How well has Britain treated the Jews?
by Ian Paul, Psephizo:
This week marks the 100th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration which paved the way for the establishment of the modern State of Israel 30 years later. The seemingly intractable controversy created by Balfour was summed up by the Hungarian-born Jewish writer Arthur Koestler, who quipped, “one nation solemnly promised to a second nation the country of a third”. The Declaration is often thought to be the product of a relatively modern movement for the physical restoration of Jews to a geographical homeland—but in fact British welcome and support for Jewish people goes a long way back into a very mixed history.
The latest Grove Ethics book, British Christian History and the Jewish People by James Patrick, charts this controversial (and controverted) history in unusual detail, and in doing so unearths some remarkable aspects of Britain’s relationship with Jewish people. British affection for the Jews is buried deep within some key moments of our history.
Christianity is pervasive in the British Isles, long thought to have been introduced by first-generation followers of Jesus—fellow Jews—as early as the first century AD, apparently attested by Eusebius (Dem Ev III.5.112). In any case, by AD 200 Tertullian could refer to ‘the haunts of the Britons, inaccessible to the Romans but subjugated to Christ’ (Adv Jud 7.4)…
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