The Old Jew.House

Description

Open Edition Reproduction

The Old Jew.House. Two images, two tales, interlinked.

The Old Jew House stands in Steep Hill, Lincoln, and is one of the oldest buildings in Britain, completed in 1170, shortly after the cessation of the Stephen/Maud Anarchy. It stands witness to many of the Jewish-related events in medieval England. 

The English Jewish community had evolved after the Conquest. Christians were forbidden usury by the Church. This was not applied to Jews, who thus became substantially involved in the financial matters of the kingdom, such that iby1168 Aaron of Lincoln was judged the wealthiest man in England. These aspects and the enmity of the Church had led to ongoing animosity from the population at large, with accusations, punishments, murders and atrocities continuing through the times, Matters gradually came to a head due to loans secured against property. The relevant financial notes were frequently seized or coerced, either to eliminate debt, or to extort possessions from the debtor. For example, Edward 1 used this tactic to gain title to Leeds Castle.

Events deteriorated further during the years leading up to the 1263-5 de Montfort rebellion against Henri III. Simon de Montfort, founder of the mother of Parliaments, had participated in the suppression of the Cathars in France and was no friend to the Jews. Following de Montfort’s death at Evesham, increasing baronial and royal indebtedness to the Jewish financiers, plus Church pressure, culminated in the total Jewish expulsion from England by Edward 1 in 1290. The community dispersed as far away as Cairo.

The old house lived on, experiencing English civil wars, regicides, Renaissance and Reformation, until the Jewish return in 1635 under Cromwell. 
The Old Jew’s visage in the work reflects the pathos and despair of the Jewish history

Unhappily, the English experience mirrors the historical lot of the Jews. The biblical events of Jewish enslavement and escape from Rameses 11, and the conquest by Nebuchadnezzar are well known. After the fall of Masada in AD 70, the Roman expulsion led to the extinction of the Jewish state and the widespread diaspora of the people, linked together by religion and financial aptitudes that were advanced for the times. Unhappily, these contributed to ongoing traumas. Inquisition, expulsions, pogroms, ghettos, Devil’s Island, then the unspeakable horrors of the Holocaust. Small wonder that grief and despair are written deep on the old Rabbi’s face.

And now, in Israel, “From the river to the sea!”
And still the old house thinks: “Quo Vadis, Judah?”  Where indeed?