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. 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