Moses Margoliouth

“ Crimes of every description—many of a nature the most absurd and groundless—were laid to their charge, and the severest penalties inflicted for them. Tumults were, on the most frivolous pretences, excited against them; their houses pillaged and burned, and hundreds of them massacred by the populace, without regard to either age or sex. That, under such an accumulation of misfortunes, the Jews should not only have continued to reside in England, but greatly to increase in numbers, cannot fail to excite wonder and surprise. ”

“ We entreat, for God’s sake, that he give us license and safe conduct to depart out of his kingdom, that we may seek a mansion in some other land, and under a prince who bears some bowels of mercy, and some stability of truth and faithfulness, and we will depart, never to return again, leaving our household stuff and houses behind us. But how can he spare us miserable Jews, who destroys his own natural English? He hath people, yea, his own merchants, I say not usurers, who by usurious contracts accumulate infinite heaps of money. ”

“ So it is with the Jewish historian.
Fearful in length is the catalogue of the massacres, extortions, and persecutions which the Jews have sustained in this country during the dark ages of its annals. Consider how many times they were plundered, how often fire was set to their houses, which destroyed all their possessions. Behold them at York, how that before they destroyed their own persons, they first burnt every thing belonging to them—view them just before their final banishment, robbed on every side—all which I shall show more fully in their proper places. ”

“ The Jew stands forth until the present day, in the face of the whole world, a living and lasting miracle—a mighty, though shattered monument, on every fragment of which is inscribed, in letters of the brightest gold, the truth of holy writ. ”

“ It would be too long for me to speak, at this time, of every destruction brought upon us; for you cannot but know that there was not any one Syrian city which did not slay their Jewish inhabitants, and were not more bitter enemies to us than were the Romans themselves; nay, even those of Damascus, when they were able to allege no tolerable pretence against us, filled their city with the most barbarous slaughter of our people; and cut the throats of eighteen thousand Jews, with their wives and children. ”

“ But any one acquainted with the national character of the Jews, will at once produce an array of facts which will prove incontrovertibly the fallacy of such reasons. I have already demonstrated elsewhere, that there never has been a period in their history when they were destitute of first rate genius and learning. It is a striking fact, that there is no science in which some Jewish name is not enrolled amongst its eminent promoters. They always entertained a profound love for learning, and were inspired with an uncontrollable energy in the pursuit of knowledge. ”

“ Good success be to the Romans, and to the people of the Jews, by sea and by land for ever: the sword also and enemy be far from them. If there come first any war upon the Romans, or any of their confederates throughout all their dominion, the people of the Jews shall help them, as the time shall be appointed, with all their heart. Neither shall they give any thing unto them that make war upon them, or aid them with victuals, weapons, money, or ships, as it hath seemed good unto the Romans, but they shall keep their covenant without taking any thing therefore. ”

“ As for all those of us who have waged war against the Romans in our own country, had we not sufficient reason to have sure hopes of victory? For we had arms, and walls, and fortresses so prepared, as not to be easily taken, and courage not to be moved by any dangers in the cause of liberty, which encouraged us all to revolt from the Romans. ”

“ It is true the power of the soul is great, even when it is imprisoned in a mortal body; for by moving it after a way that is invisible, it makes the body a sensible instrument, and causes it to advance farther in its actions than mortal nature could otherwise do. However, when it is freed from that weight which draws it down to the earth, and is connected with it, it obtains its own proper place, and does then become a partaker of that blessed power and those abilities, which are then every way incapable of being hindered in their operation. ”

“ There was then present at the place John de Lexinton, a circumspect and discreet man, and moreover elegantly learned, who said—‘we have sometimes heard that the Jews have not feared to attempt such things in reproach of Jesus Christ, our crucified Lord.’ And one Jew being apprehended—to wit, he into whose house the child entered playing, and therefore more suspected than the rest, he saith unto him, ‘O wretch, knowest thou not that speedy destruction abides thee? All the gold of England will not suffice for thy deliverance or redemption. ”

“ For, though a ridiculous vanity hath tempted some to date their original before that of the world, and others, with great assurance, have made themselves sprung from their own soil, yet the Jews, by an unquestionable display through all periods since the creation, can prove their descent from the first man. So that all other nations must have recourse to the Jewish records to clear their genealogies and attest their lineage.” The interest in the history of such a people must at all times be intense, and, if at all times, more especially so now. ”

“ If a difference arise between a Christian and a Jew about the lending of money, the Jew should prove the capital, and the Christian the interest; that a Jew may lawfully and quietly sell a mortgage made to him, when he is certain that he held it a whole year and a day; that the Jew should not be entered into any plea, except before us, or before the keepers of our castles, in whose bailiwicks the Jews resided. That the Jews, wherever they are, may go whither they please, with their chattels, as if they were our own chattels, nor may any man detain or hinder them. ”

“ From the accession of this sovereign to the throne, the Jews had to date in characters of blood the commencement of a new and most severe series of sufferings and outrages; their footsteps in this country from the days of Richard to the days of Edward the First—when they were finally banished—may be tracked by their blood; against them sympathy has been steeled, and for their rights justice has had no balances. ”

“ Difficult as the historian may find it to fathom the origin of the first inhabitants who peopled this country, certain it is that the most difficult part of the same is that of the Jewish early introduction and establishment in this realm; which is enveloped almost in impenetrable obscurity. The sources from which we can draw any information at all on the subject, are very scanty. English historians afford us no information whatever, and neither have the ante-expulsion Jews bequeathed us any records or chronicles of their antiquities in this country. ”

“ It seems evident that there was more than one Hebrew monument at Murviedro.
I hesitate not in saying that, after having examined rigorously these and various other evidences bearing on the same question, I see no reason for disbelieving that there were Jews in Spain in the time of David and Solomon—startling as it may appear. It is easy indeed to treat the arguments of a young lecturer with a sneer, and to resolve them into the rashness, or conceit, of inexperience; allow me to suggest, however, that denial is not answer, and that of all logic flat contradiction is by far the most illogical. ”

“ It is a painful truth that the human nature of the Jews is as deceitful and as desperately wicked as that of the Gentiles.
Whilst it is pleasing to register the concessions which were thus made on the part of the crown in favour of the Jewish converts, it is no less painful to have to record that the Jews in general still continued to be subjected to tallages of very heavy amounts, the payment of which was enforced by seizure of their goods, and by banishment. ”

“ Cruelty to the Jews seems, then, to have been an infallible feature of a good Christian. Thus, in the fifty-first year of this reign, when the statute of Pillory passed, it was enacted, amongst other things, that “no person should purchase flesh of a Jew.” “The regulations of these statutes,” says Mr. Blunt, “had reference principally to the conduct of the Jews, and to their intercourse with the Christians.” If their fury went no further, the Jews would have had no reason to be sorry; for truth to speak, the less intercourse the Jews had with those Christians, the safer they were. ”

“ The history of the Jews—part of which I purpose bringing before you in this and five following lectures—stands indeed associated with all that is sublime in the retrospect of the past, affecting in the contemplation of the present, and magnificent in the future history of mankind. ”

“ Let them, then, be subservient to us in our glorious design; let us die before we become slaves under our enemies; and let us go out of the world, together with our children and our wives, in a state of freedom. This it is that our laws command us to do; this it is that our wives and children crave at our hands; nay, God himself hath brought this necessity upon us; while the Romans desire the contrary, and are afraid any of us should die before we are taken. ”

“ And why are we afraid of death, while we are pleased with the rest that we have in sleep?—and how absurd a thing it is to pursue after liberty while we are alive, and yet to envy it to ourselves where it will be eternal! We, therefore, who have been brought up in a discipline of our own, ought to become an example to others of our readiness to die ”

“ The king’s continual want of money was a never ceasing torment to the poor Jews, for when he could not obtain any money, to squander away, from his barons and nobles, he fell upon the Jews and wrung out of them whatever he wanted. ”