BRITISH AND JEWISH

135 Pages·2011·0.47 MB·English

BRITISH AND JEWISH: JEWISH WOMEN’S QUEST FOR BRITISHNESS AND

JEWISH CIVIL AND POLITICAL EQUALITY IN BRITAIN, 1790-1860

by

Ashley M. Cleeves

A thesis submitted to

Sonoma State University

in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

MASTER OF ARTS

in

History

________________________________
Dr. Kathleen M. Noonan, Chair

________________________________
Dr. Michelle Jolly

________________________________
Dr. Cynthia Scheinberg

________________________________
Date
Copyright 2011

By Ashley M. Cleeves

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AUTHORIZATION FOR REPRODUCTION
OF MASTER’S THESIS

I grant permission for the reproduction of this thesis in its entirety, without further
authorization from me, on the condition that the person or agency requesting
reproduction absorb the cost and provide proper acknowledgment of authorship.

DATE: __________________ ____________________________________
Signature

____________________________________
Street Address

____________________________________
City, State, Zip

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BRITISH AND JEWISH: JEWISH WOMEN’S QUEST FOR BRITISHNESS AND
JEWISH CIVIL AND POLITICAL EQUALITY IN BRITAIN, 1790-1860

Thesis by
Ashley M. Cleeves

ABSTRACT

Purpose of the Study:

In my thesis, I examine the role of Jewish women in British acculturation and political
and civil emancipation efforts in the first two-thirds of the nineteenth century. Histories
written in the last hundred years on Jews in nineteenth-century Britain have generally not
included Jewish women. British women's historians have done considerable research on
women's roles and participation in nineteenth-century British politics and society in the
last thirty years, but they too have predominantly ignored Jewish women. Anglo-Jewish
literature scholars have done important research in the past twenty years, using Jewish
women writers and their works to examine gender, religion, and identity in Victorian
Britain. While their research has focused on Jewish women, Anglo-Jewish historians
have yet to incorporate literature scholars’ sources or conclusions into their own works.
By including Anglo-Jewish women and integrating them into the past, my research will
begin to fill the existing gap in the fields of Modern Anglo-Jewish and British history.

Procedure:

To demonstrate that Jewish women in Britain participated in acculturation efforts and in
the political and civil emancipation movement between 1790 and 1860, I particularly
look at middle- and upper-class Anglo-Jewish women writers, such as Grace Aguilar and
Celia and Marion Moss. I draw primarily on these women’s poems, novels, and
travelogues, as well as newspaper articles, letters, journal entries, and other primary
sources of the time, for my research and evidence. I have also used secondary sources,
research done by other historians and literature scholars, to argue and prove my thesis.

Findings:

A large part of being British in 1790 or 1800 was being Anglican, but by 1830 elite
Jewish men and women had gained British identities. They became socially and
culturally indiscernible from Protestant Britons, while remaining Jewish. Like middle-
and upper-class Jewish men in Britain, Jewish women became British so they would gain
all the rights and privileges of their class that came with Britishness, specifically
citizenship and acceptance, which no Jews in Europe had at the time.

What mattered more to Britons of the same economic class was wealth and culture, that
Jews had the same amount of wealth and were culturally identical to them, rather than
what religion they practiced. Evidence of that was elite non-Anglican Protestants and
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Catholics all having civil and political equality in Britain by 1830. They were considered
British and included in the British polity, but despite their efforts, elite Jewish men and
women were not. In order to be recognized as British by their government, elite Jewish
women, along with Jewish men, took part in the Jewish emancipation movement and its
debates on British identity and citizenship through written and public participation
between 1830 and 1858. As a result of both sexes’ efforts, full British citizenship was
granted to elite Jewish women and men in 1858, while Jewish men additionally gained
full political rights.

Conclusion:

Middle- and upper-class Jewish women and men gained British identities befitting their
economic class between 1790 and 1830 in order to be integrated into British society and
culture and accepted by Christian Britons of their class. Anglo-Jews, both women and
men, fought for inclusion, recognition, and acceptance in Britain between 1830 and 1858,
and were successful in 1858. After all of their acculturation and emancipation efforts,
elite Jews achieved Britishness, and were granted full civil and political rights as a result.

Chair: ____________________________
Signature

M.A. Program: History
Sonoma State University Date: __________________

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Histories are not the sole product of the people writing them, and this one is no exception.
First and foremost, I thank my thesis advisor and chair, Dr. Kathleen Noonan. Dr.
Noonan has helped me gain the historical and writing skills necessary to work in the
profession, while fostering my interest in Anglo-Jewish women during my time at
Sonoma State University. I thank her for all of the support, help, and time that she has put
into my research and writing, both in and out of the classroom and for this project and
others. For all of that I am extremely grateful.

I would like to thank Dr. Michelle Jolly for being a member of my thesis committee and
for working with me during my Master’s program. Her enthusiasm and support helped
me continue with this project even when I began to have doubts, while the writing and
editing tools she has provided me have made this, and any future, project both a
possibility and a reality. I also want to say thank you to Dr. Cynthia Scheinberg not only
for sitting on my thesis committee along with Dr. Noonan and Dr. Jolly but for lending
her expertise on Victorian Anglo-Jewish women writers to my thesis drafts which has
strengthened my work.

I want to acknowledge Dr. Randall Dodgen for the writing and editing help he has given
me in his classes at Sonoma State University, which over the years have made me a better
writer and historian, and I would also like to acknowledge Dr. Cynthia Scheinberg, Dr.
Linda Colley, Dr. Michael Galchinsky, Dr. Nadia Valman, and Dr. Todd Endelman.
Their collective works in the fields of Anglo-Jewish literature and Modern British and
Modern Anglo-Jewish history sparked the ideas in my head as an undergraduate that led
to this work, and for that I say thank you.

To my friends and cohorts in the History Club, History 510, and History 597 at Sonoma
State, I say thank you for all the much-needed trips to candy stores, museums,
restaurants, and the campus pub, for the fun times, and for sticking with me during the
length of this project when I was running on large amounts of stress and little sleep. I
specifically want to thank my History 597 friends for being like the cast of Cheers. I
enjoyed having a group of classmates and friends where “everybody knows your name,
and they’re always glad you came,” and who also did not mind me quoting theme songs
from 1980s television sitcoms. I appreciate you all putting up with my endless and never-
ending thesis drafts last semester, and your suggestions, questions, and comments have
all helped make my thesis what it is.

Finally, I want to recognize my non-Sonoma State friends and family, especially my
mom. Thank you for all of the love and support you all have provided me and for all the
adventures and jalapeño poppers we have had over the years.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter Page

I. Introduction………………………………………………………………….....1
II. Chapter 1: Economics and Education…………………………...………...…..21
III. Chapter 2: Society and Culture…………………………………………..……45
IV. Chapter 3: Politics………………………………………………..……………67
V. Conclusion…………………………………………………………….........…97

VI. Bibliography…………………………………………………………………105

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1 

Introduction
Anglo-Jewish historians have interpreted Jewish emancipation (1828-1858) as a
Jewish men's movement. Meanwhile Victorian women's historians have examined how
and why British women became politically active during the Victorian period, but did not
integrate Anglo-Jewish women into their histories.1 My work is important to the fields of
Anglo-Jewish and British history because it integrates Jewish women into the history of
emancipation and the broader world of Victorian politics. My objective is to bring these
women, whose works and actions were almost forgotten, to the forefront.2 Anglo-Jewish
women did in fact have a public role in the Jewish emancipation movement, and their
participation and efforts, along with Jewish men’s, led to Anglo-Jewish political and civil
emancipation in 1858.
The Anglo-Jewish communities of 1790 and 1860 were two very different
communities. There were twelve to fifteen thousand Jews living in Britain at the
beginning of the nineteenth century.3 Most lived in London, and except for the small

1 See pages 12-20.
2 Michael Galchinsky, "Engendering Liberal Jews: Jewish Women in Victorian England," in Jewish
Women in Historical Perspective (Second Edition), edited by Judith R. Baskin (Detroit, MI: Wayne State
University Press, 1998), 208-209.
3 Todd M. Endelman, The Jews of Britain, 1656 to 2000 (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press,
2002), 41.
Anglo-Jewish historian Todd Endelman nicely explained why Jewish historians use the terms
'Anglo-Jewish' or 'Anglo Jews' when referring to Britain's Jewish community in their works. "It is
conventional to use the term 'Anglo-Jewish' to refer to Jews in Britain as a whole, including Jews in
Scotland and Wales, even though they were not, in a strict sense, 'English' Jews. Moreover, since the
number of Jews who lived in Wales and Scotland was never large, folding them into 'Anglo'-Jewry does not
distort the overall picture. The history of the Jews in Britain is overwhelmingly the history of Jews who
lived in English cities, London in particular." (Endelman, The Jews of Britain, 12; Endelman's italicization)
Historian Geoffrey Alderman wrote that "the very small Jewish communities of Scotland (principally
Glasgow), Wales (principally Cardiff), and Ireland (principally Dublin) were, in every sense of the word,
peripheral." "The Jewish world centered on London." (Geoffrey Alderman, "English Jews or Jews of the
English Persuasion? Reflections on the Emancipation of Anglo-Jewry," in Paths of Emancipation: Jews,
States, and Citizenship, edited by Pierre Birnbaum and Ira Katznelson (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press, 1995), 132; Eugene C. Black, "The Anglicization of Orthodoxy: The Adlers, Father and Son," in
2 

number of Jews in the middle and upper classes, most were of the working and lower
classes. Many were involved in what were deemed 'low trades' by the Christian British,
such as peddling. They were religiously traditional (orthodox) and first- and second-
generation immigrants who had little or no English-language skills. As a result, they were
viewed as the foreign 'other' by early nineteenth-century British Christian society.4 In
contrast, by 1850 there were thirty to thirty-seven thousand Anglo-Jews living in Britain,
twenty thousand alone in London.5 A small percentage of the Anglo-Jewish population
was upper class, but most Jewish Britons were solid members of the Victorian middle-
class, earning between £200 and £1,000 a year. They were native to Britain, spoke fluent
English, and were fully acculturated into British society and culture. Middle- and upper-
class Anglo-Jews considered themselves to be British, and they became full and equal
British citizens by 1860, transforming themselves from Jews who lived in England into
what Thomas Babington Macaulay called "English citizens of the Mosaic persuasion."6

From East and West: Jews in a Changing Europe, 1750-1870, edited by Frances Malino and David Sorkin
(Oxford, Oxfordshire, UK: Basil Blackwell Ltd., 1990), 300)
4 Endelman, The Jews of Britain, 43-44, 67-68, 79, 82, 90-91; Todd M. Endelman, The Jews of Georgian
England, 1714-1830: Tradition and Change in a Liberal Society (Philadelphia, PA: The Jewish Publication
Society of America, 1979), 86-87, 123-124, 166-167, 192-193.
5 Anglo-Jewish historian David Feldman stated that the number of Jews in England and Wales was thirty-
five thousand in 1851 with twenty thousand living in London, while Endelman claimed there were thirty to
thirty-seven thousand Jews in Britain at mid-century with twenty to twenty-five thousand living in London.
(David Feldman, Englishmen and Jews: Social Relations and Political Culture, 1840-1914 (New Haven,
CT: Yale University Press, 1994), 21; Endelman, The Jews of Britain, 80) In 1883, historian Jacob Jacobs
wrote that twelve thousand Polish and Russian Jews and seven thousand German and Prussian Jews
emigrated to Britain between 1850 and 1883, bringing the total Anglo-Jewish population to fifty-four
thousand in 1883 (his estimate). Feldman agreed with Jacobs' research, while historian Geoffrey Alderman
believed the Anglo-Jewish population hovered around sixty thousand in 1881. (Feldman, Englishmen and
Jews, 21; Alderman, "English Jews or Jews of the English Persuasion?," 140) I could not find exact
population figures for 1860.
6 David S. Katz, The Jews in the History of England, 1485-1850 (Oxford, Oxfordshire, UK: Clarendon
Press (Oxford University Press), 1994), 383 388; Endelman, The Jews of Britain, 79 92-93, 107; Thomas
Babington Macaulay, Critical and Historical Essays Contributed in their Edinburgh Review, 2 vols.
(London, UK, 1854), Vol. I: 142-144 (quotation); V. D. Lipman, Social History of the Jews in England,
1850-1950 (London, UK: Watts & Co., 1954), 76-78; V. D. Lipman, "The Structure of London Jewry in
3 

My thesis, entitled British and Jewish: Jewish Women’s Quest for Britishness and
Jewish Civil and Political Equality in Britain, 1790-1860, differs from the work of other
historians because its primary focus is Anglo-Jewish women. By integrating Anglo-
Jewish women into the history, my research begins to fill the gap that currently exists on
the topic of Anglo-Jewish emancipation. I argue that economic prosperity and
acculturation within the middle- and upper-class Anglo-Jewish community made elite
Anglo-Jewish women modern and British (as it simultaneously did to Anglo-Jewish men)
between 1790 and 1830, and that their participation in the Jewish emancipation
movement (1828-1858) was middle- and upper-class Jewish men’s and women’s efforts
to be recognized as British by their government and accepted as British by their nation.7
Becoming modern and British meant gaining and maintaining a public middle- or upper-
class British identity while losing or hiding some of their Jewish identity.8 While many

the Mid-Nineteenth Century," in Essays Presented to Chief Rabbi Israel Brodie on the Occasion of His
Seventieth Birthday, edited by H. J. Zimmels et. al, 2 vols. (London, UK, 1967), 255-258.
7 Todd M. Endelman, "The Chequered Career of 'Jew' King: a Study in Anglo-Jewish Social History," in
From East and West: Jews in a Changing Europe, 1750-1870, edited by Frances Malino and David Sorkin
(Oxford, Oxfordshire, UK: Basil Blackwell Ltd., 1990), 151-152, 181; Endelman, The Jews of Britain, 79-
100; Nadia Valman, "Women Writers and the Campaign for Jewish Civil Rights in Early Victorian
England," In Women in British Politics, 1760-1860: The Power of the Petticoat, edited by Kathryn Gleadle
and Sarah Richardson (Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire, UK: Macmillan Press Ltd., 2000), 94-95,
103.
Both Endelman and Valman did not deal with women’s direct participation in the Jewish
emancipation movement or how it was Jewish women’s desire to be recognized as British that led in part to
their participation.
8 Endelman, The Jews in Britain," 99; Todd M. Endelman, "The Englishness of Jewish Modernity in
England," in Toward Modernity: The European Jewish Model, edited by Jacob Katz (New York, NY:
Transaction Books, 1987), 225-231; Black, "The Anglicization of Orthodoxy," 300; Feldman, Englishmen
and Jews, 27, 39; Abraham Gilam, The Emancipation of the Jews in England, 1830-1860 (New York, NY:
Garland Publishing, Inc., 1982), ii-iii, 5-7; Jacob Katz, Out of the Ghetto: The Social Background of Jewish
Emancipation, 1770-1870 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1973), 1-2, 7; Howard M. Sachar, A
History of the Jews in the Modern World (New York, NY: Vintage Books, 2005), 127.
It was extremely rare for Anglo-Jews to assimilate to the point of losing all of their Jewish identity
– becoming Christian – during this period. While most Jews remained what would today be considered
Modern Orthodox (adapting themselves and their actions to fit into the modern British world while still
remaining highly religious), some Jews elected to become less adherent and more modern through the
Reform movement or reforms to traditional Judaism during this period. Whether traditional or reform-
minded, many middle- and upper-class Jews adopted a British national and cultural identity while