Jews no longer attached
to the Synagogue, such as the Herschels and Disraelis, attained to fame.
In 1830 the first Jewish emancipation bill was brought in by Robert
Grant, but it was not till the legislation of 1858-1860 that Jews
obtained full parliamentary rights. In other directions progress was
more rapid. The office of sheriff was thrown open to Jews in 1835 (Moses
Montefiore, sheriff of London was knighted in 1837); Sir I. L. Goldsmid
was made a baronet in 1841, Baron Lionel de Rothschild was elected to
Parliament in 1847 (though he was unable to take his seat), Alderman
(Sir David) Salomons became lord mayor of London in 1855 and Francis
Goldsmid was made a Q.C. in 1858. In 1873 Sir George Jessel was made a
judge, and Lord Rothschild took his seat in the House of Lords as the
first Jewish peer in 1886. A fair proportion of Jews have been elected
to the House of Commons, and Mr Herbert Samuel rose to cabinet rank in
1909. Sir Matthew Nathan has been governor of Hong-Kong and Natal, and
among Jewish statesmen in the colonies Sir Julius Vogel and V. L.
Solomon have been prime ministers (HYAMSON: _A History of the Jews in
England_, p. 342). It is unnecessary to remark that in the British
colonies the Jews everywhere enjoy full citizenship. In fact, the
colonies emancipated the Jews earlier than did the mother country. Jews
were settled in Canada from the time of Wolfe, and a congregation was
founded at Montreal in 1768, and since 1832 Jews have been entitled to
sit in the Canadian parliament. There are some thriving Jewish
agricultural colonies in the same dominion. In Australia the Jews from
the first were welcomed on perfectly equal terms. The oldest
congregation is that of Sydney (1817); the Melbourne community dates
from 1844. Reverting to incidents in England itself, in 1870 the
abolition of university tests removed all restrictions on Jews at Oxford
and Cambridge, and both universities have since elected Jews to
professorships and other posts of honour. The communal organization of
English Jewry is somewhat inchoate. In 1841 an independent reform
congregation was founded, and the Spanish and Portuguese Jews have
always maintained their separate existence with a Haham as the
ecclesiastical head. In 1870 was founded the United Synagogue, which is
a metropolitan organization, and the same remark applies to the more
recent Federation of Synagogues. The chief rabbi, who is the
ecclesiastical head of the United Synagogue, has also a certain amount
of authority over the provincial and colonial Jewries, but this is
nominal rather than real. The provincial Jewries, however, participate
in the election of the chief rabbi. At the end of 1909 was held the
first conference of Jewish ministers in London, and from this is
expected some more systematic organization of scattered communities.
Anglo-Jewry is rich, however, in charitable, educational and literary
institutions; chief among these respectively may be named the Jewish
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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