Montefiore, Sir Moses

(1784–1885)

   Anglo-Jewish leader. In the Victorian era, Europeans in distress would turn to powerful, democratic and liberal England. For persecuted Jews, there was a further reason for doing so, in the person of Sir Moses Montefiore, the Jewish knight who would ride out to their rescue. Everything about him seemed larger than life - his massive physique (6 ft. 3 in. and broad to match), formidable personality, wealth, piety and energy. His prestige grew with his age, and his hundredth birthday was an occasion for world-wide Jewish rejoicing. Montefiore was born in Leghorn, Italy, while his parents were visiting the town, his family’s place of origin. By marriage into the ROTHSCHILD family, and hard work on the Stock Exchange, he made enough money to retire in 1824 and devote the remaining sixty years of his life to public service. He was a man of passionate humanity and religious feeling, and made numerous journeys to Europe, the Near East and North Africa on Jewish causes. His most famous intervention was in connection with the Damascus Affair of 1840. A Capuchin monk and his Moslem servant disappeared in shady circumstances. At the instance of other Capuchin monks, a number of Jewish residents were seized, imprisoned and tortured (two of them to death) on a charge of having murdered the missing men in order to use their blood for ritual purposes at Passover. The affair became an international sensation, and was caught up in the power struggle between the ruler of Egypt and Syria, Mehemet

   Ali (backed by France) and the Turkish sultan (backed by England and Austria). A Jewish delegation headed by Sir Moses Montefiore, and including the French Jewish leader Adolphe CRéMIEUX, descended on Mehemet Ali in Cairo and put enough pressure on him to secure the release of the surviving Jews, though not their formal acquittal on the charge. The delegation then called on the sultan in Constantinople and demanded a decree banning any further blood libel charges in his realm.

   Montefiore also paid two visits to St Petersburg on behalf of Russian Jews, calling on the Czars NICHOLAS I and ALEXANDER III. Between 1827 and 1875, Sir Moses made seven journeys to Palestine, the last at the age of ninety- one. A special coach was built to take him between Jaffa and Jerusalem. He founded Jewish agricultural settlements in Galilee and near Jaffa, and in Jerusalem helped found the first Jewish quarter outside the Old City walls, called Yemin Moshe in his memory.

   Sir Moses was the leading Jewish figure of his age. He was the second Jew to be sheriff of London and one of the first to be knighted. He was president of the Board of Deputies of British Jewry for forty years. He was strictly Orthodox and a fierce opponent of Reform Judaism. He built his own synagogue at his Ramsgate estate, and travelled with his own ritual slaughterer. In 1973 he and his wife were reburied in Israel. Many of his descendants drifted away from the Jewish community, although some remained prominent in Anglo-Jewish life. In the late 20 century, one member of the family was Hugh Montefiore (b. 1920), bishop of Kingston.