OPINION: The latest Jewish cavalry
Bienvenue and welcome to the French Jews arriving en masse to the UK amidst vandalism, looting, riots and anti-semitism in their home country, writes historian Derek Taylor.
Thank goodness, the equivalent of the Jewish Cavalry have arrived in good order from overseas.
Of course, we’ve always had a lot of support from the Continent. The community in Britain was originally from Spain, Portugal and Holland in Stuart times. Then they were backed up by Eastern Europe Jews fleeing the 30 Years War from Germany and the East.
Roll on a sesquicentennial, (150 years) and we get the entire Gibraltar congregation when the Spaniards fired 250,000 shells at the Rock and the Jews were evacuated.
Then we got the Russian and Polish Jews in the East End after the Czar was assassinated, which accounts for most of our ancestors, and the German Jews arrived before the war.
Afterwards we got the Iranians when the Shah was overthrown in the 1970s but we’ve been a bit short since.
Now, we are fortunate that thousands of French Jews are no longer happy in ‘Belle’ France and they’ve come here instead; where they are very welcome.
The French have not been anything like as good to the Jews as the British. Admittedly, we probably wouldn’t have had Zionism without them. Theodor Herzl, as a newspaper correspondent in Paris during the Dreyfus affair, was so appalled at the anti-semitism in France, that he started his movement.
Many French also collaborated with the Nazis in deporting their Jews to concentration camps, which officially, they forgot for a long time, though they have apologised recently.
The French had wars of liberation in North Africa after the war, and the Muslems who fled to France, were far more violent than those who came to Britain. The situation in France today is giving the French government a lot of trouble. There have even been terrorist incidents by Moslems against Jews in France which have led to the new Exodus.
It isn’t just Jews who are attracted over here. The number born in France in the 2011 census was 127,000 and as many as 35,000 may well be Jews.
The situation in France is so bad that the Jewish leaders are advising their members not to wear yarmulkes for their own safety. Try that in Golders Green.
Where the Jews arriving in the East End were mostly poverty stricken, we are getting the cream of the French crop and they are mostly Orthodox and observant. Although they come from all branches of the faith, those with origins in North Africa are most likely to be Sephardi. They are strongly represented in the financial world.
The question arises of whether they will stay or emigrate again to Israel or America. Of course, they are far better off in Britain and British history and culture proves it. We can offer them large dollops of La Gloire, which is a French ambition, but one they seldom manage.
The British win their battles and rally round our monarchy. Admittedly we did lose to William the Conqueror but that was a long time ago. We’ll ignore the fact that many of our most distinguished aristocratic families are originally Norman.
What we should be able to look forward to is more and better kosher restaurants and the Charedim are likely to grow even faster. So a hearty welcome to the French Jews and if their relatives are thinking of joining them we’ll be happy to welcome them too.
- Derek Taylor is an historian
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