300 Years

Everything was kosher at the Archbishop of Canterbury's Lambeth Palace garden party in London last week. Men came in grey toppers and morning coats, and women in summery prints. As they chatted on the velvet lawn, two experts made sure that the twelve gallons of fruit juice, 3,000 sandwiches, 2,500 pastries and 30 pounds of cake conformed with Jewish dietary laws.

The occasion was the climax of a series of grand occasions held to celebrate the 30Oth anniversary of the Jews' return to England. And it was hard, among the Jewish peers and their ladies, the Rothschilds and Montagus, Samuels and Cohens, to remember the sad past that made it only 300 instead of 900 years.

Cattle for Milking. William the Conqueror welcomed the Jews to England. Trade then was mostly barter, and William felt that the money-handling Jews-would play a much-needed role in the economy of his new kingdom.

By the middle of the 12th century the lot of the Jews was growing hard. Several massacres occurred, sparked, in part, by the old slander that Jews murdered Christian children in their rituals. In 1210 King John threw all the Jews into jail and extorted a ransom for their liberation, and from then on the barons usually treated them as a herd of cattle for milking. Several times, England's Jews were "sold" by the King to British lords, who were then entitled to squeeze as much as they could from them. In 1290 Edward I gave the 16,000 of them that remained a little more than three months to get out.

In the 17th century the Puritan movement brought a wave of millennialism, and with it the notion that for Christ's second coming the Jews must be liberated and perhaps even converted. Cromwell, impressed less with the Messianic than the political and economic advantages of taking the Jews back, allowed them to resettle and establish a synagogue (though no formal decree was ever issued).

Security & Scope. "We have come a long way," said the Very Rev. Dr. Israel Brodie, Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the British Commonwealth, in his tercentenary address. Some samples of the progress: today there are approximately 450,000 Jews in the British Isles (about .88% of the total population) who worship in 450 established synagogues; 13 Jewish peers sit in the House of Lords and 19 Jews in the House of Commons; two hold high government jobs--the Marquess of Reading is Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, and Baron Mancroft is Under Secretary of State for Home Affairs. Of the 110,000 British Jews who served in the armed forces during World Wars I and II, 12,000 were killed and eight won the Victoria Cross.

Said Prime Minister Anthony Eden in a speech at London's Guildhall (in principle, Jews were not permitted to join England's ancient guilds): "Let us freely acknowledge that they have richly repaid their welcome."

*An occupation forced on the Jews of Europe in the Middle Ages by the Christians, who were forbidden to lend money at interest -- but not to borrow it.

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