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Sir Jonathan Sacks, Britain’s chief rabbi with British Prime minister Tony Blair
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LONDON (EJP)--- British Prime Minister Tony Blair joined community leaders, dignitaries and representatives from different faiths at Bevis Marks, London’s 305 year-old synagogue, on Tuesday to commemorate the 350th anniversary of the resettlement of Jews in Britain.
Beneath the candelabrum, adorned with burning candles, was a dignified, humble service with prayers, psalms and readings that reflected a message of religious tolerance and the dual loyalties of British Jews to religion and country.
Rabbi Abraham Levy, the spiritual head of the Spanish and Portuguese congregations, led the service with the Bevis Marks choir and in the presence of Britain’s chief rabbi, Rabbi Sir Jonathan Sacks.
Prayers were said for the Queen and Royal Family and for the State of Israel. School children read poems they composed that beautifully typified the Jewish community’s loyal relationship with Britain.
Jonah Summerfield, aged 11, asked, “Am I Jewish or English? This keeps me in confusion. I’m both, you see that’s my final conclusion. Judaism is my religion, I make it so, clearly. I adore England, I love it so dearly.”
Daniella Loftus, aged 10, read from her poem, “Now decades later we repay our debt fighting for our country, making successful workers, Prime Ministers, MPs. Making history and being a credit to our country. Like bees we pollinate the world with good and carpet it with light.”
PM’s tribute
In his address, Tony Blair praised the contribution of British Jewry and said “it was impossible to imagine Britain without the Jewish community” and how they “have made the country a better place”.
He commended the values of Judaism saying that it is “the best of what Britain stands for”.
He added that it has never been easy for the Jewish people, “But what courage and resolution.”
“Throughout these years, the community has shown how it is possible to retain a clear faith and a clear identity and, at the same time, be thoroughly British,” he said.
“As the oldest minority faith community in this country, you show how identity through faith can be combined with a deep loyalty to our nation.”
The Prime Minister told those there that there were few greater friends of Israel than Britain and he had told Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in a meeting a day earlier, “The relationship between Britain and Israel has never been better.”
Listening also to his words were the Lord Mayor of London, members of Parliament and Peers including Lord Janner and Lord Levy, former Conservative cabinet minister, Leon Brittan and Michael Grade, chairman of the BBC.
The service concluded with the English national anthem, sung first in Hebrew then in English.
Opportunity for reflection
Henry Grunwald, president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, said, “This was an opportunity for us to look back on what we have achieved while we have been here and also to show just what it is possible to do as an immigrant community, which is to integrate fully into the life of this country without losing our distinctive identity.”
In 1290, under the rule of Kind Edward I and after years of persecution, Jews were banished from England, where they had lived from at least the time of the Norman Conquest in 1066.
Jews were blamed for killing Jesus and accused by their Christian neighbours of ritual killings, poisoning wells and spreading the plague.
Despite the presence of a small number of Jews living in the country during Tudor and Jacobean periods, there was no official community until after 1656 when Manasseh ben Israel, a Dutch Rabbi, petitioned Oliver Cromwell to allow Jews to return.
Dutch, Spanish and Portuguese Jews were first to settle in England but were soon outnumbered by Ashkenazi Jews from Germany and Poland arriving in the 18th century.
The 19th century saw the Jewish community gaining increasing civil rights. In 1855, Sir David Salomons became the first Jewish Lord Mayor of London, then in 1858, the first Jewish MP, Lionel de Rothschild was finally admitted to Parliament, after being elected four times.
The commemoration was organised by a cross-community steering group under the chairmanship of the president of the Board of Deputies and is part of a host of events across the country to mark the anniversary.
