Epilogue

If the history of philosemitism may recall England to its “past glory,” it may also recall Jews to a glory they themselves tend to forget. In this sense, it is more than a counter-history to antisemitism. It is a history in its own right. While many English philosemites felt obliged to confront and refute the familiar antisemitic gibes, they did so almost as an afterthought, as the protagonists in a debate. But many did not feel the need to do even that. They were not simply reacting to others; they were speaking in their own voice and for their own purpose—which may inspire Jews to speak for themselves, not defensively but proudly. If Lionel Trilling found even in the “counter-myths” of fiction some reality, “a little of what is true,” so Jews may find, even in the extravagant tributes of philosemites, something true.¹

Jews may be reminded of what it is that many philosemites found so commendable in the Jewish “race.” That word is anathema today. Yet in that time and context, it was meant as a tribute, denoting a people with an ancient lineage, a spiritual blood-line, as it were. When Lloyd George spoke of the Jewish race, it was in the same spirit that he praised the Welsh as an “ancient race”; and so with Churchill, who as late as 1954, was proud of the English, as a “race dwelling all around the globe.”² The Jewish race, as both recognized, was different from the others—more ancient than the Welsh, and more dispersed than the English. Today we would translate “Jewish race” as “Jewish people”—again, with the proviso that they are a people unlike others, not only more ancient and more dispersed but also heirs to the most venerable of religions.

This is one of the many ironies of modern Jewish history. The Enlightenment has been, in important ways, a boon to Jewry, relieving them of the persecution and discrimination that have blighted so much of their history. Yet some of the most estimable figures of the Enlightenment, the philosophes, in their zeal for reason, were hostile not only to Judaism as a religion, the fons et origo of Christianity, but also to Jews as individuals who were so benighted as to adhere to that outmoded and regressive faith, and, worse, to the Jewish people as a “nation within a nation,” a discordant element in an otherwise united and enlightened society. Philosemites, on the other hand, not always “enlightened” by conventional standards, have respected, even revered, the Jewish religion as the unique and essential nature of the Jewish people, the cause of their survival, and ultimately the reason for their restoration to their ancient land. The Jews as “the people of the Book,” “God’s ancient people,” “the chosen people,” “the apple of God’s eye”—these are the recurrent motifs in the rhetoric of Christian philosemites, who esteemed Judaism precisely because they esteemed Christianity.

From millenarianism to Evangelicalism, from philosemitism to philo-Zionism—this too reminds us of a history we tend to forget. The horrendous facts of the Holocaust induce a foreshortening of memory, suggesting that Zionism was a response to the Holocaust and Israel a haven for refugees and potential refugees. But long before the Holocaust, Zionism (although not under that label) and Israel (otherwise known as Palestine) inspired Christians as well as Jews, and for different reasons. Millenarians and Evangelicals favored the “restoration” of the Jews to the “holy land” as the precondition of their own redemption, while others sought the establishment of a Jewish state as the fulfillment of a Biblical prophecy and command. Mordecai’s fantasy, expressed so graphically by George Eliot, was of a wandering “soul” of medieval sages and poets which could find a resting place only in Palestine. Balfour made the point less dramatically when he said that Palestine, rather than Uganda, was the only home for Jews because it was there that “that race was nurtured and that religion came into being.” So, too, Churchill insisted that Jews were in Palestine “as of right and not in sufferance”—not merely by the legal right of the Mandate, but by the historic right of that ancient people.³

Some of the tributes of the English philosemites are too heady for modern Jews: Ashley’s praise of the Jews as “the most remarkable nation that had ever yet appeared on the face of earth,” or Churchill, unwittingly echoing him, who said that whether one liked Jews or not, no one could doubt that they were “the most formidable and the most remarkable race which has ever appeared in the world.”⁴ Philosemitism may seem too exuberant—irrationally exuberant, in the case of Ashley, who extolled the Jews even while opposing their admission to Parliament. If many American Jews, including Zionists, are wary of Evangelicals, who are among their most faithful allies, it is not only, as is often said, because Jews remember all too well the saga of persecution at the hands of Christians, but also because they are distrustful of any religious zealotry, on the part of Christians or, more ominously today, of Muslims.

Jews may be flattered by the philosemitic enthusiasm of Eliot or Churchill. But they are more comfortable with the restrained, prosaic, matter-of-fact toleration accorded them by Locke or Macaulay. One might say of the idea of toleration what Tocqueville said of self-interest: “The principle of toleration rightly understood is not a lofty one, but it is clear and sure. It does not aim at mighty objects, but it attains without excessive exertion all those at which it aims.” Toleration is surely less lofty than philosemitism, but it is more “clear and sure”—witness Macaulay’s arguments in favor of, and Ashley’s opposed to, the admission of Jews in Parliament.

In the course of the history of Anglo-Jewry—from the readmission of the Jews in England, to their admission in Parliament, and beyond that to the founding of the state of Israel—the principles of philosemitism and toleration played different roles at different times, but always in a common cause. In fiction it was philosemitism that prevailed, presenting images of Jews and ideas of Judaism that counteracted the familiar stereotypes and created more favorable, even exalted ones. In politics, it was the principle of toleration that finally bestowed upon Jews the “rights and privileges” of citizenship, not because they were superior beings (the “chosen people”), but because they were human beings, like all Englishmen. And it was the combination of these principles that inspired the idea of a Jewish state—for some a “holy land” for a “holy people,” for others a nation like unto all nations.

If the history of antisemitism is too “lachrymose,” the history of philosemitism may seem too Pollyannaish. And so perhaps it is, on its own. But it is not on its own. There is that other counter-history it is always contending with, the all-too-persistent antisemitism resurgent today. It may be appropriate that the present study of philosemitism has taken the modest form of an essay rather than a history proper, whereas antisemitism, now more than ever, warrants nothing less than a massive tome. Yet even an essay may provide a respite from the dismal reality, a reminder of a “past glory” that is still resonant in the present and gives us hope for the future.

My brother Milton Himmelfarb, in one of his last essays, reflected on the question, “What do I believe?” He concluded by quoting the Israeli anthem Hatikvah, “Our hope is not lost.” Those words, he reminds us, were an answer to the contemporaries of Ezekiel, who, more than two and a half millennia ago, had despaired, “Our hope is lost.” “Hope,” Himmelfarb observes, “is a Jewish virtue.”⁵