later, that

England gained tiny island colonies in the Caribbean; St. Kitts (1624), Barbados (1627), Nevis (1628)

and Antigua (1632). Jamaica followed in 1655 and the Bahamas in 1666. The seventeenth century

also saw the establishment of English settlements in North America; Virginia (1609 - not officially

settled until 1624), Maryland (1634), Rhode Island (1636), Connecticut (1639), Carolina (1663), New

York (1664), which was seized from the Dutch, and Pennsylvania (1681), but these were not

economically significant at that stage.

So how did England move from being a second-rate player on the international stage in the 16th and

17th centuries to gain not only the greatest empire the world has ever seen in the 18th and 19th

centuries, but also become the world’s dominant naval power, the birthplace of the industrial

revolution, the seat of constitutional monarchy and parliamentary democracy and the financial

powerhouse of the world? What part did the Jews play in these developments? I will try to answer

that question – and the answer starts with ‘a spoonful of sugar’:

1. Most people, even historians, and including myself until recently, are unaware of the history

of the sugar industry or the historical significance of sugar (the world’s largest crop), but the

development of the sugar industry in the New World in the 16th and 17th centuries was

comparable to the oil rush of the 19th and 20th centuries and was, relatively speaking, as

politically and economically significant; sugar was the ‘white gold’ of the time in the same

way that oil was the ‘black gold’ of a later period and it also drove an industrial revolution as

described below. Enormous personal fortunes were made and huge revenues accrued to the

nations that dominated the industry - and it was the Jews who were mainly behind the

development of that industry, largely in Brazil, and who took their technological,

organisational, financial and trading skills to the English colony of Barbados, where a sugar

industry had already been established but which had failed to take off in any meaningful way

30

- ‘The introduction of sugarcane from Dutch Brazil completely transformed society and the

economy. Barbados eventually had one of the world's biggest sugar industries after starting

sugar cane cultivation in 1640. One group which was instrumental for ensuring the early

success of the sugar cane industry were the Sephardic Jews, who originally been expelled

from the Iberian peninsula to end up in Dutch Brazil.’ (Wikipedia under ‘History of Barbados’

citing ‘Barbados: Just Beyond Your Imagination’, Hansib Publishing (Caribbean) Ltd, 1997, pp.

46, 48). ‘In consequence [of the growth of the sugar industry], the West Indian islands had

become for more than one state the foundation of their commercial and political greatness.’

(Parker, Matthew, ‘The Sugar Barons’, Windmill Books, 2011, p. 2). David Senior (d. 1650)

was a key figure in the growth of the sugar industry in Brazil and his relative, Joseph Senior

Saraiva (d. 1694), probable father of my ancestor, Moses Aaron Senior (d. 1736), was among

the Jewish sugar plantation owners in Barbados (though a minor one).

2. The tiny island of Barbados soon contributed more revenue to the English government than

all its other colonies combined (Wikipedia, accessed 29/07/2013, under ‘History of

Barbados’ quoting Richard B. Sheridan, ‘Sugar and Slavery: An Economic History of the

British West Indies, 1623-1775’, p. 144).

3. A similar process took place in Jamaica, seized from Spain by the English in 1655. It was the

Jews, tired of suffering under Spanish rule, who encouraged the English to seize Jamaica and

it was the Jews who were largely responsible for the successful development of the sugar

industry on that island. The Jews were also behind the establishment of that island as a base

for Caribbean pirates, and even became pirates themselves, a sweet revenge on the Spanish

for hundreds of years of oppression (Kritzler, Edward, ‘The Jewish Pirates of the Caribbean’,

Anchor, 2009, p. 15).

4. The Jewish Encyclopaedia under ‘Jamaica’ states ‘Clarendon's "State Papers" refer, under

date of 1623, to some of these Portuguese as yearning to throw off the Spanish yoke. The

principal pilot, Captain Campoe Sabbatha, whom Penn and Venables relied upon in their

attack upon Jamaica seems to have been a Jew, and there is strong reason for believing that

Cromwell considered Jews settled and to be settled in and about Jamaica as important

factors in the establishment of his ambitious British colonial policy. Simon de Caceres, one of

Cromwell's principal secret-intelligencers, furnished him with reports on conditions in

Jamaica immediately after its conquest. The British, in their methods of dealing with the

conquered residents, were careful to distinguish between the Portuguese Jews and the

Spanish inhabitants, with the result that Jews at once began to establish and develop the

commercial prosperity of the island. The Dutch capitulation of Brazil augmented the Jewish

settlement in Jamaica; it was further increased by considerable accessions from Surinam

upon the British withdrawal from that district in 1675, and by direct migration from England,

beginning in 1663, and later from Curaçao and Germany. In 1700 the Jews bore the bulk of

the taxes of the island, though the avowed Jewish population at that time is figured as only

80. No fewer than 151 of the 189 Jews in the American colonies whose names have been

handed down as naturalized under the Act of Parliament of 1740 between that year and

1755, resided in Jamaica. The vanilla and sugar industries of Jamaica, and in fact almost the

entire foreign and intercolonial trade of the colony during the first half of the eighteenth

century, were principally in the hands of the Jews, and Jamaica was a far more important

commercial center in that century than it since has been.’

5. By 1750 sugar had surpassed grain as ‘the most valuable commodity in European trade - it

made up a fifth of all European imports and in the last decades of the century four-fifths of

the sugar came from the British and French colonies in the West Indies.’ (Ponting, Clive,

‘World History: A New Perspective’, Chatto & Windus, London, 2000, p. 510). ‘In the years

31

1625 to 1750, sugar was worth its weight in gold.’ (New World Encyclopaedia under ‘Sugar’).

‘One economist concluded that the labours of the people settled in the West Indies doubled

and perhaps trebled the activity of all Europe. “They may be considered”, he wrote, “as the

principal cause of the rapid motion which now agitates the universe.” Sugar was the driving

force and an important part of Britain’s rapidly expanding and now global commerce.’

(Parker, Matthew, ‘The Sugar Barons’, Windmill Books, 2011, p. 298).

6. In his ‘A History of the English-speaking Peoples’ (vol. II, p. 141) Winston Churchill wrote: ‘By

the 1640s Barbados, St. Christopher, Nevis, Montserrat and Antigua were in English hands

and several thousand colonists had arrived. Sugar assured their prosperity and the Spanish

grip on the West Indies was shaken. There was competition and warfare in succeeding years

but for a long time these settlements were commercially much more valuable than the

colonies in North America.’ Thus, while Churchill identified the financial significance of the

sugar industry, he missed the key part played by the Jews in the development of that

industry and the critical significance of the revenues from the industry as an enabler of

England’s/Great Britain’s imperial, commercial and financial expansion.

7. But it is clear that the potential revenues from the sugar industry encouraged England/Great

Britain to establish a maritime empire and that the actual revenues from that industry

provided much of the funding that enabled it to expand that empire, necessarily including

the development of a navy which could challenge and eventually overcome the existing

imperial and maritime powers (so, in part, the Jews indirectly enabled the development of

the Royal Navy). The wealth of the sugar industry was certainly the critical factor in this

process because the pursuit of wealth was the key driver behind colonial and maritime

expansion and the single largest financial benefit from colonial expansion at that time came

from the sugar industry. ‘If the navigation laws led to England’s supremacy on the seas, that

small island [Barbados] was the cause which led to the navigation laws.’ (Schomburg, Sir

Robert, ‘The History of Barbados’, 1848).

8. The critical part played by the sugar industry in the early development of English colonial

and maritime power, both as incentive and enabler, cannot therefore be doubted – and the

critical part played by the Jews in the development of England’s sugar industry cannot be

doubted either; hence the role played by the Jews in the early growth of English colonial and

maritime power. It is a cause and effect (the part played by the Jews in the growth of the

English sugar industry and the part played by the sugar industry in English colonial and

maritime expansion) that is clear and obvious.

9. It is convenient, at this point, to consider the Jewish influence on the industrial revolution,

because that influence is also connected to the sugar industry.

10. ‘Approximately three thousand small mills built before 1550 in the New World created an

unprecedented demand for cast iron, gears, levers, axles and other implements. Specialist

trades in mold making and iron casting were inevitably created in Europe by the expansion of

sugar. Sugar mill construction is the missing link of the technological skills needed for the

Industrial Revolution that is now recognized as having begun in the first part of the 1600s.’

(New World Encyclopaedia under ‘Sugar’. See also Benitez-Rojo, Antonio, ‘The Repeating

Island’, Duke University Press, 1996).

11. Thus the sugar industry and the Jews who largely developed that industry were behind what

could (indeed, should) be called the ‘First Industrial Revolution’, which was clearly a

precursor to the later, and second, ‘Industrial Revolution’ in England in eighteenth and

nineteenth centuries. Not only was this earlier industrial revolution a technological

precursor and enabler of the later industrial revolution but the financial revolution which

made London the world’s financial capital provided the finance and financial expertise which

32

were an essential catalyst of that revolution. It is one thing to invent a revolutionary

machine in a cottage or shed; it is quite another to move from there to mass production

using that invention. Such a thing requires not only finance but also a source of raw

materials. As shown below, the financial infrastructure was largely the product of Jewish

endeavour, as was the empire which provided the raw materials. The three critical

ingredients of Britain’s industrial revolution were (1) technology, (2) finance and (3) raw

materials (one may also add transport, for which see my comments about the Royal Navy

above, and coal) and the Jews played a key part in providing all three (including India, the

key source of raw materials for Britain, as described below).

12. With regard to the English country house, Matthew Parker, in his ‘The Sugar Barons’

(Windmill Books, 2011, p. 300), states: ‘Having made their fortunes, the planters now

wanted landed aristocrat status: it was boom time for the designers and builders of stately

homes. Among the families purchasing great estates and building vast new mansions were

the Lascelles [who eventually married into the royal family, of course, with the marriage of

Henry Lascelles (1882-1947), later 6th Earl of Harewood, to Princess Mary (1897-1965), only

daughter of King George V]. Henry’s heir Edwin built the enormous Harewood House in

Yorkshire, designed by John Carr of York, with interiors by John Adam and furniture by

Thomas Chippendale. The mansion also contained a 70-foot long gallery to display family

portraits of the Lascelles by Sir Joshua Reynolds. Edwin would subsequently become the first

Baron Harewood. At Dodington in Gloucestershire, the Codrington family seat, a new garden

was laid out by Capability Brown, and James Wyatt constructed a lavish mansion with a huge

Corinthian portico. Many other West Indian nabobs followed suit. By the late 1770s “there

were scarcely ten miles together throughout the country where the estate of a rich West

Indian was not to be seen”, as Lord Shelburne, later Prime Minister, declared in the House of

Commons. Most had a London residence as well, with many buying up houses in the

fashionable new development around Marylebone, particularly on Wimpole Street.’ Clearly

then, the fortunes derived from the West Indian sugar industry drove a boom in country

house building, precisely during that period regarded as the golden age of English country

house building, the 18th century.

Harewood House, Yorkshire – built with a West Indian sugar fortune.

13. With regard to the part played by Jews in the restoration of the monarchy in 1660, two

leading Jews, Mendes da Costa and Sir Augustine Coronel-Chacon, supported Charles II

during his exile and it was the latter who first proposed the marriage of Charles II to

Catherine of Braganza (who introduced tea-drinking to England). Clearly the Jews were not

33

solely responsible for the restoration of the monarchy in 1660 but they did play a key part in

it. Put it this way: ‘How far would Charles II have got if he had been a penniless exile?’

14. With regard to the growth of the City of London as a financial centre it was Amsterdam, not

London, that was the financial capital of Europe from the early seventeenth century to the

early/mid eighteenth century (and it had been Antwerp before that). The Jewish

Encyclopaedia (under ‘Banking’) states: ‘In the middle of the eighteenth century the Pintos,

Delmontes, Bueno de Mesquita, and Francis Mels of Amsterdam were the leading financiers

of northern Europe; while in London, which, owing to the relations of William III with Holland,

was financially dependent on Amsterdam, Mendes da Costa, Manasseh Lopez, and Baron

d'Aguilar held prominent positions. The very first work on the operations of the Amsterdam

Exchange was written by a Spanish Jew named Joseph de la Vega.’ As with London, the Jews

were originally attracted to Amsterdam for two reasons; religious toleration and commercial

opportunities. As with London, the Jews were not solely responsible for the growth of

Amsterdam as a financial and commercial centre but they did contribute very significantly to

that growth, possibly more than any other race. The success of the Jews in London can be

gauged by the repeated attempts to expel them or curtail their activities which, according to

the Jewish Encyclopaedia (under ‘London’), happened in 1660, 1664, 1673 and 1685. The

leading Jewish merchants are estimated to have brought a capital of £1,500,000 to England,

which had increased by the middle of the 18th century to £5,000,000 (Wikipedia,

‘Resettlement of the Jews in England’, accessed 12/8/2013). That article also states, as

quoted below, that William III’s ‘tenure of the throne, however, brought about a closer

connection between the London and the Amsterdam [Jewish] communities, and thus aided in

the transfer of the centre of European finance from the Dutch to the English capital.’ It is

clear (1) that Amsterdam became the financial capital of Europe with significant Jewish help

and (2) that London replaced Amsterdam as the financial capital of Europe with significant

Jewish help. We may not be able to say that London would not have become the financial

capital of Europe without the Jews (but see below) but we can say that it became the

financial capital of Europe largely because of the Jews.

15. The mention of William III leads us to consider the Glorious Revolution of 1688 and that

keystone of British democracy, the Bill of Rights of 1689, together with the struggle against

French supremacy in Europe under William and Mary and their successor, Queen Anne.

‘William III, though it is reported that he was assisted in his descent upon England by a loan

of 2,000,000 guilders from Antonio Lopez Suasso, afterward Baron Avernes de Gras, did not

interfere when in 1689 some of the chief Jewish merchants of London were forced to pay the

duty levied on the goods of aliens; though he refused a petition from Jamaica to expel the

Jews. His tenure of the throne, however, brought about a closer connection between the

London and the Amsterdam communities, and thus aided in the transfer of the centre of

European finance from the Dutch to the English capital. Early in the eighteenth century the

Jewish community of London comprised representatives of the chief Jewish financiers of

northern Europe, including the Mendez da Costas, Abudientes, Salvadors, Lopezes, Fonsecas,

and Seixas. A small German contingent had arrived and established a synagogue in 1692, but

they were of little consequence, and did not figure in the relations between the Jews and the

government. The utility of the larger Jewish merchants was recognized. Marlborough in

particular made great use of the services of Sir Solomon de Medina, and indeed was publicly

charged with taking an annual subvention from him.’ (Wikipedia, ‘Resettlement of the Jews

in England’, quoting the Jewish Encyclopaedia under ‘England’, accessed 12/8/2013). The

Jews therefore seem to have substantially financed William’s seizure of the throne in 1688 –

and it was that event that led to the Bill of Rights of 1689. Indirectly, therefore, the Jews

34

made possible the establishment of British constitutional monarchy, which is itself the

cornerstone of British parliamentary democracy. Further, the Jews played a significant role

in the successful attempt in the 18th century to prevent French hegemony in Europe. This, in

turn, helped Great Britain to compete with France in the fight for colonial power in India,

Canada and elsewhere.

16. With regard to the growth of British power in India, the acknowledged jewel in the crown of

the British Empire, it was Sir Augustine Coronel-Chacon, a Portuguese Jew, who first

proposed the marriage of Charles II to Catherine of Braganza, and it was her dowry which

brought Bombay, the keystone of the English/British presence in India, to the English.

England’s first fortress in India, Fort St. George, had only been established in 1644 and it was

soon eclipsed by the growth of Bombay; the population of which grew from 10,000 in 1661

(the year it was ceded to England) to 60,000 in 1675. Again, there can be no doubt that the

English/British would have tried to expand their presence in India even without having

acquired Bombay in this way, and that they would probably have succeeded in doing so –

but to be handed Bombay on a plate, the jewel in the crown of the jewel in the crown – that

must have made a significant difference, must have eased the path.

17. In the late 18th and 19th centuries, with the increasing acceptance of the Jews in British

society, their contribution to British life becomes more visible; Disraeli (Prime Minister), the

Rothschilds (bankers and legislators), the Rufus Isaacs family (Viceroy of India and later

Marquesses of Reading) and so on and so on. Once free to do so many Jews prospered and

achieved distinction in public life.

So there we are; the growth of the sugar industry (and the development of the associated industrial

technology), banking and finance (and the growth of London as a financial centre), the acquisition

and development of overseas colonies (Barbados, Jamaica, Bombay and so on), the development of

the English country house, key political developments (such as the Restoration of the Monarchy in

1660, the Glorious Revolution of 1688, the Bill of Rights of 1689 and the War of Spanish Succession

of 1701-1714) and the industrial revolution – directly or indirectly the Jews played a key part,

sometimes a critical part, in all of them.

Admittedly, it is not easy to appreciate the full extent of the role played by the Jews in the growth of

the British international pre-eminence, particularly when you have been brought up to believe a

version of history which completely ignores that role - and then the facts are suddenly laid before

you. It took me several years to fully understand the matter. But, in my view, it is not just that the

Jews played a key part in many of these developments; it is that they were the ‘sine qua non’

(‘without which nothing’) of many of them – in other words, they would not have happened at all

were it not for the Jews.

In the context of the industrial revolution it is instructive to consider the reasons that are commonly

given for it happening in Britain rather than elsewhere. Take the New World Encyclopedia article on

‘History of the Industrial Revolution’ for instance*. The reasons put forward or stated as being put

forward by others include the end of feudalism, population growth, improvements in agricultural

production, colonial expansion and the growth of international trade, the creation of financial

markets and the accumulation of capital, technological and scientific invention, natural resources

(including coal), a stable political environment, the presence of an entrepreneurial class, the

Protestant work ethic and the existence of religious dissenters (such as the Quakers, Baptists and

Presbyterians) who were prevented from holding public office and so sought other opportunities in

trade, finance and manufacturing.

* http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/History_of_the_Industrial_Revolution

35

Of the Jews there is no hint at all in the article (while other groups, like the Quakers, Baptists and

Presbyterians, are mentioned) and a reference to the Caribbean is made only with reference to the

slave trade – and then only to say that the slave trade amounted to less than 5% of British national

income during the industrial revolution. But of the persecuted religious minorities who were denied

public office and who therefore sought opportunities elsewhere, which was the most important?

Surely it was the Jews? Which group of people, more than any other (certainly on a per capita basis),

was behind the financial revolution and the accumulation of capital which enabled the industrial

revolution? Surely it was the Jews? Which group, more than any other (certainly on a per capita

basis), was behind the early acquisition of colonies and the growth of international trade? Surely it

was the Jews? Which group was the most entrepreneurial? Surely it was the Jews? The Protestant

work ethic? What about the Jewish work ethic? In Britain the ‘work ethic’ consisted of rent-seeking,

office-seeking (patronage) or a career in the church, the army or the law - and people who acquired

a fortune in trade almost invariably got out of trade as quickly as possible by acquiring a country

estate and becoming a ‘country gentleman’ (land gave political power through the ability to control

or influence voters, so the next step after acquiring land was to obtain a seat in the House of

Commons; wealth, land ownership and political power then hopefully led to marriage into the

aristocracy and, ultimately, the acquisition of a title and seat in the House of Lords). It was the Jews

who regarded wealth as virtuous in its own right (because it was proof of talent and effort and

enabled charitable giving and the doing of good works). And did not the Jews play a significant role

in the development of political stability (specific mention is made of the Glorious Revolution of

1688)? Granted, the Jews were not solely behind the industrial revolution in Britain (or the Glorious

Revolution) – but not to mention them at all? Things like the presence of coal or population growth

cannot be attributed to any ‘group’ as such but of those things that can be so attributed, the Jews

made a key contribution in most of them. Even the end of feudalism was partly, if not largely, down

to the Jews, who usually could not own land and were excluded from the medieval guilds and so had

to work outside these structures (feudal land-ownership and the guild system) by developing

capitalistic methods of finance and trade. To describe the causes of the industrial revolution without

mentioning the Jews is like giving a recipe for making a cake without mentioning flour, butter, eggs

or sugar.

It is interesting to contrast English colonial expansion in the 17th century, undertaken with the help

of the Jews, with the attempted Scottish colonial expansion, undertaken without the help of the

Jews. Scottish colonial expansion took the form of the disastrous Darien Scheme of 1698 to 1700,

which almost bankrupted Scotland, and while the timing was unfortunate one has to speculate what

might have happened had the Scots sought to involve the Jews. Cromwell realized how essential the

Jews were to colonial expansion; the Scots did not. The Jews turned the colony of Barbados from a

failure into a success and it is possible that they could have done the same with the Darien Scheme.

As the Wikipedia entry for the Darien Scheme says: ‘Most serious was the almost total failure to sell

any goods to the few passing traders that put in to the bay.’ - but what if the colonizers had arranged

beforehand to trade with the Jews? The disastrous financial consequences of the failure of the

Darien Scheme drove Scotland into union with England in 1707.

One of the most interesting works on the influence of the Jews that I have come across is ‘The Jews

and Modern Capitalism’ (1911) by Werner Sombart (1863-1941), Professor of Economics at the

University of Breslau from 1890 to 1906 and at the Berlin School of Commerce thereafter. While

careful to point out that many factors played a part in the growth of modern capitalism and that the

Jews were just one such factor, he nonetheless concludes that ‘Israel passes over Europe like the

sun: at its coming new life bursts forth; at its going all falls into decay’. He continues (and I make no

apology for quoting him at length):

36

‘A short résumé of the changing fortunes of the Jewish people since the 15th century will lend

support to this contention. The first event to be recalled, an event of world−wide import, is the

expulsion of the Jews from Spain (1492) and from Portugal (1495 and 1497). It should never be

forgotten that on the day before Columbus set sail from Palos to discover America (August 3, 1492)

300,000 Jews are said to have emigrated from Spain to Navarre, France, Portugal and the East; nor

that, in the years during which Vasco da Gama searched for and found the sea−passage to the East

Indies, the Jews were driven from other parts of the Pyrenean Peninsula.

It was by a remarkable stroke of fate that these two occurrences, equally portentous in their

significance − the opening−up of new continents and the mightiest upheavals in the distribution of

the Jewish people − should have coincided. But the expulsion of the Jews from the Pyrenean

Peninsula did not altogether put an end to their history there. Numerous Jews remained behind as

pseudo−Christians (Marannos), and it was only as the Inquisition, from the days of Philip II onwards,

became more and more relentless that these Jews were forced to leave the land of their birth. During

the centuries that followed, and especially towards the end of the 16th, the Spanish and Portuguese

Jews settled in other countries. It was during this period that the doom of the economic prosperity of

the Pyrenean Peninsula was sealed.

With the 15th century came the expulsion of the Jews from the German commercial cities − from

Cologne (1424−5), from Augsburg (1439−40), from Strassburg (1438), from Erfurt (1458), from

Nuremberg (1498−9), from Ulm (1499), and from Ratisbon (1519). The same fate overtook them in

the 16th century in a number of Italian cities. They were driven from Sicily (1492), from Naples

(1540−1), from Genoa and from Venice (1550). Here also economic decline and Jewish emigration

coincided in point of time.

On the other hand, the rise to economic importance, in some cases quite unexpectedly, of the

countries and towns whither the refugees fled, must be dated from the first appearance of the

Spanish Jews. A good example is that of Leghorn, one of the few Italian cities which enjoyed

economic prosperity in the 16th century. Now Leghorn was the goal of most of the exiles who made

for Italy. In Germany it was Hamburg and Frankfort that admitted the Jewish settlers. And

remarkable to relate, a keen−eyed traveller in the 18th century wandering all over Germany found

everywhere that the old commercial cities of the Empire, Ulm, Nuremberg, Augsburg, Mayence and

Cologne, had fallen into decay, and that the only two that were able to maintain their former

splendour, and indeed to add to it from day to day, were Frankfort and Hamburg. In France in the

17th and 18th centuries the rising towns were Marseilles, Bordeaux, Rouen − again the havens of

refuge of the Jewish exiles.

As for Holland, it is well−known that at the end of the 16th century a sudden upward development (in

the capitalistic sense) took place there. The first Portuguese Marannos settled in Amsterdam in 1593,

and very soon their numbers increased. The first synagogue in Amsterdam was opened in 1598, and

by about the middle of the 17th century there were Jewish communities in many Dutch cities. In

Amsterdam, at the beginning of the 18th century, the estimated number of Jews was 2400. But even

by the middle of the 17th century their intellectual influence was already marked; the writers on

international law and the political philosophers speak of the ancient Hebrew commonwealth as an

ideal which the Dutch constitution might well seek to emulate. The Jews themselves called

Amsterdam at that time their grand New Jerusalem. Many of the Dutch settlers had come from the

Spanish Netherlands, especially from Antwerp, whither they had fled on their expulsion from Spain. It

is true that the proclamations of 1532 and 1539 forbade the pseudo−Christians to remain in

Antwerp, but they proved ineffective. The prohibition was renewed in 1550, but this time it referred

only to those who had not been domiciled for six years. But this too remained a dead letter: "the

37

crypto−Jews are increasing from day to day." They took an active part in the struggle for freedom in

which the Netherlands were engaged, and its result forced them to wander to the more northerly

provinces. Now it is a remarkable thing that the brief space during which Antwerp became the

commercial centre and the money−market of the world should have been just that between the

coming and the going of the Marannos.

It was the same in England. The economic development of the country, in other words, the growth of

capitalism, ran parallel with the influx of Jews, mostly of Spanish and Portuguese origin. It was

believed that there were no Jews in England from the time of their expulsion under Edward I (1290)

until their more or less officially recognized return under Cromwell (1654−56). The best authorities on

Anglo−Jewish history are now agreed that this is a mistake. There were always Jews in England; but

not till the 16th century did they begin to be numerous. Already in the reign of Elizabeth many were

met with, and the Queen herself had a fondness for Hebrew studies and for intercourse with Jews.

Her own physician was a Jew, Rodrigo Lopez, on whom Shakespeare modelled his Shylock. Later on,

as is generally known, the Jews, as a result of the efforts of Manasseh ben Israel, obtained the right

of unrestricted domicile. Their numbers were increased by further streams of immigrants including,

after the 18th century, Jews from Germany, until, according to the author of the Anglia Judaica, there

were 6000 Jews in London alone in the year 1738.

When all is said, however, the fact that the migration of the Jews and the economic vicissitudes of

peoples were coincident events does not necessarily prove that the arrival of Jews in any land was

the only cause of its rise or their departure the only cause of its decline. To assert as much would be

to argue on the fallacy "post hoc, ergo propter hoc." Nor are the arguments of later historians on this

subject conclusive, and therefore I will not mention any in support of my thesis. But the opinions of

contemporaries always, as I think, deserve attention. So I will acquaint the reader with some of them,

for very often a word suffices to throw a flood of light on their age.

When the Senate of Venice, in 1550, decided to expel the Marannos and to forbid commercial

intercourse with them, the Christian merchants of the city declared that it would mean their ruin and

that they might as well leave Venice with the exiles, seeing that they made their living by trading

with the Jews. The Jews controlled the Spanish wool trade, the trade in Spanish silk and crimsons,

sugar, pepper, Indian spices and pearls. A great part of the entire export trade was carried on by

Jews, who supplied the Venetians with goods to be sold on commission; and they were also

bill−brokers.

In England the Jews found a protector in Cromwell, who was actuated solely by considerations of an

economic nature. He believed that he would need the wealthy Jewish merchants to extend the

financial and commercial prosperity of the country. Nor was he blind to the usefulness of having

moneyed support for the government.

Like Cromwell, Colbert, the great French statesman of the 17th century, was also sympathetically

inclined towards the Jews, and in my opinion it is of no small significance that these two organizers,

both of whom consolidated modern European states, should have been so keenly alive to the fitness

of the Jew in aiding the economic (i.e., capitalistic) progress of a country. In one of his Ordinances to

the Intendant of Languedoc, Colbert points out what great benefits the city of Marseilles derived

from the commercial capabilities of the Jews. The inhabitants of the great French trading centres in

which the Jews played an important role were in no need of being taught the lesson; they knew it

from their own experience and, accordingly, they brought all their influence to bear on keeping their

Jewish fellow−citizens within their walls. Again and again we hear laudatory accounts of the Jews,

more especially from the inhabitants of Bordeaux. In 1675 an army of mercenaries ravaged

38

Bordeaux, and many of the rich Jews prepared to depart. The Town Council was terrified, and the

report presented by its members is worth quoting. "The Portuguese who occupy whole streets and do

considerable business have asked for their passports. They and those aliens who do a very large trade

are resolved to leave; indeed, the wealthiest among them, Gaspar Gonzales and Alvares, have

already departed. We are very much afraid that commerce will cease altogether." A few years later

the Sous−Intendant of Languedoc summed up the situation in the words "without them (the Jews)

the trade of Bordeaux and of the whole province would be inevitably ruined."

We have already seen how the fugitives from the Iberian Peninsula in the 16th century streamed into

Antwerp, the commercial metropolis of the Spanish Netherlands. About the middle of the century,

the Emperor in a decree dated July 17, 1549 withdrew the privileges which had been accorded them.

Thereupon the mayor and sheriffs, as well as the Consul of the city, sent a petition to the Bishop of

Arras in which they showed the obstacles in the way of carrying out the Imperial mandate. The

Portuguese, they pointed out, were large undertakers; they had brought great wealth with them

from the lands of their birth, and they maintained an extensive trade. "We must bear in mind," they

continued, "that Antwerp has grown great gradually, and that a long space of time was needed

before it could obtain possession of its commerce. Now the ruin of the city would necessarily bring

with it the ruin of the land, and all this must be carefully considered before the Jews are expelled."

Indeed, the mayor, Nicholas Van den Meeren, went even further in the matter. When Queen Mary of

Hungary, the Regent of the Netherlands, was staying in Ruppelmonde, he paid her a visit in order to

defend the cause of the New Christians, and excused the conduct of the rulers of Antwerp in not

publishing the Imperial decree by informing her that it was contrary to all the best interests of the

city. His efforts, however, were unsuccessful, and the Jews, as we have already seen, left Antwerp for

Amsterdam.

Antwerp lost no small part of its former glory by reason of the departure of the Jews, and in the 17th

century especially it was realized how much they contributed to bring about material prosperity. In

1653 a committee was appointed to consider the question whether the Jews should be allowed into

Antwerp, and it expressed itself on the matter in the following terms: "And as for the inconveniences

which are to be feared and apprehended in the public interest − that they (the Jews) will attract to

themselves all trade, that they will be guilty of a thousand frauds and tricks, and that by their usury

they will devour the wealth of good Catholics − it seems to us on the contrary that by the trade which

they will expand far beyond its present limits the benefit derived will be for the good of the whole

land, and gold and silver will be available in greater quantities for the needs of the state."

The Dutch in the 17th century required no such recommendations; they were fully alive to the gain

which the Jews brought. When Manasseh ben Israel left Amsterdam on his famous mission to

England, the Dutch Government became anxious; they feared lest it should be a question of

transplanting the Dutch Jews to England, and they therefore instructed Neuport, their ambassador in

London, to sound Manasseh as to his intentions. He reported (December 1655) that all was well, and

that there was no cause for apprehension. "Manasseh ben Israel hath been to see me, and did assure

me that he doth not desire anything for the Jews in Holland but only for those as sit in the Inquisition

in Spain and Portugal."

It is the same tale in Hamburg. In the 17th century the importance of the Jews had grown to such an

extent that they were regarded as indispensable to the growth of Hamburg's prosperity. On one

occasion the Senate asked that permission should be given for synagogues to be built, otherwise,

they feared, the Jews would leave Hamburg, and the city might then be in danger of sinking to a

mere village. On another occasion, in 1697, when it was suggested that the Jews should be expelled,

the merchants earnestly entreated the Senate for help, in order to prevent the serious endangering of

39

Hamburg's commerce. Again, in 1733, in a special report, now in the Archives of the Senate, we may

read: "In bill−broking, in trade with jewellery and braid and in the manufacture of certain cloths the

Jews have almost a complete mastery, and have surpassed our own people. In the past there was no

need to take cognizance of them, but now they are increasing in numbers. There is no section of the

great merchant class, the manufacturers and those who supply commodities for daily needs, but the

Jews form an important element therein. They have become a necessary evil." To the callings

enumerated in which the Jews took a prominent part, we must add that of marine insurance brokers.

So much for the judgment of contemporaries. But as a complete proof even that will not serve. We

must form our own judgment from the facts, and therefore our first aim must be to seek these out.

That means that we must find from the original sources what contributions the Jews made to the

building−up of our modern economic life from the end of the 15th century onward − the period, that

is, when Jewish history and general European economic progress both tended in the same direction.

We shall then also be able to state definitely to what extent the Jews influenced the shifting of the

centre of economic life. My own view is, as I may say in anticipation, that the importance of the Jews

was twofold. On the one hand, they influenced the outward form of modern capitalism; on the other,

they gave expression to its inward spirit. Under the first heading, the Jews contributed no small share

in giving to economic relations the international aspect they bear today; in helping the modern state,

that framework of capitalism, to become what it is; and lastly, in giving the capitalistic organization

its peculiar features, by inventing a good many details of the commercial machinery which moves the

business life of today, and co−operating in the perfecting of others. Under the second heading, the

importance of the Jews is so enormous because they, above all others, endowed economic life with

its modern spirit; they seized upon the essential idea of capitalism and carried it to its fullest

development.’

So we do not need to rely on the analysis of a Professor of Economics, we can rely directly on the

words of non-Jewish contemporaries themselves; the arrival of the Jews brought prosperity, their

departure brought ruin. Not surprisingly Sombart’s views have proved to be controversial (as does

any positive or potentially positive opinion about the Jews) but where he cites historical sources he

is merely stating historical facts or recording the views of others as recorded in the historical sources

and we must accept them as such.

With regard to the sugar industry he wrote:

‘We have already mentioned the establishment of the sugar industry in St. Thomas [São Tomé] by

Jews in 1492. By the year 1550 this industry had reached the height of its development on the island.

There were sixty plantations with sugar mills and refineries, producing annually, as may be seen from

the tenth part paid to the King, 150,000 arrobes of sugar.

From St. Thomas, or possibly from Madeira, where they had for a long time been engaged in the sugar trade, the Jews transplanted the industry to Brazil, the largest of the American colonies. Brazil thus entered on its first period of prosperity, for the growth of the sugar industry brought with it the growth of the national wealth. In those early years the colony was populated almost entirely by Jews and criminals, two shiploads of them being brought thither annually from Portugal. The Jews quickly became the dominant class, “a not inconsiderable number of the wealthiest Brazilian traders were New Christians.” The first Governor-General was of Jewish origin, and he it was who brought order into the government of the colony. It is not too much to say that Portugal’s new possessions really began to thrive only after Thomé de Souza, a man of exceptional ability, was sent out in 1549 to take matters in hand. Nevertheless the colony did not reach the zenith of its prosperity until after the influx of rich Jews from Holland, consequent on the Dutch entering into possession in 1642. In that very year, a number of American Jews combined to establish a colony in Brazil, and no less than six

40

hundred influential Dutch Jews joined them. Up to about the middle of the 17th century all the large sugar plantations belonged to Jews, and contemporary travellers report as to their many-sided activities and their wealth. Thus Nieuhoff, who travelled in Brazil from 1640 to 1649, says of them: “Among the free inhabitants of Brazil that were not in the (Dutch West India) Company’s service the Jews were the most considerable in number, who had transplanted themselves thither from Holland. They had a vast traffic beyond the rest; they purchased sugar-mills and built stately houses in the Receif. They were all traders, which would have been of great consequence to the Dutch Brazil had they kept themselves within the due bounds of traffic.” Similarly we read in F. Pyrard’s Travels: “The profits they make after being nine or ten years in those lands are marvellous, for they all come back rich.”

The predominance of Jewish influence in plantation development outlasted the episode of Dutch rule in Brazil, and continued, despite the expulsion of 1654, down to the first half of the 11th [sic] century. On one occasion, “when a number of the most influential merchants of Rio de Janeiro fell into the hands of the Holy Office (of the Inquisition), the work on so many plantations came to a standstill that the production and commerce of the Province (of Bahio) required a long stretch of time to recover from the blow.” Later, a decree of the 2nd March 1768 ordered all the registers containing lists of New Christians to be destroyed, and by a law of 25th March 1773 New Christians were placed on a footing of perfect civic equality with the orthodox. It is evident, then, that very many crypto-Jews must have maintained their prominent position in Brazil even after the Portuguese had regained possession of it in 1654, and that it was they who brought to the country its flourishing sugar industry as well as its trade in precious stones.

Despite this, the year 1654 marks an epoch in the annals of American- Jewish history. For it was in that year that a goodly number of the Brazilian Jews settled in other parts of America and thereby moved the economic centre of gravity.

The change was specially profitable to one or two important islands of the West Indian Archipelago and also to the neighbouring coastlands, which rose in prosperity from the time of the Jewish influx in the 17th century. Barbados, which was inhabited almost solely by Jews, is a case in point. It came under English rule in 1627; in 1641 the sugar cane was introduced, and seven years later the exportation of sugar began. But the sugar industry could not maintain itself. The sugar produced was so poor in quality that its price was scarcely sufficient to pay for the cost of transport to England. Not till the exiled “Dutchmen” from Brazil introduced the process of refining and taught the natives the art of drying and crystallizing the sugar did an improvement manifest itself. As a result, the sugar exports of Barbados increased by leaps and bounds, and in 1661 Charles II was able to confer baronetcies on thirteen planters, who drew an annual income of £10,000 from the island. By about the year 1676 the industry there had grown to such an extent that no fewer than 400 vessels each carrying 180 tons of raw sugar left annually.’

With regard to the significance of the sugar industry in maintaining the navy he writes (but, in this

case, with respect to the French navy):

‘The Council of Trade in Paris (1701) was guilty of no exaggerated language when it placed on record

its belief that “French shipping owes its splendour to the commerce of the sugar-producing islands,

and it is only by means of this that the navy can be maintained and strengthened.” Now, it must be

remembered that the Jews had almost monopolized the sugar trade; the French branch in particular

being controlled by the wealthy family of the Gradis of Bordeaux.’

And overall with regard to the sugar industry he states:

‘In all this we must never lose sight of the fact that in those critical centuries in which the colonial

system was taking root in America (and with it modern capitalism), the production of sugar was the

backbone of the entire colonial economy, leaving out of account, of course, the mining of silver, gold

41

and gems in Brazil. Indeed, it is somewhat difficult exactly to picture to ourselves the enormous

significance in those centuries of sugar-making and sugar-selling.’

Even the Jewish Encyclopaedia gets it wrong; entirely missing out, in the entry for ‘England’, any

reference to the part played by the Jews in English/British colonial expansion before the 19th

century. Under the heading ‘The Colonies’ it states: ‘Jews have taken more than their due share in

the colonial expansion of England. Jacob Montefiore, a cousin of Sir Moses Montefiore, was one of

the chief pioneers of South Australia in 1835. Hon. Nathaniel Levi did much to develop both the coal

and beet-sugar industries of Victoria. Sir Julius Vogel was premier of New Zealand for many years,

and did much to promote its remarkable prosperity; while New South Wales has been represented by

Sir Saul Samuel and Sir Julien Salomons as agents-general for that colony. Similarly, in South Africa

the firm of Mosenthal Brothers and Jonas Bergtheil helped much toward the development of Cape

Colony and Natal; while the gold and diamond industries of the Rand were chiefly in Jewish hands,

notably those of Barnato Brothers, Wernher, Beit & Company, etc.’ The entry for Barbados makes no

mention of the sugar industry beyond saying: ‘In 1668 the Jews are spoken of as extensive owners of

sugar-works.’

When we look behind almost every key aspect of the making of the ‘greatness of Great Britain’ we

find, directly or indirectly, the Jews - in the acquisition and growth of overseas colonies, in the

development of the Royal Navy (largely financed by revenues from those colonies), in the

establishment of London as the financial capital of the world, in the spark and growing furnace of

the industrial revolution and the development of constitutional monarchy and parliamentary

democracy.

‘But wait’, I hear you say, ‘while money, financial acumen and commercial drive were essential to

the growth of the British Empire, Britain’s greatness was built on the determination, courage and

sacrifice of its people; its prowess in war – the storming of Seringapatam, the thin red line at the

Battle of Balaclava, the storming of the Heights of Abraham, the charge of the Scots Greys at

Waterloo – and individual courage and endeavour – Admiral Anson, Captain Cook, Scott of the

Antarctic – and so on and so on.’ Agreed, to a large extent, but let’s consider, for a moment, the

true nature of courage.

When a man becomes a soldier in the service of his country (for it is physical courage we are talking

about), he will be trained in the profession of arms, he will be surrounded and supported by his

comrades and by the history, honour and tradition of his regiment, he will be guided and

commanded by his non-commissioned and commissioned officers and subject to military regulations

and discipline. If he goes to war he will invariably go with the support of his countrymen ringing in

his ears; his morale will be high, he will, by popular acclaim, be certain of the rightness of his cause.

He will know that he may be called upon to risk or sacrifice his life but this is by no means certain.

With luck he will survive and he may never be in the thick of battle even if he sees actual combat. He

will experience long periods of boredom and, if he is unlucky, a few hours or days of danger or, in

extremes, of mortal combat. In some circumstances he may be called upon to face extreme danger

day after day, with little chance of survival and this is what happened to the aircrews of Bomber

Command and the fighter pilots of the RAF and, clearly, the bravery of such men was truly heroic.

But, even so, a soldier generally knows that he stands a good chance of survival (generally better

than civilians in the war zone) and that if he survives he will have a home to return to, a warm

welcome and the admiration and gratitude of his people (if not always a proper pension from his

government).

42

The burning of the Jews of Nuremburg, woodcut, 1493.

A pogrom in the Jewish Quarter of Frankfurt in 1614.

The Hep-Hep riots in Frankfurt, 1819.

Kristallnacht, Frankfurt, 1938.

(Note the unending nature of the violence and oppression revealed by the pictures above.)

Compare this to the position of the Jews throughout history. Consider what it must have been like to

be a member of a despised and ostracised minority; a minority with no homeland to go to and no

permanent rights in anyone else’s, subject to the whims of unprincipled and greedy rulers and the

prejudice, hatred and unpredictable violence of uneducated mobs; a minority tolerated and used by

rulers only as long as it was useful but left to the tender mercies of the mob whenever it was

convenient to forget the debts accumulated by the ruler’s own vanity, greed or incompetence; a

minority with no security of tenure and no rights under the law, prevented from owning property,

holding any official office or adopting any but the meanest and most degrading of trades or

professions; a minority heaped with taxes, restrictions, penalties, fines, impositions, expropriations,

forced labour and military service (sometimes for life, as in Russia); forced to pay for their own

oppression; forced to wear drab and ridiculous clothes and marked, like animals, with badges of

shame, as if they were lunatics or lepers or simply ‘unclean’; liable, at any time, to accusations from

unknown accusers (possibly their own servants or their own family members through torture), who

were allowed to make accusations anonymously and without fear of cross-examination; living in

constant fear of the knock on the door at any time of the day or night, followed by arrest, seizure,

examination, torture, mutilation and death at the hands of the Inquisition - even their dead bodies

were not exempt from exhumation and punishment; liable to the seizure and forcible conversion of

their own children, the burning of their dearest family mementoes and the defacement and

desecration of their holy icons and places of worship; never safe in their own homes - in fact,

permanently without any proper homes as such; liable, no matter how well-educated or

43

distinguished, to being ridiculed, insulted, spat on in the street and pushed into the gutter by the

meanest, most vicious and most ignorant member of the ‘host’ society – in front of their own

families – and subject to the most vicious criminal punishment if they dared to defend themselves;

subject to ceaseless insult and ridicule for the way they looked, the way they dressed, what they ate,

the way they spoke and even the way they smelt; permanently accused and condemned throughout

history, with no right of reply, of the most heinous of all crimes – deicide, the murder of their own

god; condemned, as a race, for the supposed crimes of others committed a thousand (or two

thousand) years before and subject to a sentence inherited with no possibility of forgiveness, no

right of remission, subject to no right of appeal – a sentence without limitation of time passing from

generation to generation, visited on their children even before they were born; liable, at any time, to

be stripped of all their possessions, expelled and forced into exile, to wander ceaselessly without a

home in foreign lands until, perhaps, someone showed them a little kindness – for a while, while

they were useful. And then, as if this was not enough, subjected to a genocide of incomprehensible

and unimaginable cruelty, so vast and evil that the contemplation of it makes you sick with horror -

as well as calculated acts of individual cruelty; the young boy whose mouth was stuffed with sand

until he choked to death, the starving young girl hanged for stealing a carrot. 35 Dutch Jews named

Coronel, nearly all from Amsterdam, were killed in the Holocaust, mostly at Auschwitz, including a 10

year old girl called Rebecca (Thursday 23 July 1942) and other children.

‘Leaving the shtetl’ by Samuel Hirszenberg

Consider these things and then consider also how this minority, as a people, never gave up, never

surrendered, never compromised their beliefs and yet contributed in such a dazzling way in the

fields of religion (who gave the world the concept of a moral god?), art, literature, music, philosophy

and science, not to mention finance and trade – in fact in every field of human endeavour. It would

be pointless and would double the length of this essay to list all the Jewish winners of the Nobel

Prize; a list which, on a per head of population basis, outstrips every other nation by far –

particularly (one has to say) the pathetic and miserable contribution of Islam, intellectually strangled

by its own misogyny and intolerance for 1400 years. You can look up the list yourself.

Look behind almost any human achievement, it seems, and you will find the Jews. How did the

Greeks learn the art of writing, which finally allowed them to write down the Iliad? The Jews (at least

according to Aristobulus of Paneas, Numenius of Apamea, Eupolemus, Artapanus of Alexandria and

others). Who brought the quadratic equation to Europe? Abraham Nasi, a prince of the House of

David. Who built the Alhambra, that so-called pinnacle of the flowering of Islamic architecture in ‘El-

Andalus’? The Jewish vizier Yehoseph ibn Nagralla (Frederick P. Bargebuhr, ‘The Lions of the

44

Alhambra: Jews in Moorish Spain’, 1958 – and you can still see the Star of David in the architectural

tracery of the Alhambra today)? Who developed the method of celestial navigation used by

Columbus? Zacuto, a Jew. Or the theory of relativity? Einstein, a Jew. I could go on. Consider how, in

spite of everything, and while fighting for their undoubted right to exist, the Jews have remained

kindly and tolerant benefactors of the human race, ever leading those less clear-sighted than

themselves into the light of their own high morality, if only they would open their eyes to see. As

Hillel the Elder said ‘Do as you would be done by, that is the whole Torah.’ It is that simple.

Captured Jewish resistance fighters from the Warsaw Ghetto.

Consider these things and then tell me who is brave. And tell me also which act of bravery in all of

history compares to the hopeless defence of the Warsaw Ghetto in 1943– other, possibly, than the

defence of Masada against the 10th Legion some two thousand years before or, perhaps, the heroic

struggle by the nascent Israel in 1948 against the Arab attempt to annihilate it (for it was an

attempted annihilation)? Certainly not the ‘thin red line’ of Balaclava; they were soldiers, men

trained and armed, doing their job, unlike the inhabitants of the Warsaw Ghetto, who were largely

old men, women and children fighting for their lives in the sewers, virtually unarmed. Churchill made

a fine speech about the British people, fighting the Germans on the beaches, on the landing grounds,

in the fields and in the streets but it was the Jews, as a people, who actually did it, while the British

stood by and watched.*

*On May 10 1943, a member of the Polish government in exile, Szmul Zygielbojm, committed suicide in London to protest at the lack of reaction from the Allied governments to the events in Warsaw. In his farewell note, he wrote: ‘I cannot continue to live and to be silent while the remnants of Polish Jewry, whose representative I am, are being murdered. My comrades in the Warsaw ghetto fell with arms in their hands in the last heroic battle. I was not permitted to fall like them, together with them, but I belong with them, to their mass grave. By my death, I wish to give expression to my

45

most profound protest against the inaction in which the world watches and permits the destruction of the Jewish people.’ The British were, in fact, guilty of much worse than mere inaction at this time. ‘The Report to the Secretary on the Acquiescence of this Government in the Murder of the Jews’, by Josiah E. DuBois, Jr. of the US Treasury Department dated 13 January 1944, stated: ‘On December 13, the day after you sent your letter and the day on which you requested an appointment with Secretary Hull, the State Department sent a telegram to the British Foreign Office expressing astonishment with the British point of view and stating that the Department was unable to agree with that point of view (in simple terms, the British point of view referred to by the State Department is that they are apparently prepared to accept the possible - even probable - death of thousands of Jews in enemy territory because of the difficulties of disposing of any considerable number of Jews should they be rescued.)’ Essentially this means that the attitude of the British was ‘We’ll let them be murdered because we can’t be bothered to look after them even if they could be saved (by whatever means – and don’t ask us to get involved in that).’ But it was not just during the war that the British acted in this way. Before the war and during the early part of the war in that period when the Nazis/Axis powers allowed or would have allowed some Jewish emigration from occupied Europe, the British actively prevented Jewish refugees from reaching Palestine - so the Nazis/Axis powers would let them out but the British wouldn’t let them in (This policy was initiated by the White Paper of 1939 and was designed to appease the Arabs following the Arab Revolt of 1936-39). Thousands of Jews died trying to reach Palestine and countless thousands who might have been saved were stranded in Europe and perished in the Holocaust as a result. Anthony Eden, Foreign Secretary (1940–1945) and later Prime Minister (1955-1957), blocked the rescue of thousands of Jews in 1943: ‘In early 1943 Eden blocked a request from the Bulgarian authorities to aid with deporting part of the Jewish population from newly acquired Bulgarian territories to British controlled Palestine. After his refusal, those people were transported to Poland.’ (Wikipedia under ‘Anthony Eden’, accessed 1/10/2013). ‘Thus, 4,500 Jews from Greek Thrace and Eastern Macedonia were deported to Poland, while 7,144 from Bulgarian-occupied Vardar Macedonia and Pomoravlje were also sent to Treblinka. None of them survived.’ (Wikipedia under ‘History of the Jews in Bulgaria’, accessed 1/10/2013). See also http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/nazioccupation/bulgarianjews.html.

Jewish children being transported to the Treblinka extermination camp in March 1943 following the British refusal to admit them to Palestine.

46

The British refused to change their immigration policy even after the Nazi intention to exterminate the Jews became clear and undeniable, which it was from an early stage. On 24 May 1939 the Manchester Guardian said (p. 8) that the 1939 White Paper (see above) was ‘a death sentence on tens of thousands of Central European Jews’, so the consequences of British policy were clear even before the war. This behaviour continued after the war and was compounded by the bitter and personal hostility of Ernest Bevin, the British Foreign Secretary. In a shameful and grotesquely unequal struggle, the Royal Navy blockaded Palestine against ships carrying Holocaust survivors from Europe and, in one case (the SS Exodus), Bevin even sent Jewish refugees back to German concentration camps. Even the repeated pleas of the US President, Harry Truman, for the British to accept an additional quota of ex-concentration camp inmates fell on deaf ears (Parkes, James ‘A History of the Jewish People’, p. 225). Finally, the British refused to implement the United Nations partition resolution of 29 November 1947, refused to admit UN representatives to plan the replacement of the British authority, refused to assist in a hand-over to any successor (while clandestinely conspiring with the Arabs for an Arab take-over) and did everything they could to obstruct the Jews and help the Arabs. The British not only deliberately left the Jews to face what they knew would be an attempted annihilation by overwhelmingly superior numbers of Arabs (The Arabs said, inter alia, that ‘The blood will flow like rivers in the Middle East’, should the 1947 UN vote go the wrong way, ‘we will have to initiate total war. We will murder, wreck and ruin everything standing in our way, be it English, American or Jewish’ (Wikipedia under ‘United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine’, accessed 6/10/2013)), they armed those Arabs and actively conspired with them to leave Palestine in a manner which would enable an immediate Arab ‘take-over’ after British withdrawal.* In addition, the British actively participated in the attempted annihilation that followed their withdrawal. The Jordanian Arab Legion, which was the most effective Arab force in the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, was trained by the British army and commanded by British officers during that war. The commanding officer of the Arab Legion, Lt.-Gen. Glubb, was knighted in 1956 and after his death in 1986 a thanksgiving service for his life was held in Westminster Abbey. ‘On May 4, following the last ambush of a Legion convoy, a joint force of British, Arab Legion and irregular troops launched a major punitive attack on Kfar Etzion.’ and ‘The role of the Arab Legion in the massacre is still debated. There is no doubt that the Legion led the attack on Kfar Etzion (probably on the explicit orders of Glubb Pasha), and at least a few Legionnaires were present when the massacre began.’ (Wikipedia under ‘Kfar Etzion massacre’). Overall, we can say that, after the Holocaust had ended, the British effectively helped the Arabs in an attempt to finish the job, trying to wipe out those Jews who had survived or somehow evaded the Nazi concentration camps, given that, in English law, consciously doing something which is virtually certain to result in death and does so amounts to murder (R v Nedrick 1986) and that it was virtually certain that the Arabs would try to annihilate the Jews (and, as stated, the British knew it was virtually certain given the Arab attacks on the Jews before WW2 and particularly after the UN resolution of 29 November 1947). At the very least, deliberately leaving one group of people (the Jews) at the mercy of another and larger group of people (the Arabs) in such circumstances (which amounted to civil war) and even arming that second group and assisting it militarily, is quite simply criminal (i.e. a war crime or crime against humanity under Nuremburg Principles), even if the total extermination of the smaller group was not deliberately planned. So, British gratitude for the part played by the Jews in the making of Great Britain took the form not just of refusing to respond to the Holocaust but of (1) actively preventing the Jews from escaping from the Holocaust and (2) actively conspiring with the Arabs to finish the job after the Nazis had been defeated.

47

*‘Then we [Ernest Bevin, Foreign Secretary, representing the British] dealt with the military aspects and we stated that Iraq alone, mobilizing the Palestinians for self-defence, would undertake to save Palestine. It was agreed that Iraq would buy for the Iraqi police force 50,000 tommy-guns. We intended to hand them over to the Palestine army volunteers for self-defence [‘Self-defence’ - Nod, nod, wink, wink.]. Great Britain was ready to provide the Iraqi army with arms and ammunition as set forth in a list prepared by the Iraqi General Staff. The British undertook to withdraw from Palestine gradually, so that Arab forces could enter every area evacuated by the British in order that the whole of Palestine should be in Arab hands after the British withdrawal.’ [This was a clear and intentional breach of the UN resolution of 29 November 1947 of course.]– ‘Experiences In Arab Affairs 1943-1958’, Mohommed Fadhel Jamali, Former Prime Minister of Iraq.

Lizzie van Zyl, a concentration camp victim – in a British concentration camp in South Africa during the Second Boer War. 24,000 children died in these camps. Charles Aked, a Baptist minister in Liverpool, said on 22/12/1901, Peace Sunday: "Great Britain cannot win the battles without resorting to the last despicable cowardice of the most loathsome cur on earth - the act of striking a brave man's heart through his wife's honour and his child's life. The cowardly war has been conducted by methods of barbarism... the concentration camps have been Murder Camps."

So the Jews were not just brilliant financiers and business men, traders and merchants, as well as

philosophers, poets, artists, composers, scientists, teachers and so on; they could only have been

these things on the basis of a bravery and moral courage, a moral certainty born of belief, that

enabled them to survive and flourish in a hostile world. So, do not say that the Jews were ‘just

money-lenders’ or ‘just merchants and shop-keepers’; consider what it took to be ‘just a money-

lender’ in their situation. If a man jumps over a fence, even a small one, is it not significant that he

carries the weight of the world on his back? If a man can reach for the stars with such a burden, is

that not even more praiseworthy?

Consider these things.

Consider these things and then acknowledge not just that the Jews played a key part in all the things

listed at the beginning of this essay that made Great Britain ‘great’ but also that it took a high order

of courage and moral determination for them to do so – and that all of us should be grateful for that;

in short, that we should be grateful to the Jews for their Jewishness, for that is the secret of their

success – and, of course, ours to a large degree.

48

‘Our task is to be true to our faith and a blessing to others regardless of our faith, regardless of their

faith, and the stronger we are in our Judaism the greater will be the blessings we bring to the world.’

- Jonathan Henry Sacks, Baron Sacks, Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the

Commonwealth 1991-2013, 1 September 2013.

O Zion, beauty and gladness of the world, Thine is all love and grace, and unto thee In love and grace we are for ever chained. We who in thy happiness were happy Are broken in thy desolation. Each In the prison of his exile bows to earth, And turns him toward thy gates. Scattered and lost, We will remember till the end of time The cradle of our childhood, from a thousand seas Turn back and seek again thy hills and vales. Glory of Pathros, glory of Shinar, Compared to the light and truth that streamed from thee, Are dust and vanity: and in all the world Whom shall I find to liken to thy seers, Thy princes, thy elect, thy anointed ones? The kingdoms of the heathen pass like shadows, Thy glory and thy name endure for ever. 'To Zion' - Judah Ha-Levi (1085-1140) 'From the east I summon a bird of prey; from a far-off land, a man to fulfill my purpose. What I have said, that will I bring about; what I have planned, that will I do.’ - Isaiah 46:11