Two Novels About Jews in England

 

 

A book entitled ‘A Conspiracy of Paper’ by David Liss (published by Ballantine Books, New York, 2000) recently came into my hands by chance. The main subject – intrigues, violence and even murder in connection with trading on the stock exchange in early eighteenth-century England – is not one that would normally attract my interest. However, the opening pages revealed that the main character, who is also the narrator, is a Jew, and this naturally aroused my curiosity.

As luck would have it, and again purely by chance, another book I read recently (‘A Second Daniel, A Tudor Intrigue’ by Neal Roberts), was also – albeit incidentally – about the situation of Jews in England, this time in the period of Elizabeth the First. At that time Jews had not yet been officially allowed to reside in England, yet nonetheless some did, and even the queen’s physician was a Jew, although he came to a bad end. Jews were officially allowed back into England during the rule of Oliver Cromwell in the seventeenth century, although they were subject to various restrictions as to where they could reside and in which occupations they could engage. Thus it was that, as was the case in most of Europe, Jews were not allowed to own land or engage in any profession other than certain kinds of commerce or usury.

 

Jews had been living in England since the time of William the Conqueror (eleventh century), but were increasingly subjected to restrictions, harassment and eventually persecution, murder, expropriation of their property and expulsion by Edward 1 in the thirteenth century.

In eighteenth-century England certain aspects of trading on the stock exchange seem to have been open to Jews, and the ins and outs of these transactions are described in considerable detail in the book, particularly in relation to the rivalry between the two major financial institutions: the South Sea Company and the Bank of England. The events described in the book take place a few years before the famous South Sea Bubble, in which shares in the South Sea Company suddenly lost most of their value, causing many investors to lose a great deal of money.

According to an interview with the author that appears at the end of the book, its main protagonist, Daniel Weaver, is based on a real person, Daniel Mendoza, a Jewish boxer who was well-known for his successes in the ring in his day. Like his fictitious counterpart, Mendoza eventually became a debt-collector and thief-taker at a time when London was without a police force, and crime and violence were everyday occurrences.

The plot of ‘A Second Daniel,’ contains several parallels to ‘The Merchant of Venice,’ and the events surrounding the actual trial and death of Dr. Lopez, Queen Elizabeth 1’s physician, may well have served to inspire Shakespeare to write his play. The legal status of Jews in England at the time was precarious, to say the least, though the fact that Lopez was able to serve as the queen’s physician indicates that exceptions could be made. Fortunately, the author spares us a graphic description of Lopez’s death, although the mere knowledge of it is enough to give anyone nightmares.

‘A Conspiracy of Silence’ contains lively descriptions of the London underworld at the time, as well as of the life of the Jewish inhabitants of the city. Particularly telling is the following statement made by the narrator’s uncle: ” …you would understand the dangers of being a rich Jew in this country. We cannot own property, we cannot engage in certain kinds of business. For centuries they have herded us into dealing with their money for them, and they have hated us for doing what they permitted.”

Daniel Weaver finds himself maligned for being a Jew, albeit not an observant one, and attacked for trying to find the person or persons responsible for the murder of his father. He is successful in his quest, but loses the woman he seeks to marry. His tale is typical of the fate that befell many Jews throughout the centuries and wherever in the world they happened to be living. Harried and harassed, chased from pillar to post, persecuted and subjected to indignities, insults and maltreatment for generations, their sad and tragic history culminated in the Holocaust that sought to eliminate them from the face of the earth.

And yet they have survived. Their situation today, with a State of their own, is one which can only be described as little short of miraculous.

 

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French Country Life

 

If you want to get up close and personal with the life of the population of rural France you must at least once in your life attend a Kermesse Paroissiale, a kind of parish fete, a function which is held once a year in order to raise funds for and support the local churches.

Today there are very few functioning churches in central France, although virtually every village has at least one such structure, many of them dating from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries when religious belief and observance were more widespread than they are today. These churches serve more as venues for concerts, when these are organized by the regional authority. This year, apparently as a result of the restructuring of the region’s government, with the merging of several regions into one unit in order to reduce managerial and administrative costs, the usual series of seven or eight concerts given in local churches in the summer is not being held, apparently due to lack of funds.

A friend who is an active member of her local church and the wider parish (which incorporates several dozen otherwise-empty churches) invited us to attend the Kermesse this year, and even persuaded us to donate a prize (one of my paintings) for the tombola to be held to end the event.

The programme for the day was packed with activities, starting at 9.30 in the morning with a mass and a guided tour of the abbey, continuing with the release of doves, and games for adults and children and ending with a tombola draw at five in the evening. The high point of the day was the cold buffet midday meal, consisting of dishes prepared by the members of the parish.

This year the Kermesse was held in the grounds of an ancient, partly-ruined abbey, providing ample space for stands offering drinks, crepes, second-hand books, clothes, and home-made cakes and biscuits. For each drink, crepe, etc. one paid a symbolic amount, and much friendly banter and even earnest conversation was conducted alongside the transactions. The weather was fine and everyone seemed to be having a good time.

The only drawback, if it can be called one, was the fact that the number of participants far exceeded expectations, and whereas tables and benches for one hundred guests had been prepared inside what had apparently once been the abbey’s refectory, over one hundred and fifty people queued up to partake of the food. There was quite a crush, partly because some people were apparently unused to the principle of taking something to eat and moving away to let others approach. Nonetheless, everyone displayed admirable forbearance and waited patiently or simply jumped the queue and went round to the other side of the table in the elegant and jovial way that is unique to French country-folk.

When we managed to find a place to sit together with our French friends we were surprised to find an elderly couple sitting quietly at our table with nothing to eat. They both appeared to be handicapped to varying degrees, and told us that they were waiting for the crush at the buffet to abate before they could approach it. They looked wistfully at our plates laden with food, and after a while, seeing that there was no progress, Yigal simply took the elderly gentleman by the hand, led him to the buffet, and steered him past the people standing there to the other side, where he could prepare plates for himself and his wife. The couple’s gratitude was touching, but it struck us as rather odd that the locals did not seem to have any concern for those among them who were weaker or incapacitated.

Feeling exhausted by our efforts and the need to speak in French, we went to the cake stand and bought something to have with our coffee when we got home. The stand seemed to be manned (womanned) mainly by English-speaking ladies, and the main topic of conversation was of course Brexit and its implications. We left the abbey just as the musical interlude (an accordionist playing French tunes) was beginning. On the drive home through the verdant countryside we felt glad that we had made our own small contribution to cordial international relations.

 

 

Ex-Mex-Brex

 

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The border official at Marseille airport laughed heartily when I expressed regret for the result of the Brexit referendum upon presenting my British passport for inspection. On the cover of the passport, in addition to the words ‘United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland’ (I wonder how long that will still be relevant), and the pretty emblem of the crown protected by the lion and the unicorn, are emblazoned the words ‘European Union.’ Are they now going to have to replace all the British passports? That should keep the two and a half officials who deal with such matters busy for a while. But it makes me wonder whether other British passport-holders share my sense of embarrassment whenever they have to show their passports while travelling around Europe now.

Since I’m currently in France I decided to undertake my own private non-random and non-objective survey of opinions among British expats living here and, as expected, opinions were divided. One person said he would have voted to leave because England was never wholly in Europe anyway. How come? It hadn’t adopted the Euro and wasn’t in Shengen. But it was a fully paid-up member, I protested. That didn’t really signify, was the answer, and come to think of it, the result of the referendum seems to bear this out.

“The vote reflects class differences,” was the reasoning proffered by another ex-pat friend. She went on to expound the theory that the British working class is totally fed up with the system that provides benefits to all and sundry (themselves included), but especially to migrants. These benefits include housing, child-support (even for children resident in another country), unemployment benefit, and various others. They, too, have a point, it seems, but perhaps they are at fault themselves for maintaining the system that allocates these goodies on such a widespread scale.

“All politicians are liars anyway,” another expat told me, “and that’s why I never vote in elections. I don’t believe a single thing any one of them says.” On reflection and in view of recent events and revelations, it would seem that he has a point.

For the moment life goes on pretty much as before for the British expats in France, just as it probably does for the French expats living in England, though both are adversely affected by the depreciation of sterling. It has been suggested that since the numbers of expats on both sides are more or less balanced it will not really serve anyone’s interests to make any major changes.

One French newspaper put a picture of Boris Johnson on the cover of its weekly magazine with the French equivalent of ‘Bloody English!’ as the caption. Some Brits in France are contemplating applying for French citizenship, or at least residency, which is relatively easily obtained (at least five years as a resident and some proficiency in the French language), and that, of course, would resolve many of the problems now starting to be associated with British citizenship. But all that is part of the black hole that is the future.

But most French people don’t seem to be greatly exercised by the whole saga. Their attention has been focused almost entirely on the European football contest that has just ended in the defeat of the home team (Les Blues) by Portugal. But they had a good run for their money and the whole affair served to boost public morale and divert attention from the troubles at home (revolutionary labour laws, unemployment, strikes, go-slows, etc.), and soon we’ll have the Olympic games, and so it goes (the concept of bread and circuses has been around for a very long time). The ancient Chinese curse, ‘may you live in interesting times,’ seems to be coming home to roost, with a vengeance.