ANL
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
Jewish Representation in British
House of Commons Remembered
By MAURICE
SAMUELSON
LONDON (JTA) — On
July 26, 1858, Baron Lionel
Nathan de Rothschild be-
came the first professing
Jew in Britain to be admit-
ted to the House of Com-
mons.
Exactly 125 years later,
the event was marked by a
festive luncheon attended
by his great-great-grand-
son, Jacob de Rothschild,
and two more of his descen-
dants.
At the luncheon held by
the Board of Deputies of
British Jews, Leon Britton,
the Jewish-both Home Sec-
retary in the present gov-
ernment, expressed what he
called "our great debt to the
Rothschild family" and to
the English people's spirit of
compromise and tolerance.
Among the many other
guests, who included
Jewish and non-Jewish
members of both Houses
of Parliament, was 98-
year-old Lord Emmanuel
Shinwell who in 1922 be-
came the first Jew to re-
present the Labor Party
in the House of Com-
mons.
Ian Mikardo, another
prominent Jewish Labor
MP, said that had it not
been for Baron de-
Rothschild's fight to enter
Parliament, Britain might
not have admitted to its
shores the waves of immig-
rants fleeing from Czarist
oppression towards the end
of the last century. "Instead
of being a member of the
House of Commons I might
have had an unmarked
grave in the Warsaw
Ghetto," Mikardo said.
Britain's Roman
Catholics were represented
at the luncheon by the Duke
of Norfolk and the Earl of
Perth, the two senior
Catholic peers in the coun-
try.
In his address, Sir Im-
manuel Jakobovits, Chief
Rabbi of the Common-
wealth, pointed to the paral-
lel plight of England's Jews
and Catholics as they
fought for civil and political
emancipation in the last
century.
Sir David Salomons,
the first Jewish Lord
Mayor of London. had
been responsible for
erasing from a London
monument an inscription
blaming Catholics for the
great fire of London in
1666.
Speaking on behalf of his
family, Jacob de Rothschild
noted that it took his ances-
tor 12 years to win his fight
to sit in the House of Com-
U.S. Soldiers Take Israel Tours
BONN (JTA) — Ameri-
can soldiers stationed in
West Germany are increas-
ingly interested in vaca-
tioning in Israel this year,
according to the American
Express Military. Travel,
which offers special travel
tours for U.S. Army person-
nel.
According
to
the
Bavaria-based company,
the travellers seem to be in-
terested in Israel as a holy
land sacred to Jews, Chris-
tians and Moslems. For
$590, the soldiers are of-
fered a round trip with a
week-long excursion, in-
Dance Troupe
to Visit Britain
JERUSALEM (JTA) — A
group of 25 youths from the
Hora-Ashkelon Dance
Company will embark next
week on a month-long tour
of Britain. A highlight of
the trip will be a series of
performances at the Aber-
deen International Youth
Festival in Scotland.
The company, whose re-
pertoire includes a wide
variety of Israeli folk
dances, will also perform in
major Jewish communities
in London and Glasgow.
The dance group was
formed two years ago in
cooperation with the Joint
Israel Appeal of Great Brit-
ain and Ireland, and per-
forms close to 110 times a
year. Its members, between
the ages of 16 and 25, are
recruited from neighbor-
hoods throughout Ashke-
lon, including those linked
with Britain through Proj-
ect Renewal.
cluding visits in Caesarea,
Nazareth, Sea of Galilee,
the Golan Heights, the
Dead Sea, Massada and Jer-
usalem. The price is rela-
tively low compared to simi-
lar tours offered from Ger-
many.
Though the German
press has lately been crit-
ical of tourist services in
Israel because of an al-
leged 30 percent increase
in hotel rates, general
German tourism to Israel
seems to be rising
rapidly. Many of the 25
weekly flights to Israel
are sold out and tour
operators and travel
agents have registered
many more bookings
than last year.
One of the reasons for the
sharp increase in services in
Israel in terms of the Ger-
man Mark is the relative
weakness of the Mark com-
pared to the American dol-
lar. Prices in Israel are fixed
in dollars.
MAZEL TOV
To our dear and wonderful parents and grandparents
mons after winning his first
parliamentary election, but
that once he had. done so he
never made a speech there.
In all, the parliamentary
battle for Jewish emancipa-
tion had taken 28 years. The
first bill to admit Jews to
the House of Commons had
been presented in 1830, a
year after the Catholics
were enfranchised.
But it foundered, like
other subsequent moves,
over the thorny question of
whether or not Jews could
refuse to swear an oath of
allegiance "on the true oath
of a Christian."
Benjamin Disraeli, a
supporter of Jewish
emancipation, did not
face this hurdle because
he had been converted to
Christianity while a
child. But professing
Jews recoiled from doing
so.
Although the opponents
of Jewish enfranchisement
included a hard core of reac-
tionary bigots, there were
also high-minded Chris-
tians like Lord Shaftesbury
who wanted to uphold the
Christian oath of allegiance
on purely religious grounds.
The matter was finally
resolved in 1858 by a corn-
promise whereby each
House of Parliament could
determine the form of oath
to be administered for its
members.
Even so, Jews were still
for some time barred from
the House of Lords: de
Rothschild was excluded at
the insistence of Queen Vic-
toria. He was also barred
from the exclusive jockey
club of race horse owners
and although he won the
Derby he did so under an as-
sumed name.
The recent commemora-
tion was a purely domestic
British affair. Hence the ab-
sence of any representative
from the Israel Embassy.
Otherwise it would have
been difficult to ignore the
fact that it was to another
illustrious member of the
Rothschild tribe — Lord
(Walter) Rothschild — that
the Balfour Declaration
pledging British support for
a Jewish national home in
Palestine was addressed.
BELLA and SAM LINDEN
on your
DIAMOND WEDDING ANNIVERSARY
August 5, 1983
With all our love!
Children: Fred and Edith
Allen and Adina
Cynthia and Norman
Grandchildren: Sylvia, Ron, Arlene
Jonathan and Annie
Great-Grandson: Mark
Your Membership Counts!
Adat Shalom Synagogue
cordially invites you to our annual
Synagogue Open House
Sunday, August 7
2:00-5:00 p.m.
In conjunction with the
THE SYNAGOGUE COUNCIL
OF GREATER DETROIT
Program for prospective members
Rabbi Efry Spectre
Cantor Larry Vieder
FOR MORE INFORMATION
851-5100
29901 Middlebelt Road
Farmington Hills, Michigan 48018
The Synagogue is the Address of the Jewish People
553-2196
W
atchbands
Lutheran-Jewish
Cooperation
Is Predicted
NEW YORK (JTA) —
Rabbi Walter Wurzburger,
immediate past president of
the Synagogue Council of
America who represented
the council at a conference
on "Luther, Lutheranism
and Jews" in Stockholm,
predicted a new era in coop-
eration between Lutherans
and Jews as a result of the
recently adopted church
statement
rejecting
Luther's
anti-Semitic
teachings.
Friday, August 5, 1983 27
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