Radical Assimilation in English Jewish History 1656-1945 (review)

VoLume 9, No.3 Spring1991 143 Radical Assimilation in English Jewish History 1656-1945, by Todd M. Endelman. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990. 246 pp. $29.50. This well-written and -produced volume could well be claimed as a tract for our times in the United States. How do you keep Jews Jewish and prevent the continual erosion of the Jewish community in a largely tolerant society which provides social acceptance of the individual Jew? This book provides few answers to the essential conundrum of Jewish emancipation, but we owe Todd Endelman a debt for carefully recording the historical process of assimilation in an analogous free society. The author shows an acute awareness of the Jewish community relations dilemma-what is good and beneficial for the Jews individually can have a deleterious effect on the Jews collectively and Judaism as a culture and religion. The author demonstrates his acute sensitivity to the subtleties of both British and Anglo-Jewish societies. It is a welcome feature to find a contemporary volume well edited and lacking gross errors of fact or presentation. Endelman's story shows a consistent pattern of assimilation over the generations once the general society ceased to place obstacles in the way of Jewish "emigration" from that community. Most of those who abandoned their Jewishness did not do it because of theological or ideological belief. Those who left came from families which were already so indifferent to Jewish concerns that their decision to intermarry promoted little remorse in themselves or close kin. Intermarriage was followed in the next generation by conversion, for Christianity in this setting meant entry into the established Church of England (Episcopalian) and the mainstream of national life. Defections from Judaism were thus part of a three-stage intergenerational process . In the main, nominal Jews were transformed into nominal Anglicans. Endelman had a problem with limited historical evidence and sources, particularly for his two early chapters devoted, respectively, to the Sephardim and the Ashkenazim from the seventeenth-century Stuart Restoration to the beginning of the Victorian Age. Unfortunately, the commercially minded Jews of England were not intellectuals, great diarists, or recorders of their inner thoughts. Motives have to be guessed and extrapolated in the context of the $ociety of the period, but given the author's mastery of the history of Georgian England, his conclusions are convincing. The chapter on "Native Jews in the Victorian Age" documents the exception to the rule. For a half-century, the Anglo-Jewish bourgeoisie seemed to have been immune to assimilation. It developed sufficient social solidarity and "racial pride" to maintain its communal attachments and resist the enticements of assimilation and intermarriage. However, the changing occupational structure, particularly professionalization, of the population seemed to lead to more rapid acculturation and secularization by the twentieth century. 144 SHOFAR This prepared the way for rising rates of radical assimilation over the last few decades. The faster erosion of Jewish sentiments and numbers in the absence of deep local family traditions and communal loyalties and a concomitant awareness of group identity and solidarity is emphasized by the chapter on "German Immigrants in the Victorian Age." For most their Jewishness was weak prior to their arrival in England and they failed either to form their own or to join the local Jewish community. They vanished largely without trace within a generation, aided by the surname changes engendered by the anti-German hysteria of World War 1. That personal convenience and a desire not to be different were the main cause of radical assimilation rather than religious conviction or a wholesale rejection of Judaism is revealed by the chapter which details the largely ineffective efforts of Christian missionaries. "The Fruits of Missionary Labours" were few and gained at a heavy financial cost. On the other hand, Judaism failed to kindle a spiritual fervor among the mass of British Jews in these three centuries. This is a good history on a relevant theme. Sociologists and communal leaders could learn a lot from reading it and pondering its message. It provides only the slightest inkling of hope that in the absence of antisemitism the inevitable end of emancipation need not be the inexorable attrition of the Jewish...