English National Identity and the Readmission of the Jews, 1650-1656

Abstract

This article explores the presentation of English national identity in literature surrounding the 1655 Whitehall Conference on Jewish readmission to England. Writers in the 1650s suggested that England was suffering providential punishment for sins against the Jewish people. This combined with the idea that God had selected England to restore the Jews to Palestine. This form of ‘chosen’ nationhood complicates understandings of links between Jews and English national identity formation. Jews were recognised as ‘other’, but also as superior to Gentiles. England was therefore ‘chosen’ for a special purpose, but in no way replaced ethnic Israel.

The 1753 ‘Jew Bill’ Controversy: Jewish Restoration to Palestine, Biblical Prophecy, and English National Identity

“…Rather, it was the threats contained within the prophecies and the worry that England could inherit 76 was a reversal of the logic that had been so prevalent in the Whitehall Conference a hundred years earlier, in which it was hoped that England would acquire blessing from her interactions with the Jews. 81 As with many aspects of the anti-/philo-Semitic binary and national identity formation, it allowed writers to form an external measure by which they could gauge whether the nation was living up to her 'chosen' role. Whereas Judeo-centrists accepted Jews as eternally blessed, and saw Anglo-Jewish relations in that light, their opponents used the same logic to argue that the people were forever cursed.…”