The People of the Book: Philosemitism in England, from Cromwell to Churchill

I might as well begin by saying what this book is not.  It is neither primarily aimed at an academic audience, nor based on archival research.   Instead, The People of the Book seeks to stimulate interest in the topic of philosemitism--specifically, the English variety--through a synthetic overview of the major signposts from Oliver Cromwell and his support for readmitting the Jews to England (or, in some respects, for formally acknowledging that they were actually still there) to Winston Churchill and his support for Zionism.  The purpose of this project, says Himmelfarb, is to revise historical narratives in which Jews emerge as "the perennial victim and martyr," subscribing to an "outmoded and discredited creed," fleeing to Israel to find "asylum from prejudice, oppression, and, possibly, another Holocaust" (2).  Instead, Himmelfarb argues, there exists another strand in non-Jewish figurations of Jewish history and culture, in which Jews are treated with "respect, even reverence" (3)--frequently, one might add, for their associations with Christian evidences, the so-called "witness people" myth [1].  Although philosemitic tendencies have not gone entirely unstudied (the work of the Rubinsteins, for example), they have not, as Himmelfarb notes, seized either the popular or scholarly imaginations.  In some ways, Himmelfarb seems to be thinking of this book as a kind of counter to Anthony Julius' Trials of the Diaspora: whereas Julius casts philosemitism as England's "'past glory'," arguing that antisemitism has been relegitimized, Himmelfarb feels that such a "conclusion may be overly pessimistic" (4).  (I cannot help wondering if the difference in attitudes partly derives from brute geographical force--Julius, after all, lives on the scene, while Himmelfarb observes it from an arena in which evangelical philosemitism remains quite prominent.) 

As Himmelfarb notes, "philosemitism" came into being in Germany shortly after Wilhelm Marr invented "antisemitism" (4) [2].  Antisemitism denotes a modernized, scientific approach to Jew-hatred, as opposed to the older religious variety, whereas philosemitism does not seem to have accrued anything like a parallel definition.  (The undefined nature of philosemitism is one of this book's themes.) This does raise the question, which Himmelfarb does not really address, of whether or not "philosemitism" is quite the word one wants to describe the phenomenon across time of people other than Jews advocating for Jewish freedoms.  (There's a similar debate about when it becomes appropriate to retroactively dub anti-Jewish sentiment in, say, the Middle Ages, "anti-Semitic": the tropes may be the same, but the motivations and rationales very different.  Himmelfarb herself sometimes uses "anti-Jewish" to describe prejudices pre-Marr [e.g., 26].)  In any event, what Himmelfarb finds at philosemitism's core is not just "toleration," but "recognition" (6), which insists that the Jew is a subject.  The philosemite treats Jews as persons with interiority and autonomy; s/he does not merely relegate them to the status of chesspieces to be maneuevered around some vast providential board.  For Himmelfarb, the exemplary philosemite is Joseph Addison, who manages to admire Jews simultaneously as a people and as witnesses to Christianity (43).   At the same time, of course, such "recognition" can frequently be glimpsed only in some glimmering, hazy fashion: the Jewish situation in England often improves "indirectly," "informally," and "incrementally" (33).  Thus, Cromwell's arguments in favor of readmitting the Jews are "religious" as well as "practical" (25), emerging in a Hebraist context that was not necessarily pro-Jews qua Jews, while after Locke Jews benefited from an "'apathetic tolerance'" (41).  By the same token, T. B. Macaulay's famous arguments in favor of Jewish emancipation have an unfortunate ring of antisemitism about them (64-65), as, of course, do Benjamin Disraeli's.  As a result, philosemitism emerges from Himmelfarb's narrative as something rather like the old academic joke about the middle class--always rising. 

From the point of view of an English professor, the weakest chapter is the fourth, on "Fictional Heroes and Heroines."  (Anthony Julius also appears to have been rather wearied by it.)  In what is necessarily a book of philosemitism's greatest hits, this chapter trots out the old standbys: a quick glance at Harrington, followed by Ivanhoe, Tancred, and Daniel Deronda.  What's missing here, oddly enough, is historical context, whether political, cultural, or literary.  The correspondence between Rachel Mordecai Lazarus (unidentified here) and Maria Edgeworth that sparked Harrington, for example, is much more instructive than the novel itself; similarly, Himmelfarb never asks us to think through the literary-historical effect of Ivanhoe, even though Isaac and Rebecca (themselves revisions of Shylock and Jessica) are crucial to later nineteenth-century representations of Jews, including the Jews in Daniel Deronda.    (Michael Ragussis is helpful on this point, as on many others.)  Nor do we have any of the Jewish responses to Daniel Deronda, like Rabbi David Kaufmann's famous George Eliot and Judaism.  Moreover, Himmelfarb's cheery assertion that "[b]y 1876, when Daniel Deronda was published, blatantly antisemitic novels were no longer respectable" (111) seems to me to be rather on the hyperbolic side: George du Maurier, for example, would be surprised to hear that Trilby (1894) was unacceptable (Svengali is a Polish Jew).  Or there's the enthusiastic English response to Julian Hawthorne's (son of Nathaniel) Sebastian Strome (1879), which one reviewer noted was an antagonistic whack at Daniel Deronda, complete with caricatured Jew.    I'm similarly skeptical about reading The Way We Live Now (1875) as an example of Trollope in "repentant" (113) mode.  Aside from being sandwiched between the ongoing adventures of the evil convert Joseph Emilius in Phineas Redux (1874) and the thoroughly unsalubrious Ferdinand Lopez in The Prime Minister (1876), the undeniably honest Mr. Brehgert in TWWLN strikes me as more of a problem than an act of atonement: if anything, I concur with those who read the novel not as an attack on antisemitism, but as an attack on certain modes of antisemitism, which now ("the way we live now") require certain adjustments.  Is there a right and wrong way of being antisemitic in the modern age? asks the novel--not, perhaps, the most upbeat or desirable of questions.

What's often missing from this book, by and large, are actual Jews, although Jews become much more in evidence once Himmelfarb reaches early Zionism.  Well, of course, says my reader: philosemitism has to do with what non-Jews say and do about Jews.  But, I reply, this is precisely why philosemitism can be so problematic in practice.  Philosemitism, like antisemitism, consists of narratives about Jews; it does not necessarily (although it might) involve dialogues with Jews, listening to Jews, or processing that Jews and Christians might not perhaps agree on all points.  I would go so far to suggest that philosemitism, like antisemitism, does not actually need Jews per se.    It is here that I must dissent from Himmelfarb's definition of philosemitism as necessarily involving an act of recognition, let alone anything stronger; the evangelical who says to a newly-made Jewish acquaintance, "Oh, I so love the Jews!"  is, with apologies to Queen Victoria, addressing her as though she were a public meeting, not a person.   At the same time, this is not to downplay the crucial importance of philosemitism in the history of Jewish liberties.  As Himmelfarb would no doubt acknowledge herself, the ambiguities involved in philosemitism must be part of any more-developed historical account.       

[1] For its modern incarnation, see Stephen R. Haynes, Reluctant Witnesses: Jews and the Christian Imagination (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1995).   

[2] To see how one nineteenth-century missionary to the Jews, J. F. de le Roi, understood the history of the two words, read here.  As I've mentioned here before, I came across at least one eighteenth-century Englishman using "Philosemite" (or a variant) as a pen name while I was a graduate student, but I cannot provide an exact reference for it (not without trekking back to the University of Chicago and slogging through the eighteenth-century periodicals, anyway...); in any event, however, there's a difference between someone coining a word as a one-off, and the word actually catching on. 

 

Comments

[RLapides]

Cynthia Ozick thought Himmelfarb's *Jewish Odyssey of George Eliot* was "a prescient rebuke to Sartre and Said." I don't know exactly what Ozick was referring to in that earlier book, but as Himmelfarb's scholarly perspective usually reflects her conservative poliltical viewpoint, I'm curious if that's the case in this new work.

[RLapides]

I wrote too quickly. Ozick's point was that *Daniel Deronda*, not Himmelfarb's book, was a prescient rebuke to Sartre's and Said's positions about otherness. Still, this must have been Himmelfarb's point, too.

[Ray Girvan]

"Philosemite"

Sorry, I shouldn't tell you this, but ever since I encountered that word, the context that springs up unbidden has always been "Philosemite Sam".