As UK Jews wonder if they have a future here, it emerges that their 1290 banishment has never been rescinded.
by Charles Gardner.
The Jews of England have been living with an edict of expulsion hanging over their heads for over 700 years.
And the fateful meeting of Parliament that sealed the deal for such exclusion in 1290 took place, not in London, but 130 miles north of the capital in the heart of Sherwood Forest.
This was the home of the legendary Robin Hood, who allegedly robbed the rich to aid the poor! (As it happens, the Jewish community at this time were impoverished, having been taxed to the hilt by Henry III after being relatively wealthy in earlier years).
These extraordinary findings are the result of much research into Jewish history here by retired lecturer Geoffrey Smith.
And it comes at a time when UK Jewry is under threat in a way not seen since the Middle Ages.
In a shocking claim, Smith reminds us that the expulsion edict enacted by Edward I has never been rescinded, as of course it should have been.
Apparently, Oliver Cromwell was twice petitioned for its repeal – in 1648 and 1655 – and although he supported the petitioners and Jews returned, City of London merchants objected, and the so-called Whitehall Conference failed to reach a conclusion.
In a bid to put this right, over 3,000 Christian friends of Israel petitioned the late Queen in 1999. And although it was graciously received, it was subsequently blocked by the Home Office.
“Now Jewish people are asking if there is any future for them in the UK,” Smith noted. “Such a situation is surely a disgraceful stain on our nation for having acted in this way against men and women who have contributed so much to benefit us in so many ways. And the chance to put it right has been denied three times.”
Smith’s research began in earnest on his return from a spell in Jerusalem in 1992 when he was asked to look into the massacre of Jews in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, on Palm Sunday 1190.
The expulsion order came 100 years later. But it was only quite recently that he discovered the link with Nottinghamshire’s Sherwood Forest after moving there from the south.
As a result, he addressed a meeting of a local historical society in Mansfield with a talk on the subject that included 38 slides and a PowerPoint commentary.
“For it was here that the knights and prelates from across the land gathered to seal a deal with the king that banished from England thousands of our fellow countrymen, their wives and children and generations after them for centuries, simply because they were Jews.
“A recent biographer of Edward I concludes that the expulsion of the Jews was, without a doubt, the most popular policy decision of his reign. We were the first nation in Europe to do it, and our example was followed by France, Spain and Portugal.”
Particularly poignant was the part played by Amsterdam in the two earlier petitions for its repeal. The 1648 plea came from two Baptist women from the Dutch city while the 1655 appeal was from Menasseh ben Israel, a rabbi and author, also from Amsterdam, to which his family had fled to escape the Inquisition.
The Jews of Holland suffered terribly during the Holocaust, when a third of their people perished in the concentration camps despite the brave efforts of Christians like Corrie ten Boom.
More recently, Dutch Christians have been taking to the streets of six British cities – London, Edinburgh, Cardiff, Cambridge, Birmingham and Manchester – to lift up the name of Jesus in passionate worship while at the same time publicly praying for Israel. The so-called Presence Revival movement has already gained much traction in Amsterdam and other European cities.
Many Christians long for revival and Presence leader Wim Hoddenbagh would say, as he often does publicly on the streets, that blessing Israel is the key!