Thursday, January 12, 2012
What was life like for Jews in the early 18th century of England?
Between the the time when the Jews were expelled by Edward I and the time when they were re-admitted by Cromwell, the English had learnt to manage their own financial and business affairs. there was therefore no danger of Hebrew domination and the answering reaction of antisemitism. By Hanoverian times England was strong enough to digest a moderate influx of Jews and, as the prosperity of holland declined, many of them moved from Amsterdam to London and became prominent there in stockbroking. the Jew helped the development of "the City". According to CR Fay in Great Britain from Adam Smith to the present day "He was ubiquitous and enterprising, persistent but not pugnacious, he ran after customers without regard to his dignity, and made a profit out of articles and transactions which other people rejected or despised. For international finance the Jews had a special bent, overcoming by their tribal bonds the boundaries of nations, and yet as individuals retaining that mental detachment which is so critical to financial ysis" During the Seven Years War, Sampson Gideon was important in the City as a banker; in the next generation the Goldsmiths came to the front; and in 1805 Nathan Rothschild founded the most famous of all Jewish houses in London, usefully linked to the family's establishments in other European lands. But besides the great city Jews, there was also a low type of Hebrew moneylender now prominent, abhorred not without reason by his victims, the impecunious and unthrifty of all cles.
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