question on jewish history

[Josephine]

Anyway, I always thought anyone could convert to any religion they wanted to, and that anyone could be a Jew if they wished.

IIRC, that hasn't always been the case with the LDS church, but they've changed their rules in recent years/decades.

[JenB]

ive got a family where the jewish father is first seen in England in 1820, having come over from present day Poland....I know his grandchildren left the faith, but I dont know if his wife and daughters. in law were born jewish or converted....I can only see that one of his daughters in law was born in Portsea, where there was a. large jewish community, but the others were born in areas of England that were not noted for that and there are no clues in their families

Are you referring to Lyon Asher?

If I'm right it might be useful if you could post links to your various threads about him so that folks here can get an idea of the searches you've already undertaken and will be more able to help you 

[coombs]

Anyway, I always thought anyone could convert to any religion they wanted to, and that anyone could be a Jew if they wished.

IIRC, that hasn't always been the case with the LDS church, but they've changed their rules in recent years/decades.

OK thanks, that is interesting about the LDS church.

[Viktoria]

If Jewish people do say ” You always know who your mother is ,your father——-?” then, again it seems to be yet another sweeping statement about paternity and can be quite hurtful.

Coombs that statement was said to me in Manchester’s beautiful Spanish and  Portuguese Synagogue on Cheetham Hill  Road , now a museum to the life of the many immigrants who had fled the pogroms etc in 19C Europe.
As they prospered they moved out of central M/c to suburbs like Whitefield and Prestwich where there is an invisible cordon, for Orthodox Jews to conduct their  lives according to the strict Mosaic laws.
I was enquiring about searching for the Jewish family after whose little girl I got my name with its unusual spelling.
She and I were born the same day ,her father wanted to commemorate the event and asked that I be named after his baby.
There was supposed to be an endowment but I could imagine there most probably wasn’t as his business was mainly with his German Jewish family
in Germany.
I had no wish to pursue that aspect but was just curious as to their second name ,and so asked a guide at the museum.A Jewish lady.
It was she who said the mother’s line is so important and said what I put in my post.
I did find who she was but left it at that.
No idea what happened to them.Hope in 1937 they did not go to Germany!
A newspaper cutting from the time was lost after my Dad died and the house was cleared.
If you have never looked at “ Old Jews telling Jewish jokes” , well you have missed hilarious jokes said in a special way and laughing at them until you feel exhausted.
All directed at themselves and their culture .

I was at school with many Jewish girls in North Manchester.
My quote was not in any way meant to be derogatory ,to Jewish people nor was it misanthropic ,meaning specifically men rather than mankind .

Wish you well with your research.
And if you have bought any new clothes recently I wish you well to wear them.
Viktoria.

[greyingrey]

oh, thank you for all your interesting replies

well, all I know about informal jewish weddings is that ive been told they took place...and there is a council plaque in Nottingham which states that these and other informal jewish worship and ceremonies took place on that site...on the other hand, their christian church in nottm would. have been the. mother church there....st Marys...and I believe there are still lots of records. to be gone through or missing...there wasn't a synagogue or. a jewish graveyard in the area at that time...I know they were buried under the auspices of st Marys.

my ggg grandfathers arrival in nottm...on the census records it says born in Germany....coincided with the recruitment by a David Cohen of jews from modern day Poland to work either directly in the nottm lace trade or as hawkers of lace....my ancestor was a hawker and, when he. first arrived, he lived in a tenement with other arrivals with names that seem mainly jewish..I know names are are not conclusive, but the evidence does seem pretty strong here...and his own children were given what we think of as jewish names.

subsequent generations were married and buried in christian rites.

an intriguing factor is my direct ancestor...great grandfather...who was of the generation ive been told officially left the jewish faith...his name. was Joseph...I know thats not a particularly jewish name...he was. the oldest son of Jacob, and, just before his marriage, he changed his name to James, thereby following the. native tradition of the oldest son being given the same name...albeit anglicised...as his father.

unfortunately, they weren't prominent enough to feature in local life.

the. document I have is legally bound and executed,  but my grandparents married in a christian church...my grandmother was. anglican to the point of casting aspersions on non conformists, but maybe that was an exaggeration as a defence.

id guess that they were nominally jewish at first and kept up a cultural tradition later

[coombs]

If Jewish people do say ” You always know who your mother is ,your father——-?” then, again it seems to be yet another sweeping statement about paternity and can be quite hurtful.

Coombs that statement was said to me in Manchester’s beautiful Spanish and  Portuguese Synagogue on Cheetham Hill  Road , now a museum to the life of the many immigrants who had fled the pogroms etc in 19C Europe.
As they prospered they moved out of central M/c to suburbs like Whitefield and Prestwich where there is an invisible cordon, for Orthodox Jews to conduct their  lives according to the strict Mosaic laws.
I was enquiring about searching for the Jewish family after whose little girl I got my name with its unusual spelling.
She and I were born the same day ,her father wanted to commemorate the event and asked that I be named after his baby.
There was supposed to be an endowment but I could imagine there most probably wasn’t as his business was mainly with his German Jewish family
in Germany.
I had no wish to pursue that aspect but was just curious as to their second name ,and so asked a guide at the museum.A Jewish lady.
It was she who said the mother’s line is so important and said what I put in my post.
I did find who she was but left it at that.
No idea what happened to them.Hope in 1937 they did not go to Germany!
A newspaper cutting from the time was lost after my Dad died and the house was cleared.
If you have never looked at “ Old Jews telling Jewish jokes” , well you have missed hilarious jokes said in a special way and laughing at them until you feel exhausted.
All directed at themselves and their culture .

I was at school with many Jewish girls in North Manchester.
My quote was not in any way meant to be derogatory ,to Jewish people nor was it misanthropic ,meaning specifically men rather than mankind .

Wish you well with your research.
And if you have bought any new clothes recently I wish you well to wear them.
Viktoria.

Thanks. Also you cannot always been 100% sure who the mother is in genealogy, I say 99.9% for the mother. I am sure I have a couple in 1835 who paraded as the parents but were the grandparents.

[Josephine]

well, all I know about informal jewish weddings is that ive been told they took place...and there is a council plaque in Nottingham which states that these and other informal jewish worship and ceremonies took place on that site...

Very interesting; thanks!

[JustinL]

Hello Greyingrey,

I admire your tenacity; still chipping away at this seemingly impenetrable brick wall after more than 10 years.

Going back to your original question about conversion to Judaism, I quote the following line from the paper entitled The Rabbinate of the Great Synagogue, 'There are many instances of conversions to Judaism, mostly of women who were about to marry Jews, and others who lived with Jews and had children from them, in which  cases the children were likewise converted'.

The line refers to the minutes of the Beth Din (Rabbinical Court) in London in the period 1835 to 1855.

The paper goes on to say, 'During the Rabbi's tenure of office a non-Jew who desired to convert to Judaism had to go to Holland or other places on the Continent to undergo the ceremony, the London  Beth Din only confirmed the act ...'.

The rabbi in question was Solomon Hirschell, who was Chief Rabbi of Great Britain from about 1805 till his death in 1842.

We can tentatively conclude that it may have been possible, although not easy, for Lyon's future wife to convert to Judaism. But the evidence, i.e. Anglican marriage and baptism records, suggests that she did not.

Taking up your point about informal Jewish marriages, you are probably referring to what later became known as 'stille chuppah' (literally 'silent canopy'). To be married by a rabbi authorised by the Chief Rabbi, a prospective couple had to demonstrate that they were of Jewish parents. This could only be done if they happened to posses their parents' Jewish marriage contract, the ketubah, or a certificate of conversion. The vast majority of Jewish immigrants to the UK would not have possessed the document. Hirschell's successor was particularly strict on the matter. This led to couples seeking out and being married by unauthorised rabbis, meaning that they were perhaps married in the eyes of God, but not in the eyes of the law.

I think your conclusion about the family is correct. Lyon was originally Jewish, but as a young bachelor travelling alone around the Midlands, far away from the centre of Anglo-Jewry (i.e. London), he felt no compulsion to remain a practicing orthodox Jew. The few sources on the establishment of the Jewish community in Nottingham date its founding to the early 1820s and there is, as you may know, no mention of Lyon Asher amongst the founders or known members.

Nonetheless, I find it interesting that many of this children were given what appear to be Jewish names. But then naming children after deceased relatives was certainly not an exclusively Jewish custom.

[JustinL]

PS. My I ask what is the source of your statement, 'the recruitment by a David Cohen of Jews from modern day Poland to work either directly in the nottm lace trade or as hawkers of lace'?

On a personal, but probably irrelevant note, Newcastle Street was under what is now the Victoria Centre, where I used to buy the trendiest Topman and Next clothes as a student in the mid 1980s.