Jeremy Rosen
The Rise and Fall of Anglo Jewry
Summary
Reviewing the rise and fall of Anglo Jewry, the lecture highlights the Jewish presence in England, dating back to Julius Caesar, and their settlement with Norman the Conqueror in 1066. The Jews played significant roles as financiers for the kings, facing challenges from barons and the church due to conflicts over money, ultimately resulting in their expulsion by Edward I in 1292. In the 19th century, the nature of Anglo Jewry underwent significant changes due to massive immigration, challenging the assimilation and disappearance of earlier generations and leading to equality.
Jeremy Rosen
Manchester-born Jeremy Rosen was educated at Cambridge University England and Mir Yeshiva in Jerusalem. He has practiced as an orthodox rabbi, as principal of Carmel College in the UK, and as professor at the Faculty for Comparative Religion in Antwerp, Belgium. He has written and lectured extensively in the UK and the US, where he now resides and was the rabbi of the Persian-Jewish community in Manhattan.
They had no authority over the Spanish and Portuguese, the reform, the liberal, or even the ultra Orthodox. But because they had the assets to build synagogues in London, all synagogues built in London belonged to the United Synagogue and therefore they could fire the rabbi. So it was purely for fiscal organisational reasons that they came to dominate the synagogues in London.
The United Synagogue adheres to the halachic behavioural system of how Orthodox Judaism should be observed. So keeps Shabbat, keeps Kashrut, follows the Halakhah, the strict Halakhah in all its official public functions. Where I think it varies is that it was always tolerant of different heterodoxal beliefs.
Absolutely, that’s why you could tell the difference between an English Jew from an American Jew. You could even tell a haredi English Jew and a haredi American Jew. An American haredi Jew walks tall, an English haredi Jew tends to walk with a stoop.
Very strong, they’ve grown from nowhere in the the 50’s to be very powerful. Whereas once they would never have been allowed to be rabbis in the United Synagogue, now many of them are. The trouble is on the ideological side because for all the wonderful and good that they do, they still count as fundamentalists.