jews in england – Sim Lev

This week, our godson came to stay. We’re used to being in the house just the two of us, but this half term we had people in and out of our house. Sometimes people came for lunch or dinner. Sometimes they stayed over and sometimes they just came for a cup of tea.

By the end of the week, the house was messier, we were smellier, the carpets had a couple of new stains, and we were so much happier. It was hard, it was exhausting, and it was worth it.

My husband and I love each other, but I get bored quite quickly, and I get lonely just going to the toilet. We love seeing people and we love hosting. One visitor said “you just want your house to be filled with children and music.” That’s it exactly. This week reinforced for me that home is made by people.

The prophets knew how important this was. Abraham and Sarah sat with their tent open on all sides so they could welcome strangers. When three travellers come to meet them in the desert, Sarah leaps to her feet.

She’s doing all she can to make her guests feel welcome, cooking up sweet cakes and getting them water. That’s a real Jewish balaboster right there. The kind of host I aspire to be.

Abraham immediately greets them: “welcome, my lords.”

The rabbis wanted to know: how was it that Abraham knew these strange men were angels? They said: Abraham saw the angel in everyone.

He didn’t know they were messengers from God, come to tell Sarah she would have a child. He just saw God’s light shining from every human being and welcomed it into his home. He didn’t know what he was getting himself in for, but he thought it would be worth it.

This is one of the most sacred Jewish values: haknasat orkhim; welcoming in guests. In the story of Elisha, we see the same thing from the experience of the one being hosted.

Elisha goes to the home of a widow who is absolutely destitute. She’s in so much debt she’s considering selling her children into slavery. Elisha connects her with neighbours, and by some miracle, she finds she now has plenty and can save her sons.

The widow didn’t know Elisha was a miracle-worker. She made herself vulnerable by letting a strange man in her home, then she put her faith in her neighbours, and somehow the experience of community brings about wonders.

But Elisha’s story isn’t done. As a true prophet of God, he doesn’t patronise the poor or show favour to the rich. He treats everyone as if they are part of God’s creation. He goes and stays with a wealthy lady, the Shunamit. She takes a risk. She gives him his own room and board. And then he performs miracles for her too.

Elisha and the people he met understood that home was made by people. It might be chaotic and messy, but it was worth the potential rewards.

As Jews, we often tell our stories of migration. We talk about what it was like for our ancestors, and even for us, to come to this country and take the risk on the people who would host us.

I wonder what it was like, actually, for the English, when they first let us back in. For nearly half a century, Jews hadn’t lived openly in their country. They didn’t know who we were or what we would be like.

But this was the English Revolution, a moment of great upheaval in society. Oliver Cromwell had killed the king, shared out the land, and announced freedom of religion for everyone. They were remaking society and decided it was time to let back in the Jews.

It was a risk, and it turned out to be one worth taking. Well, they liked us so much that, even when they reinstated the monarchy and brought back feudalism, they decided to let us stay. And we liked England so much we made it our home.

And they decided that this whole business of allowing immigration and multiple cultures was working quite well for them. Because only a few decades later they let in fifty thousand Huguenot refugees.

And then the Irish came fleeing famine, and the Germans came fleeing war, and then Russian Jews came fleeing pogroms, and then the British Empire came back to the motherland from India, Pakistan, the Caribbean, and Africa.

Recently, I joined other faith leaders in welcoming unaccompanied child refugees, mostly from Sudan and Eritrea, to Surrey. We got together, as Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Sikh, Hindu and Bahai to show the newcomers how we build a society here on friendliness and mutual respect. For these kids, who had fled from countries torn apart by war, the very concept of tolerance blew their minds!

Now, I take great pride in telling my godson that England is the place people come to be safe because we build our country on freedom. 500 years of tolerance. This country is our home, and we are the people who are making it. This is our home and we filled it with music and kids.

And we still take in strangers, and sometimes that does feel risky, but we know after centuries of experience that it’s a risk worth taking.

This week – would you believe it – Ephraim Mirvis was in the news bemoaning immigration. Can you imagine what a parody it is for a Jew born in South Africa to get on the Jewish News and say “our civilisation is under attack” because of “the influence of other cultures coming.”

This apparently religious Jew, in a beard, tzitzit, and kippah, complained “we’re seeing a definite move away from a Christian-based British identity towards a more general-based identity.”

Mirvis, like Farage and others, would like us to believe we have a choice between safety and immigration. The real choice is, and always has been, between diversity and conformity. It is between a shared society and homogeneity. It’s never been a choice between Jews and Muslims. It’s either all of us or none of us.

Who was to blame for this great divergence from ethnic and religious purity? Well, Mirvis says “some Jewish people who are letting us down.” He means us, of course. The Progressives who won’t tow his nationalist, parochial line for “Jewish unity,” but instead rejoice in our shared society.

Of course, it’s not just Progressive Jews. He also blames the Church. The established religion of state, the Church of England, has become to weak, he complains, and moved away from “Judeo-Christian” values. Well, yes, the Church has moved in a more inclusive direction. It’s chosen a woman as Archbishop and proudly taken up the banner of diversity.

But if the Jewish leaders and the Christian leaders are all betraying Judeo-Christian values, who knows what they even are? If we, who uphold the message of Elisha, and the hospitality of Sarah, don’t know what the “Judeo-Christian” message is, then what is our Scripture even for?

The truth is the traditional Britain Mirvis wants back is a fantasy. It doesn’t exist and it never did. And you can waste your life pining after a daydream, but you will miss out on living in the real world. You’ll miss out on this real Britain.

The real Britain sounds like Scottish bagpipes and Rasta steel pans and Punjabi bhangra and klezmer clarinet and Peckham grime and Vera Lynn and K-Pop and bluegrass and Cotswold Morris dancers beating together their claves.

The real Britain tastes like croissants and Turkish kebab and Birmingham Vindaloo and American cheese burgers and sweet gefilte fish from the deli and callaloo and Sunday roast and battered Mars bars and Irish stout and Swiss cheese.

The real Britain speaks Sylheti, Polish, Creole, Arabic, Urdu, Romanian, Welsh, Gujurati, and it speaks them all in a Geordie accent.

The real Britain wears kente cloth, Cornish tartan, a shalwar kameez, a sheitl, a kermaya, a crucifix necklace, a kirpan, dreadlocks, a flat cap, and an artist’s beret.

And it’s all together. We put them together to make something bigger and better because that’s how we like it. The people came together and made this our home. And we filled it up with kids and music.

And it’s messy and it’s busy and it’s tiring and it’s hard work and it is absolutely worth it.

This is our country and these are our people. This is our home and these are our neighbours. This is our community and we won’t have it any other way.

That’s my Britain, and I think that’s a way of life worth defending.

Shabbat shalom.

A colorful patchwork representation of the Union Jack, incorporating various textile patterns and small blue sailboat illustrations across vibrant sections. — *The New Union Flag, by Gil Mualem-Doron*

Of course, I am Jewish, but I also consider myself very English. I am English in the very parochial sense that I love canal boats, think provincial churches are beautiful, will definitely barbecue on the only day of summer, and put mayonnaise with everything. But, last autumn, I did the most English thing I have ever done.

I wrote a disapproving letter of correction.

I had never done it before. I’ve never written in to the BBC or a newspaper. To the best of my knowledge, I’ve never sent a letter of complaint about anything. But this one was too important to simply ignore.

Someone in a play had misrepresented a complex point of Jewish law.

Now, this may seem trivial. But, six months later, I am still so incensed about this common misconception of halachah, that I feel the need to preach on it.

In September, last year, I got a real treat: to go see one of our members perform at the Royal Court Theatre. Rachel Hosker, who will be getting married under our auspices in the summer, was performing in a play called ‘Jews. In their Own Words.’ Written by Jonathan Freedland, the play interviews famous Jews, including Tracy-Ann Oberman, Luciana Berger, Margaret Hodge, and Howard Jacobson, trying to give a sense of antisemitism, past and present.

I’m not a theatre critic, but let me tell you: Rachel acted fantastically. She and the rest of the cast did a fantastic job of bringing the characters to life.

But there was a line, really a throwaway comment, that stuck with me. The play was attempting to explain the trope of the money-hungry Jew, and how Jews had come to be associated with money-lending. An actor representing CST’s Dave Rich said: “the rulings of the church forbade lending money at interest, which was considered usury, whereas Jewish law allowed it.”

This, to me, is alarmingly inaccurate. It shows not only a misunderstanding of Jewish law, but also of antisemitism, and how it works. It places the responsibility for Jews as medieval money-lenders onto Jews, and our religion. Nothing could be further from the truth.

If it was the case that Jewish law allowed money-lending at interest, you would be hard-pressed to explain the commandment in this week’s Torah portion: “You may not act as a creditor to your people. You may not exact interest from them.” You would also have to reckon with the same commandment, given in the Holiness Code: “Do not exact advance or accrued interest, but fear your God… Do not lend your money at interest, and do not give your food at interest.” The same commandment is repeated again in Deuteronomy: “do not deduct interest from loans to your kindred.”

Of course, you might say, the Torah is not the only source of Jewish law. Perhaps these commandments are amended in the Mishnah, or the Talmud, or the Codes. No, no, and no. The Mishnah says charging interest is so reprehensible that it involves breaking six commandments. The Talmud says that even scribes and witnesses who participate in such contracts are guilty.

In the defining law code for most of the Jewish world, the Mishneh Torah, Rambam looks at the word for interest – neshech – which is the same as the word for a snakebite, and says it is called as such “because it bites, it causes pain to a fellow human being, and consumes a person.” He repudiates it completely.

Be in no doubt: Jewish law does not permit money-lending at interest.

So, how did it happen that Jews nevertheless ended up associated with money-lending, despite its very explicit prohibition?

In the 4th Century CE, Church Father Augustine of Hippo declared that Jews would be permitted to survive as “living witnesses” to the truth of the Bible, but must be kept in a degraded state, with the mark of Cain, for their refusal to accept Jesus. This became the official policy of Christian Europe’s primary institutions: its churches and monarchies.

Jews were allowed to live in England neither as citizens nor serfs. They could not own land or participate in the nation. They were excluded from universities, and cut out of the professions. They were only allowed to live in the country on condition that they did the dirty work of the ruling class: tax collecting and money-lending.

Now, most Jews did not do such jobs. They did the work that was needed for their community, as bakers, vintners, stonemasons, and millers. But, as long as some Jews fulfilled these functions for the monarchy, all Jews could live in European countries as “treasured subjects” – effectively pets of the king.

This had a profound impact on the lives of medieval European Jews. They were forced to wear humiliating clothes to mark them out. Associated with tax collecting and money-lending, many of the local peasants associated the Jews with all the financial problems they faced.

The local lords actively exploited this division. They drummed up hatred against Jews, and treated them as a pressure valve, so that, in times of economic crisis, peasants would attack their local Jews rather than turn their ire on the landowner class.

That is why the worst pogroms that we have recorded came in times when the monarchy was in financial straits. In England, these came when the country was bankrupted by its military Crusades to capture Jerusalem. Jews, the perceived cause of money problems, and naturally associated with the Holy Land, had all the anger and resentment of impoverished people poured out on them.

If the monarchy or the Church were struggling with their own debts, they had an easy way out: they could simply expel the Jews and confiscate all their property. In 1290, Edward I expelled the Jews from England to cancel his debts and win back the support of the knights and lords in parliament, who were also heavily indebted.

This put the rabbis, the arbiters of Jewish law, in a very difficult position. If they permitted lending at interest, they would turn their backs on their entire religious inheritance. If they insisted that Judaism forbade money-lending at interest, they would effectively force their community to leave where they were. And, since all of Christian Europe had adopted the same policy, they would have nowhere to go.

So, the rabbis had to find a way. They looked at the laws, which said such lending was only prohibited to their kin. Rabbi David Kimchi, writing in medieval France during pogroms and expulsions, said that Jews were not permitted to lend at interest to people who respect Jews. The corollary was that if people would not treat the Jews as full human beings, then they, in turn, could lend to them at interest. In England, the Christians had estranged them and made them explicitly not their kin.

This is why correcting this point on the understanding of Jewish law is so important. It is not just because we are sticklers for getting the halachah right. It is so that we understand what antisemitism is and how it works.

We Jews did not create this system. We did not allow it, nor have the power to stop it. For over a millennium, European powers embedded and promoted antisemitism to prop up their system. As Rabbi Lionel Blue, of blessed memory, so pithily wrote: “The problem of the Jews in Europe was never the Jews. It was Europe.”

Now, we are citizens in this country. With Emancipation, we might have hoped that it would bring an end to cultures of debt and division. True, most of the banks and money-lenders are now not owned by Jews, and very few Jews today engage in such work.

But that is not because we are living closer to the laws of the Torah or our rabbis. It is because the whole of our society is caught up in loans. All of us are more indebted and more divided than we ever were. We are pitted against each other by a media eager to see us all fighting.

Combating antisemitism does not only mean counteracting myths and biases against Jews. It is also about dismantling the material realities that created antisemitism. The hatred of Jews erupts when we are scapegoated for economic problems in society. We must not only contradict the myth that we are responsible, but also fight to ensure that the problems people face of economic hardship and drowning in debts no longer exist.

When we realise that the world has enough for all of us, and distribute it so that everyone can prosper, we will be far closer to a world without prejudice and fear.

Shabbat shalom.