The stage is dark aside from a lone spotlight directed, laser-like, upon the crouching figure sitting on the floor. He starts to sing slowly and sadly:
“Close
every door to me,
Hide
all the world from me,
Bar
all the windows
And
shut out the light...”
We are, of course in ‘Joseph’
territory and the protagonist has just been flung into an Egyptian prison cell having
been falsely accused of behaving in an ungentlemanly manner (to say the least)
by the evil Mrs Potiphar.
For a moment, before the
exuberance of the ‘Go Go Go Joseph’ production number kicks in, we are all
there, empathising with the man who reassures us that we ‘Children of Israel
are never alone’, wondering if he’s right and whether, granted recent history,
we are indeed alone - especially if you’re trapped in a Gazan tunnel.
Indeed, being an imprisoned
Jew is not a new phenomenon. Not in the
least.
Earlier this week, I
accompanied Year 7 students on a trip to the Tower of London and discovered
that Joseph’s experiences were not unique.
In fact, they were a precursor to some very interesting stories which were
particularly relevant to this week’s Parasha of Vayeishev which describes
Joseph’s sale and transportation to Egypt leading to the infamous ‘Potiphar’
episode.
A charity called ‘Historical
Royal Palaces’ was established by the Government in 1989 as an agency that
would care for the Tower
of London, Hampton Court Palace, Banqueting House, Kensington Palace and Kew
Palace. As part of their mission, they have
carried out extensive and comprehensive research projects into the historical
aspects of the respective palaces, one of which explored the connection between
the Tower and the Medieval Jews that lived in England until the expulsion in
1290.
You can read a brief outline at this link.
As part
of their research, they have provided a dataset that you can download from the
site. This is the introduction:
‘Jews first settled in medieval England sometime after
the Norman Conquest and remained here until they were forced to convert or go
into exile by Edward I in 1290. During
this time, they and their possessions were considered the property of the king,
which allowed him to exploit them economically through heavy taxation but also
led royal officials to protect them during outbreaks of anti-Jewish violence.
From 1189, we find evidence of a link between the Tower
and England’s Jews. This relationship
was eventually formalised in the thirteenth century, with the Constable of the
Tower having authority over the Jews of London and even the power to arrest
Jews anywhere in the kingdom. The Tower
became a place both of imprisonment and refuge for London’s Jews. In 1267, during a baronial attack upon the
city, many Jews hid in the Tower and were even given a section of the wall to
defend. Eleven years later, 600 Jews
were then held prisoner in the same castle that they had helped to protect.’
The rest
of the document provides 236 biographical details of every Jewish person or
group of Jewish people who were known to have been at the Tower from the time
the community arrived in England until the expulsion. It makes for fascinating reading.
Individuals
like Isaac of Norwich, a wealthy moneylender, who ‘In April 1210, was imprisoned at
Bristol, along with many other Jews, on the orders of King John. Their debts and tallies were recorded to
determine their wealth for a tallage that was imposed upon them in November. He was transferred to the Tower in 1213 and
was saved from execution by agreeing to a fine of 10,000 marks (£6,666 13s 4d),
to be paid at the rate of one mark per day and his grandson, also called Isaac
of Norwich, was held at the Tower in 1253.’
‘Vives
who along with his wife Bella, Isaac and his wife Anna, Abigail the Jew, and
Aaron were all arrested on charges of coin-clipping and stealing clothes. In March 1230, they were sent by the Sheriff
of Shropshire to the Tower of London, and the Constable was ordered to hold
them there until the justiciar Stephen de Sedgrave visited London to hear the case.’
‘Dyay who was one of several Jews from Norwich accused of circumcising a Christian boy and attempting to convert him to Judaism. He was executed by 1241 for his part in the supposed event.’
‘Elias
son of Vives
was imprisoned in the Tower From November 1234 to November 1235, possibly until
1241. He too was accused of the same crime as Dyay
and although his fate is unknown, it is most probable that he was either
executed or died in prison.
Like Joseph before them, the
Jews of England experienced mixed fortunes in the Tower.
One of the most interesting examples
revolves around the case of Jurnet, son of Abraham who started off as a
prisoner and ended up working at the Tower! In 1273, he was held at the Tower for a debt
of 12 marks he owed the king as well as some other misdemeanours. He was bailed and granted a royal pardon. However, he was in trouble again in June 1279
on a charge of taunting and beating a man but this was not proven. Two years later, there is a single reference
to Jurnet being a ‘sergeant of the Tower of London’. This related to a protracted case brought
against him by the Bailiff of Southwark which ended in the latter being
imprisoned as a result the ruling in Jurnet’s favour. It is not known the duties that were assigned
to Jurnet but one of them seems to have centred around his responsibility for
carrying the bodies of deceased Jewish people through the streets of London to
their burial. He may even have been in
situ until 1280, a mere decade before the expulsion.
In a similar vein, the Torah
tells us that Joseph was thought of in such a high manner, that the Captain of
the Guard assigned him to look after the butler and baker. As
they say, “You can’t keep a good man down!”
The experiences of Joseph and
the cases I have cited in reference to the Tower, demonstrate how challenging
our history has always been. Many of our
most prominent brethren were imprisoned, including the sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe,
Rabbi
Yosef Yitzchak Schneerson and of
course refuseniks like Natan
Sharansky and Ida
Nudel. Despite the hardships they faced, they refused
to abandon their faith and, in many cases, earned the respect of the captors because
of their unbending belief in Gd and the Torah.
As Jews we, like all other
visitors, are now free to enter and leave the Tower of London without either
requiring its protection or living in fear of being imprisoned (and possibly
being executed) within its walls. Sadly,
the spectre of Jews being held under false pretences is still with us, as we
saw recently in Iran where Arvin
Ghahremani, a young Jewish man in his
twenties, was executed in a blatantly antisemitic act. We hope and pray that very soon, another set
of ‘prison walls’ will crumble and our brethren will return to their families
in Israel.
“For
we know we shall find
Our
own peace of mind
For
we have been promised
A land of our own.”
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