Download - Who put the 'Great' into 'Great Britain'?
1
Who put the ‘Great’ into ‘Great Britain’?
By Graham Senior-Milne ([email protected])
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