Jewish Wealth

The Sentencia-Estatuto of 1449

The Sentencia-Estatuto of 1449: Translated from Spanish to English and with an Introduction by Wilhem Ivorsson

Translator’s Notes:

The reader should keep in mind that this text is 575 years old. Many of the political titles and legal concepts referenced do not have modern equivalents, and the document was written in period-specific legal language, style and custom. The text is not very accessible even for a modern Spanish-speaking audience let alone an English-speaking one. Such being the case, I took a few liberties to increase the readability. This involved slightly rewording certain conjunctive phrasings and adding periods to delineate some tracts that otherwise would not sensibly translate to English; adding qualifying particles between brackets; and periodically omitting a redundant word. I also maintained English grammar rules regarding cases; I always capitalize “Catholic” and “Lord King” whereas the original does not. Aside from these changes, I have strived to retain the original semantic value, tone and structure. For the source text, I primarily used the reproduced copy found in Eloy Benito Ruano’s Toledo En El Siglo XV published by the University of Madrid in 1961. I also consulted the reproduced copy in Antonio Martín Gamero’s Historia de la Ciudad de Toledo published in 1862. Below is a longform translation, but I have also provided a simplified translation that omits less important elements and takes more liberties to achieve greater accessibility. You can read it here. You can also view the original Spanish text here.

Preface 

The Sentencia-Estatuto has been highlighted as one of the foundational documents of Spain’s Limpieza de Sangre policies. It was written in June of 1449 during Toledo’s rebellion against the crown. In January the Castilian constable Alvaro de Luna demanded the city provide a loan of one million maravedis to Juan II’s court. The loan was advertised as a means to confront the kingdom’s mounting military threats from Aragon to the Northeast and the Moors to the South. To procure the money for the loan, the city treasurer, Alonso Cota, a converso of Jewish heritage,1 imposed a tax on the commoners at the rate of dos doblas. Many believed that Alvaro de Luna and Alonso Cota “had devised the loan for their own personal gain; Cota was to reap his profit as tax farmer, and Alvaro was to get his bribe from Cota.”2 When Alonso’s men forcefully took the dos doblas from a lowly leather worker,3 the city erupted in protest. Enraged citizens ransacked Alonso Cota’s multiple homes. Afterwards they attacked and pillaged the Magdalena quarter4 where all the wealthy conversos and Jews were known to reside.

A nobleman, Pedro Sarmiento, took charge of the agitated masses and assumed effective control over Toledo. A few conversos took up arms against the rebels and were killed. Others were banished from the city and their homes and property confiscated. Over the next several months Juan II’s and De Luna’s forces undertook a siege campaign against the city. As the Sentencia-Estatuto stated, the royal court waged “a cruel war of blood and fire, of crop destruction and pillaging” against the citizens of Toledo. Periodically, Sarmiento engaged in negotiations with the king for the safe return of the city. One of the stipulations was that Alvaro de Luna be removed from Juan II’s court. As Spanish historian Eloy Benito Ruano explains, it was believed that De Luna had sold a number of public offices to the conversos and that he had “taken over the will of the King” and protected many “heretics and Judaizers.”5 Regarding converso overrepresentation in Juan II’s court, the late Jewish scholar Benzion Netanyahu (Benjamin Netanyahu’s father) said that:

…there can be no doubt that the influence of the conversos in the royal secretaryship was one of the factors determining the appointments of the cities’ chief authorities…the crowning achievement of the conversos in government was attained through their membership in Castile’s royal Council…Toward the end of [Juan II’s reign] they probably comprised no less than a third of its members, reaching at that time the zenith of their influence in determining the actions and policies of the state.6

The Sentencia-Estatuto explicitly stated, referring to the public notaries, that it was “well known to all, that the majority of said notary positions, said conversos tyrannically held and possessed, as much by the purchase with money as by favors and other clever and deceptive means.” The document emphasized that conversos should “especially” be barred from these offices and their “exemptions” which probably involved immunities from certain taxes and related financial obligations.

The Sentencia-Estatuto also rendered conversos ineligible to act as witnesses in court against old Christians. Many modern commentators view this as a historical novelty, but long before the Sentencia-Estatuto, Christians were not allowed to testify against Jews in Rabbinic courts,7 and Talmudic Mesirah laws often forbade Jews from denouncing fellow Jews to non-Jewish authorities. In addition, the Talmud sometimes forbids Jews from testifying against other Jews in secular courts.8 Even today, there is evidence that Jews still culturally adhere to these laws. For example in 2006, Israeli-American real estate investor Solomon Dwek was convicted of felony fraud after trying to steal $50 million from PNC Bank in a check-kiting scheme. Subsequently, he became an FBI informant and his father, Rabbi Dwek, famously denounced him from the pulpit at his synagogue, citing the Talmudic law of moser.9 His father even reportedly said that he would be sitting shiva, a week-long morning ritual, because he considered his son dead.10

While the Sentencia-Estatuto is not explicit on the matter, its statements easily lend themselves to a supposition that conversos would testify in secular courts against old Christians on behalf of fellow conversos in an ethnocentric fashion. With this in mind, the Sentencia-Estatuto outright accused the conversos of systematically taking over Toledo’s government, running it into the ground, and purposefully dispossessing many old Christian nobles:

…through cunning and deceit, [the conversos have] taken and carried off and stolen large and innumerable amounts of maravedis and silver from our king the lord and from his rents, rights, and taxes, and they have destroyed and ruined many noblewomen, knights and hidalgos. Consequently they have oppressed, destroyed, robbed and ravaged all the most ancient houses and estates of the old Christians of this city and its land and jurisdiction and all the realms of Castile, as is well known and as such we regard it. Furthermore, during the time that they have held public office in this city, and its management and administration, the greater part of said city’s centers have been depopulated and destroyed; said city’s own land and centers [have been] lost and alienated. Beyond all this, all the maravedis of said city’s income and property have been consumed in their own interests and properties, in such a manner that all of the country’s wealth and reputation have been consumed and destroyed.

All this said, the Sentencia-Estatuto is sometimes viewed as a post-hoc justification for the Toledans to rob and pillage the city’s wealthy conversos. Benzion Netanyahu claimed that Sarmiento lacked the support of the upper class nobles, and so he seized on the commoners’ animosity toward conversos in order to undermine Alvaro de Luna. He argues that Sarmiento was “a second-rate nobleman, with mediocre estates and moderate income”11 who felt entitled to greater monetary compensation for his past services to the king. In Netanyahu’s view, the rebellion was not an organic event, and Sarmiento premeditated and orchestrated the entire affair because of “hurt feelings” and a fear of “an impending disaster,”12 after he became convinced that De Luna had begun to see him as a political enemy.

I don’t think Netanyahu’s accounting of Sarmiento’s motives holds up under scrutiny. The converso overrepresentation in Juan II’s court and Alvaro de Luna’s support base by his own admission was a very real thing. The nobles were likely just as aware of it as the commoners, if not more so. In the years leading up to the rebellion, Alvaro de Luna and Juan II had been alienating their rivals, perceived or otherwise, by imprisoning them and seizing their assets. It was not the case that aside from Sarmiento and the commoners, all was well and good in Castile.13 It seems rather unlikely that Castilian nobility hadn’t begun to notice any patterns in terms of who was and wasn’t among De Luna’s and Juan II’s support base. Moreover, similar displays of ethnic strife between conversos and old Christians occurred in Ciudad Real a mere 15 days following the outbreak of the Toledan rebellion. “The [converso] tax collector Juan González (later burned by the Inquisition) and three hundred other men of said ancestry armed themselves and took to the streets, threatening to burn down the city before anyone decided to attack them.” This too was all apparently in a “dispute over the possession of the public notaries which it was said were bought by Judaizers and New Christians.”14 Even if Sarmiento orchestrated the rebellion in Toledo, as Netanyahu argues, he didn’t invent the larger ethnic conflict that was brewing in the region, nor did he invent converso overrepresentation in the notaries, which seems to have been ubiquitous throughout the region.

Many modern academics and commentators might argue here that such overrepresentation in the notaries could be attributed to an intelligence advantage rather than an ethnocentric in-group strategy. The evidence at hand, however, doesn’t support such a conclusion. Richard Lynn’s notable book, The Chosen People: A Study of Jewish Intelligence and Achievement, states that the bulk of Sephardic Jews expelled from Spain in 1492 moved to the Balkans, (p. 335) where the Sephardic IQ is currently 98. (p.298) In Lynn’s The Intelligence of Nations, the Spanish national IQ was rated at roughly 94. (p. 145) While statistically significant, a four point difference isn’t very compelling to support the former hypothesis. Moreover, another paper by Lynn, North-South Differences in Spain in IQ,15 reports that the average IQ in Northern Spain is 101 while the average in the South is 96. The average IQ for Catalonia and Valencia in Lynn’s paper was 102.

There is another paper, Numeracy of Religious Minorities in Spain and Portugal in the Inquisition Era, (Juif et al 2019)16 that attempts to compare the numeracy rates of “Jewish-accused” conversos with those of the broader Catholic masses during the Inquisition. The goal was to find evidence of “Jew’s human capital relative to the non-Jewish majority’s.” The study never discusses IQ directly, but it seeks to correlate rates of numeracy with education level which in turn can be correlated with IQ. The study’s finding was that Jewish-accused individuals had higher numeracy rates compared to the broader population, but the study also states that “Catholic priests and other groups of the religious elite who were occasional targets of the Inquisition had a similarly high level of numeracy.” This would suggest that, regardless of ethnicity, there was a high rate of numeracy within the higher socioeconomic rungs of Spanish society. The Inquisition does not appear to have targeted individuals of lower socioeconomic status.

If we consider that, by virtually all accounts, the sephardic Jews were not peasants, but rather a monied class of relative high socio-economic status,17 it may well be that the average converso indeed had a higher IQ than the average old Christian peasant. Even so, there is no evidence that the conversos were significantly more intelligent than the old Christian nobility such that one would expect the conversos to dominate the notaries. People have produced various estimations for the population of each major ethnic bloc in medieval Spain. None of them are particularly convincing, but with that caveat in mind, the total population in 1492 is generally said to have been around three million. The Jews, it is said, were around 300,000. Supposedly, there were half a million Muslims. If those figures are accurate, it would be informative to ascertain how many of the 2.2 million old Christians were of the noble classes. It may be that the old Christian noble classes numerically comprised a similarly small figure relative to the larger population of commoners. In effect, there may have been two relatively small but high socioeconomic rungs of Spanish society roughly of equal intelligence and size in the ‘resource competition theory’ that Kevin MacDonald has forwarded in his book, A People That Shall Dwell Alone. In such a setting, the conversos would be at an advantage only if they had adopted a group strategy against the old Christian nobles who in contrast had remained relatively individualistic until the implementation of Limpieza de Sangre policies.

It also appears to be the case that in none of the contemporary documents that sought to condemn Sarmiento’s rebellion does anyone counter the basic idea that conversos were indeed overrepresented in the manner Sarmiento and others described. Critics simply accused the rebels of having acted without proper cause and justification.

As far as Sarmiento’s motives go, they appear to have gone well beyond personal interests and ambitions. It is far more likely that he was sincerely motivated by a moral and religious conviction—perhaps even an emergent ethnic awareness—to protect his fellow old Christians from what he saw as their abuse and exploitation on the part of a hostile outgroup. If Sarmiento was only interested in political expediency, it was not a wise move for him to take up a stance that burned all possible bridges with the converso power base in such an exceedingly dangerous setting. Once the Toledan rebellion began, Juan II officially revoked and seized Sarmiento’s titles and properties, and sought to bring him and all his supporters to justice. Even Pope Nicholas V condemned the rebellion. He excommunicated Sarmiento along with over 500 others for their actions, and declared the entire city in “entredicho” which essentially barred all its inhabitants from participating in various ecclesiastical affairs.18 He then published the document Humani generis inimicus, (Enemies of the human race) in which, as Benito-Ruano put it, “he affirmed the unity of the Christian flock, regardless of the ancestry of its members in the faith, as well as their equal rights to obtain ecclesiastical and civil jobs or benefices.”19

As remarkable as this opposition to anti-converso sentiments was, plenty of other local nobles supported Sarmiento and the rebels’ cause. Curiously, prince Enrique had not been on good terms with his father, and there is reason to think that he clandestinely supported the rebellion’s anti-converso aims. During the rebellion, the prince was welcomed into the city by the rebels, and he had agreed to all of their demands. None of the rebels would be tried for their crimes, none of the property stolen would be returned to the conversos, and none of the conversos banished from the city would be allowed to return. It does appear that after a series of political intrigues, Enrique may have had a falling out with Sarmiento, but the details that the Crónica de Juan II provides seem strange.

The chronicle tells us20 that in November of 1450, with the rebellion still ongoing, the prince learned and disapproved of certain excesses Sarmiento had been engaged in.21 He left his stronghold in Segovia and made his way to Toledo to remove Sarmiento, whom we are also told was plotting to hand over the city to the king.22 This doesn’t make much sense. The prince had been amenable to Sarmiento’s aims while the king had not. The chronicle also states that the prince didn’t take any action against Sarmiento when he first entered the city. In fact, it expressly states that the prince participated in a series of games for “eight to ten days” before finally getting around to summoning Sarmiento. He then asks Sarmiento to hand over his positions to Don Pedro Giron, the Maestre de Calatrava.23

Supposedly, a few days after this, the bishop of Cuenca spoke to Sarmiento on behalf of the prince. He told Sarmiento that the prince wanted him to leave the city.24 The bishop then gave a scathing critique and condemnation of Sarmiento’s behavior. The chronicle condemned Sarmiento for having rebelled against his king, but Enrique, the king’s own son, was no less guilty of this. The same chronicle discusses how the prince impeded several plots on the part of disillusioned rebels to hand the city back over to his father. Moreover, Enrique did not arrest Sarmiento. Instead he granted Sarmiento safe passage to his power center in Segovia. He even allowed Sarmiento to leave the city with all his possessions and wealth, including what the same chronicle accuses Sarmiento of having plundered from the conversos.

The chronicle has several characters pleading with the prince to stop Sarmiento from leaving Toledo with “mas de treinta cuentos.” This presumably means “more than 30 million maravedis.” While maravedis don’t indicate actual coins here, the amount of money here seems absurd and fantastical. Beyond it being 30 times the original loan that instigated the rebellion, the amount would likely have been so physically large and heavy that Sarmiento could not possibly have carried it out of the city. Even Benzion Netanyahu stated that “this does not seem possible.”25 Assuming Sarmiento had 15 million doblas weighing around four grams each, the treasure would probably have weighed over 130,000 lbs. Technically though, the chronicle tells us that Sarmiento left “without the gold and the silver he had stolen” and instead much of what he carried out of Toledo were tapestries, rugs, fancy underwear, bed spreads, silk fabrics, and fine gems. It doesn’t seem any more likely that Sarmiento carried off the equivalent value of 30 million maravedis in these items.

The text does assert that Sarmiento’s caravan had “close to two hundred” beasts of burden, but even if this is true, that wouldn’t have sufficed. Assuming that each animal weighed around 1000 lbs and could carry 20% of its own weight, the maximum carrying capacity of Sarmiento’s caravan would’ve been about 40,000 lbs. And there is still the consideration that once outside the city, such an amount of wealth would’ve required a small army to defend, which Sarmiento, a minor noble, clearly did not possess. Indeed, after Sarmiento’s caravan leaves Toledo, the chronicle has his servants steal his belongings and abandon him over the course of several days. He is robbed by bandits on the road and the very cities he approaches seeking refuge. Even the king at one point confiscates part of what Sarmiento supposedly stole, when the latter is forced to abandon it at a former residence, and yet curiously the king doesn’t give the property back to its rightful owners.26 The account appears purposefully tailored to vilify Sarmiento in a caricatured fashion. Benzion Netanyahu notes that the dialogue between Sarmiento and the bishop of Cuenca is not present in the Crónica del Halconero; it’s only found in the Crónica de Juan II. He calls the account in the latter chronicle, a “tendentious story, which might have been produced by some admirer of Barrientos (in all likelihood, a converso author)…”27

It’s entirely possible that Sarmiento had aggravated the prince by imprisoning certain noblemen whom the prince felt were honorable, but elements of the chronicle are clearly histrionic in nature. It seems more likely that the prince asked Sarmiento to leave the city after Pope Nicholas’s bull against the rebels had been locally issued. The prince may have been concerned with optics and felt that Sarmiento’s departure would ease tensions.28 Either way, the rebellion continued without Sarmiento’s direct participation for over another year, and when it was over, it had effectively accomplished all that he and his followers had set out to achieve.

On March 21st of 1451, Juan II saw fit to pardon all the Toledan rebels. No one was to be punished for their actions, and even more amazing, none of the property taken from the conversos was to be returned.29 It can be deduced from a letter dated to August 13th, 1451 that Juan II also upheld the rebellion’s measure to remove conversos from public office in Toledo.30 On November 20th of the same year at Juan II’s request, the Pope removed the excommunication status from the city.31 Even Sarmiento was eventually pardoned in 1452, and all his former titles and estates were restored. Although Juan II never allowed him to return to court, Sarmiento became a member of Enrique’s court once he succeeded his father to the throne. Sarmiento died naturally in 1463, probably due to parkinson’s disease, having successfully passed on his mayorazgo to his son.32 Alvaro de Luna on the other hand, following another set of attempts at power grabs, was arrested in 1453 by Enrique who had the former constable convicted for usurping royal functions and subsequently beheaded.33

By 1478 the Inquisition was established in Castille via a papal bull with the goal of combating the Judaizing practices of the conversos. By 1483, it was established in Aragon. The former reluctance on the part of the papacy to engage in prejudicial actions against persons of Jewish ancestry had evaporated. In 1492 at the culmination of the Reconquista, Spain enacted the Edict of Expulsion (Decreto de la Alhambra or Edicto de Granada) which expelled all practicing Jews who refused to convert to Catholicism. Those who rejected conversion were given six months to sell their assets, conclude their affairs, and move abroad.34 Although thousands of Jews left, it’s generally believed that the bulk of them opted to convert, and following the historical pattern since the times of the Visigoths, these conversions were in all likelihood mostly insincere. Many of the new converts continued to practice Judaism in secret and maintain old ethnic ties and allegiances and intermarry among themselves. It was in this setting that Limpieza de Sangre became official state policy in Spain.

Benzion Netanyahu asserted that the Spaniards had adopted “the principle of race to discriminate against all conversos” and asked why the Spaniards being so “constitutionally dedicated to the defense of Christian cult and doctrine [would] adopt a policy so alien…so opposed to its laws, teachings and traditions?”35 Perhaps we can find an ironic answer to this question in chapter four of Kevin MacDonald’s Separation and Its Discontents:

The Inquisition was fundamentally a response to failed attempts to force genetic and group assimilation. The real crime in the eyes of the Iberians was that the Jews who had converted after 1391 were racialists in disguise, and this was the case even if they sincerely believed in Christianity while nevertheless continuing to marry endogamously and to engage in political and economic cooperation within the group. Those who had voluntarily assimilated prior to 1391 were not targets of the Inquisition, since such individuals were implicitly viewed as being free from the crime of racialism. It was not the extent of Jewish ancestry that was a crime, but the intentional involvement in a group evolutionary strategy. In this sense, the Inquisition was profoundly non-racist. Rather, it was concerned with punishing racialism.36

Some of MacDonald’s assertions may appear odd, since the Inquisition later developed an entire racial caste system in the Americas. But the historical evidence strongly indicates that the emergent Spanish attitudes toward conversos were formed in response to ethnocentric converso collectivism against old Christians. It should be considered here that the tendency of Christianity in Spain had been to dissolve older ethnic distinctions. The Visigoths had forbidden intermarriage between themselves and local Hispano Romans until the mid 7th century when Recceswinth dissolved the old law in order to promote cultural unity.37 To be clear, these observations are not intended to imply that the Jews of Spain bore responsibility for the Spaniards’ subsequent implementation of their racial caste system in the Americas. As MacDonald also states in his work, “evolutionary theory must also suppose that these tendencies are in no way exclusive to Judaism…”38 My intent here is to discourage academics and others from viewing the emergence of Limpieza de Sangre policies as the progenitor of modern racism.

Beginning of the Translated Text:

In the very noble and very loyal city of Toledo, five days into the month of June, in the year of the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ, one thousand four hundred and forty nine; on this day, standing present in the house and hall of said city of Toledo, the very honorable and noble gentleman Pedro Sarmiento, repostero mayor39 of our Lord the King and his council, and alcalde de las alzadas40 in said city of Toledo and its realm, boundary, and jurisdiction by way of said Lord King, and [standing present] the judges, sheriffs, knights and squires, commoners and people of said city of Toledo, assembled according to habit and custom, especially to hear, discuss, negotiate and provide in the administration and good governance of said city and in other things pertaining and convenient to the service of our Lord God, of said Lord the King and of the public welfare of said city and its residents and inhabitants, and in the presence of myself, Pasqual Gómez, public scribe in Toledo and scribe of the councils of said city, and [in the presence] of the witnesses listed below, Esteban García de Toledo personally appeared in said council in name, and as the representative that he is, of said judges, sheriffs, knights, squires, commoners and people of said city, whose power of attorney passed before me, the aforementioned scribe. [Esteban García de Toledo] spoke with the gentlemen named above, who well know how on many days and in different councils they had discussed and understood about the universal wellbeing of said city, and of the privileges, exemptions and freedoms given and granted to it by the kings of very glorious memory, progenitors of our Lord the King, and by their highness [said privileges, exemptions and freedoms were] confirmed and sworn.41 Among these [privileges, exemptions and freedoms, Esteban García de Toledo] says there was a privilege given and granted to said city by the Catholic of glorious memory, Don Alfonso, king of Castile and Leon, whereby, among other graces, freedoms, and immunities given and granted by him to said city, following the spirit and letter of the law and the holy decrees, [Don Alfonso] ordered and decreed that no converso with Jewish lineage could hold or keep any office or benefice in said city of Toledo, nor in its land, boundary and jurisdiction, for being suspect in the faith of our Lord and Redeemer Jesus Christ, and for other causes and reasons contained within said privilege.

The aforementioned lords had deliberated a few times on the public notaries of said city, which were and are offices that consist in the service of said Lord King and a great part of the benefit of all public things of said city. They had seen and heard, and it was well known to all, that the majority of said notary positions, said conversos tyrannically held and possessed, as much by the purchase with money as by favors and other clever and deceptive means. This was done in contempt of the royal crown of our Lord the King, of said privileges, exonerations, freedoms and immunities of said city, and of the old Christians proper.42 About all this and other things pertaining to the service of God, of said Lord King, and of the public welfare of said city, [the aforementioned lords] had agreed to make a pronouncement and declaration beyond their mercy to date. Consequently, in name of said city, its commoners and people, and in the best manner [Esteban García de Toledo] was able, and was compelled by law to do so, he requested and did request, he demanded and did demand, that [the aforementioned lords] declare and pronounce on all that they understand to be in service of God our Lord and of said Lord King and of the common interest and advantage of said city.

And promptly the aforementioned Pedro Sarmiento and the aforementioned judges, sheriffs, knights and squires, commoners and people of said city, stated that they had already seen and deliberated about what the aforementioned Esteban García stated, and [that] they had ordered him to see his lawyers, intending to be compliant in the service of God, of said Lord King, and of the public welfare of said city. Consequently, above and beyond everything else declared and pronounced by them in the trial that said city brings against its enemy residents for the offenses and crimes committed and perpetrated by them against the service of God, and of said Lord King, and of the public good of said city, the aforementioned lords agreed to make a certain declaration, and they promptly gave another judgment, and they made me, the aforementioned scribe, read it, the tenor of which, with what happened later, is what follows:

«We, the aforementioned Pedro Sarmiento, repostero mayor of our Lord the King and of his council, and his asistente43 and alcalde mayor de las alzadas of the very noble and very loyal city of Toledo, and the judges, sheriffs, knights, squires, citizens and people of said city of Toledo, named above, pronounce and declare that, inasmuch as it is well known by law both canonical and civil, that conversos of Jewish lineage, for being suspect in the faith of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, the faith which they frequently profane by judaizing, may not hold such offices or benefices public or private through which they might inflict shame, damages or abuses on old Christians proper, nor may they qualify as witnesses against them. For this reason, privilege was given to said city and its residents by Don Alfonso of glorious memory, that these conversos not hold nor be able to hold said offices or benefices under pain of severe and grave punishments, and because against a very large part of this city’s conversos, descendants from the lineage of its Jews, it is proven, and it seemed and evidently seems, that they are persons highly suspect in the holy Catholic faith, holding and believing profound errors against the articles of the holy Catholic faith, guarding the rites and rituals of the old law, and saying and affirming that our Savior and Redeemer Jesus Christ is a man belonging to their lineage whom the Christians adore as God. And furthermore, [because] they affirm and say that there is a God and a Goddess44 in heaven. And furthermore, [because] on Holy Thursday, while the holiest oil and chrism are consecrated in the Holy Church of Toledo, and the Body of our Redeemer is placed on the Altar, said conversos slaughter lambs and eat them and make other kinds of burnt offerings and sacrifices judaizing. [This is] according to what is contained at length in the inquiry conducted for this reason by the vicars of said Holy Church of Toledo. By virtue [of its findings], the royal justice, following the letter of the law, proceeded heartedly against some of them, and from there, as the holy decrees have deduced, it turns out that most of said conversos do not think well of the holy Catholic faith. Said inquiry we have included here and ordered it to be placed in the archives of Toledo. Additionally, because beyond what has been said above is well known in this city, and as such we have declared it as fact and well known that said conversos live and act without fear of God. And furthermore they have shown and show themselves to be enemies of said city and its old Christian residents, and that notoriously at their petition, insistence and solicitation, a royal tax was placed on said city by the constable Don Alvaro de Luna45 and his henchmen and allies, our enemies, waging a cruel war of blood and fire, of crop destruction and pillaging, as if we were Moors, enemies of the Christian faith.

Such damages, evils, and wars, the Jews, enemies of our holy Catholic faith, have always caused, manifested, and even implemented since the passion of our Savior Jesus Christ. Even the Jews who lived in this city long ago, according to our ancient chronicles, when it was surrounded by the Moors, our enemies, led by their captain Tariq, after the death of the king Don Rodrigo,46 made a deal and sold said city and its Christians and gave entrance to said Moors. In this deal and contract it was decided that three hundred and six old Christians of the city were to be beheaded, and more than one hundred and six were taken from the cathedral and from the church of Santa Leocadia and carried off as captives and prisoners among whom were men and women, children and adults. Consequently, they have, and they do so every day said conversos, descendants of the Jews, through cunning and deceit, taken and carried off and stolen large and innumerable amounts of maravedis47 and silver from our king the lord and from his rents, rights, and taxes, and they have destroyed and ruined many noblewomen, knights and hidalgos.48 Consequently they have oppressed, destroyed, robbed and ravaged all the most ancient houses and estates of the old Christians of this city and its land and jurisdiction and all the realms of Castile, as is well known and as such we regard it.

Furthermore, during the time that they have held public office in this city, and its management and administration, the greater part of said city’s centers49 have been depopulated and destroyed; said city’s own land and centers [have been] lost and alienated.50 Beyond all this, all the maravedis of said city’s income and property have been consumed in their own interests and properties, in such a manner that all of the country’s wealth and reputation have been consumed and destroyed. They are made lords to destroy the holy Catholic faith and the old Christians who believe in it. In confirmation of this, it is well known to this city and its residents that here a short time ago said conversos rose up, assembled, and armed themselves, and as is public knowledge and well known, they set out with the intention and purpose to destroy all the old Christians and myself, the aforementioned Pedro Sarmiento, first and foremost among them, and to throw us out of said city, and to take it over and deliver it to our enemies. What has been said [here] is public and well known, and as such we hold and regard it, and thereby, pronouncing on this as a notorious case and fact, we find:

«That we must declare and pronounce, establish and order, and we do declare, pronounce, establish and order, that all said conversos, descendants of the perverse lineage of the Jews, to any extent, as much by virtue of canon and civil law that rules against them on the things declared above, as by virtue of the aforementioned privilege given to this city by the aforementioned Lord King of very glorious memory, Don Alfonso of Castile and Leon, progenitor of the King our Lord, and by the other Lord Kings his progenitors, and by their highness, [the aforementioned privilege was] sworn and confirmed, [and] as much by reason of the heresies and other offenses, insults, seditions and crimes committed and perpetrated by them to date, that they are to be regarded, just the law regards them, unable and unworthy to hold any office or benefice, public or private, in said city of Toledo, and in its land, boundary and jurisdiction, with which they can hold lordship over old Christians of the holy Catholic faith of our Lord Jesus Christ or cause them damages and offenses. Additionally they are to be regarded as unable and unworthy to give testimony and faith as public scribes or as witnesses, especially in this city. By this judgment and declaration of ours, following the spirit and letter of the aforementioned privilege, liberties, and immunities of said city, we deprive them, and order them to be deprived, of any offices and benefices that they hold, and have held, in any manner in this city. And inasmuch as it is well known to us, and for such we pronounce it, those who follow are to be especially held and regarded as conversos of Jewish lineage:

López Fernández Cota.—Gonzalo Rodríguez de San Pedro, his nephew.—Juan Núñez, bachelor.—Pero Núñez y Diego Núñez, his brothers.—Juan Núñez, promoter.—Juan López del Arroyo.—Juan González de Illescas.—Pero Ortíz.—Diego Rodríguez el Albo.—Diego Martínez de Herrera.—Juan Fernández Cota.—Diego González Jarada, alcalde.—Pero González, his son, and every one of them.»

«Therefore we declare them to be removed from, and we remove them from, any notaries and other offices that they have and have held in this city and its boundary and jurisdiction, and we dictate to the aforementioned conversos, who live and dwell in it and its land, boundary and jurisdiction, that henceforth they may not testify in or benefit from said offices, especially the aforementioned public notaries and their exemptions, neither publicly nor secretly, neither directly nor indirectly, under pain of death and confiscation of all their goods by the walls of said city and its republic. Furthermore, we find that we must order, and we do order, the public scribes of the number51 of said city, Christians old and proper, to whom it belongs the election of said public notaries, that being vacant said notaries that the aforementioned conversos, descendants of Jewish lineage and breed,52 held and hold among themselves, to choose [new] public scribes of said number in accordance with the privilege and judgment granted to them by the Lord King Don Alfonso, named above, and by customary use, and guarding within said elections the form and the oath that must be made. We order that this judgment and its effect be publicly proclaimed in the usual public squares and markets of this city. And by this judgment and declaration, pronouncing and declaring as in well-known fact, we pronounce, declare, and order it in and by these writings.»

And thus given the aforementioned judgment, and read, in the manner that it is, by myself, the aforementioned scribe, Pasqual Gómez, and by the aforementioned Esteban García, attorney of said city, [who read it] in its name, and by Fernando López de Sahagún, public scribe of Toledo, [who read it] in name of himself and of the other public scribes of said city, [the aforementioned lords] stated: that they requested and did request that I, the aforementioned scribe, give it to them as public testimony as many times as they required for safeguard and conservation for the aforementioned parties and themselves. And I, the aforementioned scribe, by order of said gentlemen named above, gave to the aforementioned public scribes this public instrument, according to and in the manner that passed before me in said city of Toledo, on the day, month, year and place named above.

Furthermore, the aforementioned lords of Toledo stated that they wanted, and they ordered, that this judgment and lawsuit of theirs should have the force of a judgment or declaration, statute, or ordinance, or the best form that would be and is valid, and that it was to be, and that it is, issued in favor of the proper old Christians against the aforementioned conversos, and that it was to be understood, and is understood, that it was to be extended and is extended against the conversos past and present and future; but not in the proceedings and rulings,53 that to date they made into deeds or were presented by witnesses. Those should be valid as much as they legally will have to be and be able to be.

Witnesses who were present to this: Periáñez de Oseguera, knight commander of Toledo, of the Calatrava order, and Sancho de Fuelles, and Per Alvares de la Plata, and Fernán López de Sahagún, public scribes in said city. For this, they were especially summoned and requested.

And I, the aforementioned Pasqual Gómez, public scribe of Toledo, of the number and of the councils of said city, was present with the aforementioned witnesses to what has been declared. And by order of the aforementioned Pedro Sarmiento and said city, and by request and claim of the aforementioned Esteban García, the city’s attorney, I wrote this public instrument, and consequently I made here this seal of mine that is such in testimony of truth.—Pascual Gómez, public scribe.

End of the Translated Text


Endnotes

  1. Emilio Cotarelo y Mori. “Algunas noticias nuevas acerca de Rodrigo de Cota”. Boletín de la Real Academia Española, XIII. 1926.

 

  1. Benzion Netanyahu. The Origins of the Inquisition. Random House. 1995. (p.310) Netanyahu cites the Historia Eclesiástica de la Imperial Ciudad de Toledo y Su Tierra by Jerónimo Román de la Higuera, which I do not have access to. His citation on page 1225 says the following:

Higuera, op. cit., lib. 28, cap. y, f. 222v, says that the común suspected Cota to have been the originator of the idea of the loan and that he influenced Alvaro to accept it. See Crónica, año 1449, cap. 2, pp. 661b-662a; Halconero, cap. 372, pp. 511-512

I also do not currently have access to the Crónica del Halconero, but the Crónica del Señor Rey Don Juan II cited states the following:

é porque oviéron sospecha, que un mercader muy rico é honrado vecino de la cibdad de Toledo, que se llamaba Alonso Cota, habia seydo movedor deste enprestido…

  1. Crónica del Señor Rey Don Juan II. Año 43, Capítulo I.:

Y el primero movedor del escándalo fué un odrero vecino desta cibdad de Toledo , é á su voz é apellido se juntó todo el común : é hallóse escrito en una piedra en letras góticas de gran tiempo, que decia así : Soplara el odrero , y alborotarseha Toledo.

Juan de Mata Carriazo. Refundición del Halconero. Espara-Calpe, S.A. Madrid, 1946. (p.CXCII):

…e como abaxaron a coger dos doblas a gente comun, que no las podian dar, por esta causa se ovo de levantar el comun. E fué causa un odrero, que le pusieron dos doblas; por esto decian: sopló el odrero, e levantóse Toledo.

  1. Juan de Mariana. Obras del padre Juan de Mariana. M. Rivadeneyra. Madrid. 1854. (p.130):

Cargaron sobre las casas de Alonso Cota y pegáronles fuego, con que por pasar muy adelante se quemó el barrio de la Madalena , morada en gran parte de los mercaderes ricos de la ciudad.

  1. Eloy Benito Ruano. Toledo en el siglo XV. Madrid. 1961. (p. 42) Ruano cites La Crónica del Halconero pages 520-526.
  2. Benzion Netanyahu. (p.962)
  3. There are several instances of Jewish law where this is stipulated, but some examples are: Bava Kemma 3:1 and 15a; The Jewish Encyclopedia, Volume Five, in the article EVIDENCE (p.277) states that “The witness must be an Israelite. The Talmud seems to take this for granted.”
  4. Bava Kamma 113b and 114a state that a single Jew may not testify against another Jew in a secular court, but that two or more Jews meet the requirements of Jewish law. There is debate within Jewish scholarship about the exact nature of this law, but it is not unreasonable to suppose that on more than one occasion, crypto Jews and conversos gave false testimony for the benefit of their coethnics.
  5. Kate Sheehy. “Stoolie is ‘Dead’ to His Daddy”. www.nypost.com. Published July 28, 2009, 6:59 a.m. ET
  6. Ami Eden. “Disowning Dwek?”. www.jta.org. Published July 28, 2009 7:10 PM. This Orthodox Jewish blog claimed that Rabbi Dwek never actually invoked the Talmudic laws of moser nor did he begin sitting shiva, however, the blog reported the following:

Rabbi Dweck delivered a very emotional sermon in which he strongly denounced the phenomenon of a Jew informing on other Jews, said that he is also a victim in this saga together with Klal Yisroel, and asked for prayers from the entire Jewish community for his terrible suffering.

  1. Benzion Netanyahu. (p.301)
  2. Ibid. He makes his case in Chapter III on pages 301-313. The quotes are on page 303.
  3. Eloy Benito Ruano gives a good outline in Chapter Two of his book.
  4. Ibid. (p.49-50)
  5. Richard Lynn. North-South Differences in Spain in IQ, Educational Attainment, per capita Income, Literacy, Life Expectancy and Employment. Mankind Quarterly, Vol 52, No. 3. March 2012. (p. 265-291)
  6. Juif et al. Numeracy of Religious Minorities in Spain and Portugal in the Inquisition Era. Revista de Historia Economica – Journal of Iberian and Latin American Economic History 38(1):1-38. November, 2019.
  7. Salo Baron. Ghetto and Emancipation; shall we revise the traditional view?. The Menorah Journal. New York. 1928. (p.1-4)
  8. Ibid. Ruano discusses this on page 70 and cites the declaration from the pope, a copy of which he has included on page 201. See “1449. Septiembre, 24. Fabriano”
  9. Ibid. (p.53)
  10. Crónica del Señor Rey Don Juan II. Año 44, Capítulo I.
  11. …por quanto era informado quel dicho Pero Sarmiento no contento de los males que había hecho, todavía perseveraba en hacer otros mayores…
  12. …é aun que trataba con el Rey para entregarle la cibdad…
  13. …é pasáron allí en Toledo en correr toros é jugar cañas ocho, ó diez dias, en fin de los quales el Príncipe enbió á decir á Pero Sarmiento, que le rogaba que le entregase el alcázar, y dexase el Alcaydía mayor de la cibdad…
  14. …é díxole como la voluntad del príncipe era que le desenbargase la cibdad de Toledo…
  15. Benzion Netanyahu. (p.1108)
  16. Crónica del Señor Rey Don Juan II. Año 44, Capítulo I. The original text reads:

E desque el Rey, que estaba en Valladolid, supo como aquella hacienda que Pero Sarmiento habia robado en Toledo estaba gran parte della en Gumiel de mercado, embió allá á un Escribano de Cámara que se llamaba Fernán Alonso de Toledo, para que todo lo tomase por ante Escribano, é lo truxese al Rey, lo qual así se hizo.

  1. Benzion Netanyahu. (p.1107-1108)
  2. Ibid.
  3. Eloy Benito Ruano. (p.216) “1451. Marzo, 21. Torrijos”
  4. Ibid. (p.76) See also “1451. Agosto, 13. Santo Domingo de la Calzada” on page 222.
  5. Ibid. (p.76) See also “1451, Noviembre, 20. Roma” on page 223.
  6. Laura Canabal Rodríguez. “Pero Sarmiento.” www.rae.es.
  7. Vicente Ángel Álvarez Palenzuela. “Álvaro de Luna”. www.rae.es.
  8. Andrés Bernáldez. Historia de los reyes católicos. (p. 332)
  1. Benzion Netanyahu. (p.xvi)
  2. Kevin MacDonald. Separation and Its Discontents. (p. 124-125)
  3. See Book III, Title I, Section II of the Visigothic Codex. The law negates the former Gothic forbiddance of exogamous marriages. Here is Samuel Parsons Scott’s translation:

It shall be as Lawful for a Roman Woman to Marry a Goth, as for a Gothic Woman to Marry a Roman. The zealous care of the prince is recognized, when, for the sake of future utility, the benefit of the people is provided for; and it should be a source of no little congratulation, if the ancient law, which sought improperly to prevent the marriage of persons equal in dignity and lineage, should be abrogated. For this reason, we hereby sanction a better law; and, declaring the ancient one to be void, we decree that if any Goth wishes to marry a Roman woman, or any Roman a Gothic woman, permission being first requested, they shall be permitted to marry. And any freeman shall have the right to marry any free woman; permission of the Council and of her family having been previously obtained.

  1. Kevin MacDonald. A People That Shall Dwell Alone. (p.16)
  2. The Diccionario del Castellano del Siglo XV (hereafter DCS XV) defines repostero as a “royal official tasked with the care of the palace’s domestic items.” Some have translated the word as “butler,” but Pedro Sarmiento was not Juan II’s “butler.” It may just be an honorific title of sorts.
  3. Today acalde usually translates as “mayor,” but the acalde mayor de las alzadas was more akin to a “chief judge of appeals.” Pedro Sarmiento was not the “mayor” of Toledo. The DCS XV states some of the following:

Tomado del árabe andalusí alqádi, ‘juez’, derivado del verbo qádà, ‘juzgar’. Nebrija (Lex1, 1492): Praetor primus. el alcalde dela alçada. Praetro. oris. por alcalde o corregidor. Propraetor. oris. alcalde extraordinario. Rudis rudis. por la vara del alcalde. Uindicta. ae. por la vara del alcalde.

  1. In case it is unclear, the text is stating that the “highness” of the old kings is what confirmed the “privileges, exemptions and freedoms.”
  2. The original phrasing here was “los christianos viejos lindos.” Today, the word lindo is usually translated as ‘beautiful’ but at the time, the word was more akin to its Latin root legitimum. From the DCS XV:

Del latín LEGITIMUM, ‘legítimo, conforme a la ley’, derivado de LEX, ‘ley’.

Nebrija (Lex1, 1492): *Legitimus .a .um. por cosa de lei.

Nebrija (Voc1, ca. 1495 y Voc2, 1513): Linda cosa. nitidus .a .um. elegans .tis.

  1. This literally translates as “assistant” but the exact nature of the position is unclear. The king had many asistentes, and Sarmiento was his asistente in Toledo.
  2. Kenneth Baxter claims in his partial translation (see his footnotes) that this is “a concept connected to the cabalist movement within medieval Iberian Judaism. The idea of a female counterpart to God—known as Shekhina—may have been influenced by Latin Christian devotion of Mary which intensified in the twelfth century.”
  3. This is a reference to the initial tax imposed on the city that led to the outbreak of the rebellion.
  4. 46. This is a reference to the Visigothic king Roderic who died in battle against the Moorish invaders led by Tariq ibn Ziyad in 711.
  5. Originally this was a type of physical coin, but by the 15th century a maravedis was an abstract counting unit. The DCS XV defines a maravedis as having a value of two blancas in Castile. Six of the latter would’ve been worth one silver real.
  6. This is another Spanish and Portuguese term for nobility. It is a condensed form of hijo de algo or ‘son of something’. Hijo derives from the Latin filium meaning ‘son’ and algo derives from the Arabic aliquod meaning ‘a part of something larger.’ The word essentially describes ‘landed gentry.’ The DCS XV defines hidalgo as a “person belonging to a privileged social class, who does not live from his work but rather from his properties over which he has limited power.”
  7. The original Spanish is “los lugares de la dicha cibdad.” Lugar is usually translated as ‘place’ but the DCS XV defines “lugar” as a “núcleo urbano, particularmente cuando no es de gran extensión.” Given the context, I think the author is discussing urban commercial centers and properties.
  8. The original Spanish word is “enajenados.” The concept conveyed is that the ownership of the properties had been transferred to others. The DCS XV defines the word as “pasar <una persona> la propiedad de [algo] o un derecho sobre ella a [alguien].”
  9. Even today in many Spanish-speaking countries, public notaries are numbered, but perhaps an explanation is warranted to avoid confusion. The Pan-Hispanic Dictionary of Legal Spanish explains this as follows:

[A] council officer who could only exercise his office in the town or district to which he was assigned. They are called ‘of the number’ because generally in each locality or district there was a certain number of them, which could not be exceeded.

  1. The word used here was “ralea” which the DCS XV defines as “naturaleza o clase a que pertenece una persona o una cosa.”
  2. The phrase here was “las causas e cosas.” I think given the legal context, “cosa” is short for “cosa juzgada” which the DCS XV defines as “efecto de la sentencia firme que hace indiscutible la resolución judicial.”

 

Free to Cheat: “Jewish Emancipation” and the Anglo-Jewish Cousinhood, Part 1

Editor’s note: This is a repost of a classic Andrew Joyce article from 2012. Never forget!

“Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one.”
     Charles Mackay, 1841[1]

Shortly after his election to Parliament in 1830, Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859), a famous historian and one of Britain’s leading men of letters, took up the cause of removing Jewish “civil disabilities” in Britain. In a succession of speeches, Macaulay was instrumental in pushing the case for permitting Jews to sit in the legislature, and his January 1831 article Civil Disabilities of the Jews had a “significant effect on public opinion.”[2] Professing Jews residing in Britain at that time were unable to take seats in the House of Commons, because prior to sitting in the legislature one was required to declare a Christian oath. In addition, Jews were “excluded from Crown office, from corporations, and from most of the professions, the entrance to which bristled with religious oaths, tests, and declarations.”[3] Even the 1753 Naturalization Act which had granted citizenship to foreign-born Jews had been repealed following widespread popular agitation, and a pervading atmosphere of suspicion and mistrust of Jews generally, and foreign Jews especially.[4] Ursula Henriques states that because of the resolute opposition of the British people to the involvement of Jews in British political life, since their readmission in the 17th century “the Jews had remained quiet.”[5]

However, buoyed by the granting of political emancipation to Protestant Dissenters and Catholics in 1828 and 1829, British Jews began to agitate for their own “emancipation,” and this agitation was augmented and spearheaded to a great extent by Thomas Macauley. Within thirty years the British elite had capitulated; not only had all Christian oaths been abandoned, but six unconverted Jews sat in the House of Commons. Within fifty years, Britain had sixteen Jewish Members of Parliament, and a Jewish Prime Minister who espoused a doctrine of Jewish racial superiority — Benjamin Disraeli; and under Disraeli Britain would pursue a foreign policy dictated to a large extent by what future Prime Minister William Gladstone called “Judaic sympathies.”[6] This foreign policy would include support for the Ottomans who were friendly to Jews and were massacring Christians in Bulgaria. And it would include waging of war on the Boers in a move highly beneficial to Jewish mining operations in South Africa.[7] How and why did such a dramatic change in circumstances occur? And how did the Anglo-Jewish elite repay Britain for its act of ‘justice’?

Let us first return momentarily to Macaulay. An in-depth survey of his life reveals no Jewish ancestry and no clear links to Jews. Son of a Scottish colonial governor and abolitionist, Macaulay seems at first glance to be something of a weak-kneed liberal idealist, and in addition he appears to have had very little knowledge of Jewish history or culture. He saw the Jewish agitation for entry into government as being primarily a religious issue, and perceived Jews as being, in his own words, “victims of intolerance.”[8] Macaulay prided himself on his knowledge of Greek literature,[9] and yet we can but wish he’d spent more time on his Greek philosophy, particularly that of Plato who condemned ” those who practise justice through timidity or stupidity,” and opined that “if justice is not good for the just man, moralists who recommend it as a virtue are perpetrating a fraud.”[10]

However, a complete reading of his 1831 article on Civil Disabilities of the Jews would leave us feeling slightly less antagonistic towards this would-be emancipator, and his article reveals much about the extent and nature of Jewish power and influence in Britain at that time. Macaulay, it seems, viewed emancipation as a means of ‘keeping the Jews in check.’ For example, he insisted that “Jews are not now excluded from political power. They possess it; and as long as they are allowed to accumulate property, they must possess it. The distinction which is sometimes made between civil privileges and political power, is a distinction without a difference. Privileges are power.”[11] Macaulay was also aware of the role of finance as the primary force of Jewish power in Britain. He asked: “What power in civilised society is so great as that of creditor over the debtor? If we take this away from the Jew, we take away from him the security of his property. If we leave it to him, we leave to him a power more despotic by far, than that of the King and all his cabinet.”[12] Macaulay further responds to Christian claims that “it would be impious to let a Jew sit in Parliament” by stating bluntly that “a Jew may make money, and money may make members of Parliament. … [T]he Jew may govern the money market, and the money market may govern the world. … The scrawl of the Jew on the back of a piece of paper may be worth more than the word of three kings, or the national faith of three new American republics.”[13]

Macaulay’s insights into the nature of Jewish power at that time, and his assertions that Jews had already accumulated political power without the aid of the statute books, are quite profound. Yet his reasoning — that permitting Jews into the legislature would somehow offset this power, or make it accountable — seems pitifully naive and poorly thought out. Nonetheless, I wish to take Macaulay’s article as a starting point. What was it in the nature of British Jewry at that time that so alarmed Macaulay, and provoked such a rash response on his part?

The Cousinhood.

We should first bring the Anglo-Jewish elite, referred to by Macaulay, into sharper focus. From the early 19th century until the First World War, English Jewry was ruled by a tightly connected oligarchy. Daniel Gutwein states that this Anglo-Jewish elite comprised some twenty inter-related Ashkenazi and Sephardic families including the houses of Goldsmith, Montagu, Nathan, Cohen, Isaacs, Abrahams, Samuel, and Montefiore.[14] At its head “stood the House of Rothschild.”[15] This network of families had an “exceptionally high degree of consanguinity,” leading to it being termed “The Cousinhood,” and among them “conversion and intermarriage [with non-Jews] was rare.”[16] Todd Endelmann attributes the lack of conversion to the fact that “conversion was not as useful, in general, to English Jews as it was to Jews in Central and Eastern Europe.”[17] The Cousinhood exercised control over the Jewish community through its leadership of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, an organization which would later become one of the chief engines of the move for Jewish emancipation.[18]

The other means through which the Cousinhood maintained control over English Jews was its practice of “systematized philanthropy.” The Cousinhood largely refrained from involvement in Jewish religious life but heavily devoted itself to founding and leading the Anglo-Jewish Association — “the principle arm of Anglo-Jewish political and education aid” to global Jewry.[19] Endelmann notes that these communal institutions “determined the tenor and the agenda of the public side of Jewish life in London.”[20]

To illustrate the extent of blood and financial ties of this network of families, let us consider the following: in 1870, the treasurer of the London Jewish Board of Guardians was Viennese-born Ferdinand de Rothschild (1838–1898). Ferdinand had married his cousin Elvina, who was a niece of the President of the London United Synagogue, Sir Anthony de Rothschild (1810–1876). Meanwhile, the Board of Deputies was at that time headed by Moses Montefiore, whose wife, a daughter of Levi Barent Cohen, was related to Nathan Meyer Rothschild. Nathan Meyer Rothschild’s wife was also a daughter of Levi Barent Cohen, and thus Montefiore was uncle to the aforementioned Anthony de Rothschild. In addition, Anthony was married to a niece of Montefiore, the daughter of Abraham Montefiore and Henrietta Rothschild[21]…et cetera, et cetera. In financial terms, the houses of Rothschild and Montefiore had united in 1824 to form the Alliance Insurance Company, and most of the families were involved in each other’s stock-brokering and banking concerns. Endelmann notes that in these firms “new recruits were drawn exclusively from the ranks of the family.”[22]

Working tightly within this ethnic and familial network, the Cousinhood amassed huge fortunes, and in the years before World War I, despite comprising less than three tenths of 1% of the population, Jews constituted over 20% of non-landed British millionaires.[23] William Rubinstein notes that of these millionaires, all belonged to the Cousinhood.[24] It is worth noting that this wealth was derived exclusively from the fields of “banking, finance, the stock markets and bullion trading.”[25]

By virtue of this incredible level of wealth, the Cousinhood enjoyed a certain degree of political influence. Endelmann provides evidence that the group had “used its economic power to insinuate itself into the different sectors of the political establishment: the political parties, both Houses of Parliament, and even the government.”[26] Endelmann further states that the  Cousinhood’s influence was wielded in the pursuit of “ethnic sympathies, family tradition, and group self-interest,” and it was this influence that so alarmed Thomas Macaulay.[27]

The Move Into Parliament.

By the mid-1830s, English Jews led by the Cousinhood began to press for the removal of Christian oaths in Parliament and this for their ability to enter the legislature. Between 1830 and 1836 no fewer than four Bills were tabled for the removal of Jewish ‘disabilities,’ and all failed to win the support of elected officials. Frustrated that their influence was proving ineffectual, the Cousinhood decided to directly confront Parliament by putting Lionel de Rothschild up as a Liberal candidate for the City of London constituency, and funding him to an extent that almost ensured victory before the campaign even began. Although the Cousinhood had, as Endelmann noted, backed all parties when it was in their interests, they settled on the Liberals because they were broadly supportive of religious liberty. By framing Jewish interests in a religious context, de Rothschild sought to “bring the issue of Jewish emancipation into the broader Liberal agenda of civil and religious liberty, and he was determined that Liberals should adopt Jewish emancipation as a cause.”[28]

De Rothschild came third in the 1847 General Election but won enough votes to take a seat in Parliament. Lord John Russell, then Whig Prime Minister, immediately set about introducing a Jewish Disabilities Bill which would do away with the Christian oath. The Bill was passed in the House of Commons, but resistance proved strong, and it was thrown out by the Lords twice in 1848, and again in 1849. A remarkable but quite unsurprising detail about this time concerns the complicity of Benjamin Disraeli in lobbying members of the opposition party for support of the Bill. The quintessential ‘damp Jew’, Disraeli had been baptized a Christian at age twelve but never ceased to support Jewish ethnic interests, and became notorious for espousing a repugnant Jewish supremacism in his novels Coningsby (1844), Sybil (1845), and Tancred (1847). Although a member of the Tory party since 1837 — a party which was ostensibly dedicated to supporting Christianity in the form of the Established Church of England — correspondence in the official Rothschild Archive reveals that Disraeli was actively working “behind the scenes” to generate Tory support for the removal of the Christian oath.[29] Even taking into account Barbara Kaplan’s dubious and ill-evidenced claim that while Disraeli “lauded the Jewish people” (an understatement to say the least) he “claimed that Christianity was the superior religion,”[30] we can only conclude that in acting to undermine the Christian oath, for Disraeli Jewish ethnicity trumped any feeling he may have had towards Christianity. In a letter marked “Private”, Disraeli wrote to de Rothschild in December 1847:

My dear Lionel,

I find that 18 men, now Peers, voted against the Jews in the Commons 1833, & only 11 in their favor! I agree with you, therefore, that we must be cautious in publishing the lists of the divisions, & rather give a précis of them, calling attention only to what is in your favor….Writing to Lord John Manners today, I particularly mentioned the anxiety of the Court that the bill should pass, as this will be conveyed to the Duke of Rutland who is a great Courtier….My friend thinks that a good petition from King’s Lynn would nail Jocelyn’s vote for the second reading.

Ever yours faithfully

D

The diaries of Louise de Rothschild, sister-in-law to Lionel, further reveal that Disraeli had become a regular dining companion with members of the Cousinhood, and that during one evening with the Rothschilds in November 1847, Disraeli had argued that “we [my italics] must ask for our rights and privileges, not for concessions.”[31] This bravado proved ineffectual in the House of Lords, where hereditary, non-elected nobles continued to reject the Jewish Disabilities Bills for another decade. This obstruction was only ended in 1858, when a change in government allowed Disraeli himself to become Leader of the House of Commons, a position which allowed him to secure a measure “allowing each House to make its own rules about the form of oath” — thereby side-stepping the second chamber as well as established British democratic precedent altogether.[32] Lionel took his seat at the end of 1858, and was joined by his brother a year later. By 1865 his son also had a seat in the Commons, and numerous relatives began to follow. Just as in business, politics was a family affair.

Go to Part 2.


[1] C. Mackay, Extradordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds (London: Bentley, 1841), p.xv.

[2] P. Mendes-Flohr (ed), The Jew in the Modern World (New York: Oxford University Press, 1980), p.136.

[3] U. Henriques, “The Jewish Emancipation Controversy in Nineteenth-Century Britain” Past and Present (1968) 40 (1): 126-146 (p.126).

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid.

[6] R. Quinault, “Gladstone and Disraeli: A Reappraisal of their Relationship” History (2006) 91 (304): 557-576.

[7] C. Hirschfield, “The Anglo-Boer War and Jewish Culpability” Journal of Contemporary History (1980) 15 (4): 619-631 and A. Saab, “Disraeli, Judaism, and the Eastern Question,” The International History Review (1988) 10 (4): 559-578.

[8] M. Cross (ed) Selections from the Edinburgh Review (London: Longman, 1833), vol. 3 ,pp. 667-75.

[9]  W. Williams (1993). “Reading Greek Like a Man of the World: Macaulay and the Classical Languages” Greece and Rome, 40 (2) , pp 201-216

[10] P. Foot (ed) Theories of Ethics: Oxford Readings in Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1967), p.99.

[11] T. Macaulay, “Civil Disabilities of the Jews” in M. Cross (ed) Selections from the Edinburgh Review (London: Longman, 1833), vol. 3, pp. 667-75.

[12] Ibid.

[13] Ibid.

[14] D. Gutwein, The Divided Elite: Politics and Anglo-Jewry, 1882-1917 (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1992), p.5.

[15] Ibid.

[16] T. Endelmann, “Communal Solidarity and Family Loyalty Among the Jewish Elite of Victorian London,” Victorian Studies, 28 (3), pp.491-526, p.491 & 495.

[17] Ibid, p.514.

[18] Ibid, p.494.

[19] K. Macdonald, A People That Shall Dwell Alone: Judaism as a Group Evolutionary Strategy (Lincoln: Writers Club Press, 2002), p.151 & T. Endelmann, “Communal Solidarity and Family Loyalty Among the Jewish Elite of Victorian London,” Victorian Studies, 28 (3), p. 495.

[20]Ibid, p.495.

[21] T. Endelmann, “Communal Solidarity and Family Loyalty Among the Jewish Elite of Victorian London,” Victorian Studies, 28 (3), p.496.

[22] T. Endelmann, “Communal Solidarity and Family Loyalty Among the Jewish Elite of Victorian London,” Victorian Studies, 28 (3), p.519.

[23] Ibid, p. 519.

[24] W. Rubinstein, “The Jewish Economic Elite in Britain, 1808-1909,” Jewish Historical Society of England. Available at: http://www.jhse.org/book/export/article/21930.

[25] D. Gutwein, The Divided Elite: Economics, Politics, and Anglo-Jewry, 1882-1917, (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1992), p.8.

[26] Quoted in Gutwein, The Divided Elite, p.8.

[27] Ibid, p.10.

[28] The Rothschild Archive: Available at: http://www.rothschildarchive.org/ib/?doc=/ib/articles/BW2aJourney.

[29] http://www.rothschildarchive.org/ib/?doc=/ib/articles/BW2bDisraeli

[30] B. Kaplan “Disraeli on Jewish Disabilities: Another Look,” Central States Speech Journal, 30 (2), pp.156-163, (p.158).

[31] Lady de Rothschilds Diary: http://www.rothschildarchive.org/ib/?doc=/ib/articles/BW2bLoudiary.

[32] R. Blake, Disraeli (London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1966), p.261.

 

Hedging their Bets (Who Really Decides Elections)

If you like your healthcare provider/free speech/immigration policy/country you can keep it!

“There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics,” a quote often attributed to, appropriately enough, Benjamin Disraeli. The salad days of Joe Wilson yelling, “You lie!” at Barack Obama seem so long ago, but here we are with a steady diet of more Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi. Alas, the more things change, the more they stay the same. Or do they? Was the grass greener or was I? Certainly Emma Lazarus’s sonnet wasn’t a beacon for the world’s wretched refuse when the West was won and two fratricidal World Wars were still on the horizon. But the rough beast was already slouching toward Bethlehem, and by the time Donald J. Trump was clamoring to see Barack Hussein Obama’s birth certificate the beast had been born and grown to adulthood.

In any case, it was a republic and we couldn’t keep it; instead, Jewish hedge fund managers and plutocrats decide under what guise the neo-liberal machine will continue to operate, for it is in fact all window dressing. The reasons may vary—cheap labor, ready votes, “social justice,” climate change, anti-white animus, etc.—but the end result is no border and no representation, regardless of the rhetoric. The ruling class is beyond redemption, and nothing short of a replacement of the kind they envision for us will suffice to save any semblance of an America worth saving. Perhaps it is a Balkanized future or an entire Western Hemisphere that looks like Brazil, but prognostication is not the order of the day, nor is this a post-mortem, but rather an outlining of the kabuki theater that passes for politics in America and a look at its stage managers.

Using the figures for individual donors’ campaign contributions to federal candidates, parties, political action committees (PACs), 527 organizations, and Carey committees as reported by the Center for Responsive Politics for the 2018 election, we see that six of the top seven donors were Jews: Sheldon Adelson, Michael Bloomberg, Tom Steyer, S. Donald Sussman, Jim Simons, and George Soros. The Jewish Stephen Schwarzman of the Blackstone Group was also in the top ten. Number ten on that list, Fred Eychaner, is not Jewish, but as The Times of Israel reported in late October 2012:

Eychaner has given $1.5 million to the Priorities USA Action super PAC. He’s also given more than $60,000 to the president’s re-election committees, and he’s listed as a major “bundler” for Obama, having raised at least $500,000 for the president. Eychaner, a gay-rights activist, also has donated millions to other nonprofit groups, including more than $1 million to the progressive EMILY’s List organization.[1]

The reader will be familiar with the Jewish character of EMILY’s List from my The Way Life Should Be? series.

More wealthy Jews abound in the top one hundred donors to political campaigns in 2018: Deborah Simon (#14), Bernie Marcus (#18), Dustin Moskovitz (#19), Joshua Bekenstein (#20), Jeff Yass (#21), Paul Singer ($25), Seth Klarman (#26), Amy Goldman-Fowler (#28), and Henry Laufer (#29). Sixteen of the top thirty donors to political campaigns in 2018 were Jewish. If you continue down the list, you’ll continue to see Jews well-represented, including Herbert Sandler, Haim Saban, Irwin Jacobs, Les Wexner, Alexander Soros, Steven A. Cohen, Bernard Schwartz, Sim Daniel Abraham, Richard Rosenthal, Stephen Mandel, Henry Goldberg, Irving Moskowitz, Steven Spielberg, Ronald Lauder, Michael Sacks, David Bonderman, Dan Loeb, and Andrea Soros-Colombel.

When Bernie Sanders talks about the 1%, this is who he’s talking about, and there are a whole lot of his co-ethno-religionists. Despite the tough talk, it appears Sanders doesn’t walk the walk—per the Center for Responsive Politics, we discover that he has received huge campaign contributions in this election cycle from the likes of PACs representing and/or individuals affiliated with: Alphabet Inc., Apple, Microsoft, AT&T, Amazon, Wal-Mart, Kaiser Permanente, UC Berkeley, Boeing, IBM, UPS, the City of New York, and the Army, Navy, Air Force, and the US Department of Defense. In fact, his donor list is pretty much interchangeable with the rest of his “competition.”

For billionaire Jews like Michael Bloomberg and Tom Steyer, backing candidates is apparently not enough anymore, or maybe their grip on power is becoming more tenuous. Whatever the reason, the Wonderful Wizards are moving to center stage for all of America to see. Having made a killing as a hedge fund manager, Tom Steyer now has his sights on the presidency, and has spent nearly $48 million of his own money at press time on his bid. He doesn’t need much in the way of campaign donations, but his donors do prove illustrative: Bain Capital (Joshua Bekenstein from the above list is co-chair and the Jewish Jonathan Lavine is CIO), Hellman & Friedman (a San Francisco-based private equity firm where Steyer was a partner, founded by two Jews—Warren Hellman, former president of Lehman Brothers and Tully Friedman, former managing director of Salomon Brothers), Stanford University (where Steyer received his MBA), MRB Capital (the venture capital firm of Hellman & Friedman senior advisor Matthew R. Barger, who, like Steyer, also received his MBA from Stanford and who, like Hellman, also worked for Lehman Brothers prior to joining Hellman’s firm), Pisces, Inc. (described on their LinkedIn page as “an outsourcing/offshoring company” based out of San Francisco), and Twitter. Of particular note and showing what a ludicrous sham the whole thing is, Steyer’s second-largest donor is Farallon Capital, the very firm he founded. Steyer also worked as a risk arbitrage trader under the Jewish Robert Rubin at Goldman Sachs and in Morgan Stanley’s corporate mergers and acquisitions department, in addition to Hellman & Friedman, before founding Farallon Capital, named the largest hedge fund in the world in 2005. Rubin is on the advisory council of The Hamilton Project (along with Lawrence Summers, David M. Rubenstein, Penny Pritzker, Sheryl Sandberg, Peter Orszag of Lazard, Tom Steyer—all Jews—and other major Establishment figures), is Chairman Emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, and is a member of the Africa Progress Panel (APP). Rubin is a real piece of work:

In January 1995, one year after the signing of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and immediately after Rubin was sworn in as Secretary of Treasury, Mexico was suffering through a financial crisis that threatened to result in it defaulting on its foreign obligations. President Bill Clinton, with the advice of Secretary Rubin and Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan,[2] provided $20 billion in US loan guarantees to the Mexican government through the Exchange Stabilization Fund (ESF). In 1997 and 1998, Treasury Secretary Rubin, Deputy Secretary Lawrence Summers,[3] and Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan worked with the International Monetary Fund and others to promote U.S. policy in response to financial crises in Russian, Asian, and Latin American financial markets…As Clinton’s two-term Secretary of the Treasury, Rubin sharply opposed any regulation of collateralized debt obligations, credit default swaps and other so-called “derivative” financial instruments which—despite having already created havoc for companies such as Procter & Gamble and Gibson Greetings, and disastrous consequences in 1994 for Orange County, California with its $1.5 billion default and subsequent bankruptcy—were nevertheless becoming the chief engine of profitability for Rubin’s former employer Goldman Sachs and other Wall Street firms. Rubin sparked controversy in 2001 when he contacted an acquaintance at the U.S. Treasury Department and asked if the department could convince bond-rating agencies not to downgrade the corporate debt of Enron, a debtor of Citigroup…Journalist Robert Scheer claims that the repeal of the Glass–Steagall Act was a key factor in the 2008 financial crisis. Enacted just after the 1930s Great Depression, the Glass–Steagall Act separated commercial and investment banking…Rubin and his deputy Lawrence Summers steered through the 1999 repeal of the Glass–Steagall Act (1933)…It allowed the banks to develop and sell the mortgage-backed instruments that became a principal factor in the financial collapse. In September 2011, the UK Independent Commission on Banking released a report in which it recommended a separation of investment and retail banking to prevent a repeat of the 2008 crisis…In December 2008, investors filed a lawsuit contending that Citigroup executives, including Rubin, sold shares at inflated prices while concealing the firm’s risks….Writer Nassim Nicholas Taleb noted that Rubin “collected more than $120 million in compensation from Citibank in the decade preceding the banking crash of 2008. When the bank, literally insolvent, was rescued by the taxpayer, he didn’t write any check—he invoked uncertainty as an excuse.”…In January 2014, Secretary Rubin joined former Senator Olympia Snowe, former Education Secretary Donna Shalala, former Secretary of State George Shultz, former Housing and Urban Affairs Secretary Henry Cisneros, Gregory Page the Chair of Cargill, and Al Sommer, [4] the Dean Emeritus of the Bloomberg School of Public Health as members of the U.S. Climate Risk Committee.[5]

We know the purposes of this emphasis on “climate change.” What we are looking at is the “corporate stranglehold on democracy” that Steyer is supposedly fighting, a rich irony considering. Exemplified here is the neo-liberal establishment at work, operating with impunity, and with obvious and significant in-group preferential treatment and networking as regards Jews. It does not, unfortunately, end there.

George Shultz, who was Co-Chair with Tom Steyer on the No to Prop. 23 campaign and was close friends with former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, was honored at the opening of the Limmud FSU conference for Russian-speaking Jews in November 2017 “for never giving up on Soviet Jews” as Ronald Reagan’s Secretary of State with “a leather-bound Book of Psalms from Julius Berman, president of the Claims Conference (which facilitates German government compensation to Holocaust survivors), and another on behalf of Limmud FSU.” In the face of declining support for Israel among Democrat voters, Henry Cisneros joined a number of other Democrat politicians and donors such as Kyrsten Sinema, Bob Menendez, and major party donor, Managing Director at JP Morgan Securities, and former AIPAC staffer Todd Richman in forming the group The Democratic Majority for Israel because if there’s one thing America needs, it’s more pro-Israel lobbying groups!

Michael Bloomberg was also a donor to long-time Maine Senator Olympia Snowe. Once again returning to the Center for Responsive Politics, we discover that Snowe’s other major donors included PACs representing and/or individuals affiliated with: Verrill Dana, Bernstein Shur, Goldman Sachs, Planned Parenthood, Women’s Pro-Israel National PAC, Sallie Mae, Pingree Associates, Northrop Grumman, Corning, WarnerMedia Group, Unum, the American Medical Association, Verizon, the Blackstone Group, MBNA Corp., AT&T, the National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors, New York Life Insurance, ExxonMobil, International Paper, McDonald’s, United Technologies, General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin, Microsoft, American Airlines, Raytheon, Boston Capital, General Electric, Johnson & Johnson, Eli Lilly, IDEXX, Aflac, Blue Cross/Blue Shield, Aetna, AVI Foodsystems, TD Bank, Bank of America, MetLife, Comcast, Home Depot, FedEx, O’Hara Corporation, Deloitte, the Carlyle Group, Walmart, CVS, and iHeartCommunications, Inc.

Donna Shalala is described by Jackson Richman of the South Florida Sun Sentinel thusly:

Donna Shalala, 77, is no stranger to politics or the relationship between the United States and Israel. She served as Secretary of Health and Human Services under President Bill Clinton, where she traveled to Israel and helped researchers there obtain grants from the National Institutes of Health, in addition to assisting with other initiatives inside the Jewish state. She then went into the private sector: serving as University of Miami president for 14 years and president of the Clinton Foundation for two years. Shalala, endorsed by the Jewish Democratic Council of America, defeated Maria Elvira Salazar in the midterm elections to replace the retiring Republican Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen. [6]

Shalala herself states:

I’ve been a friend of Israel for a long time. I’ve been working with the universities within the health-care system for a long time. I first went to Israel to be on Mayor Teddy Kollek’s Jerusalem Committee to help plan the city of Jerusalem when I was a young urbanist, a young academic, teaching at Columbia [University]. And I have honorary degrees from the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, the University of Haifa and from Ben-Gurion University [of the Negev]… I actually worked with Israeli health officials to guarantee the Weizmann Institute [of Science] scientists the opportunity to apply for NIH grants among other things. I worked with women leaders in Israel on health-care issues. I went in and out of Israel four times when I was secretary…Most recently, the University of Miami has helped develop the cancer centers in Israel. Our faculty worked closely with their counterparts in Israel, particularly on cancer interests…[People] should know there’s an Arab American with longstanding support of Israel who’s just been elected in South Florida. [7]

Lazard, Ltd., based out of Bermuda for tax reasons, naturally, is also a major donor to Steyer. Lazard’s Chairman and CEO is Kenneth M. Jacobs, another Stanford MBA who is on the Board for the Brookings Institution and is a former member of the Steering Committee for the Bilderberg Group. A number of influential people have worked for Lazard, including both Jews and their functionaries: Marcus AgiusRobert AgostinelliTim CollinsDisque DeaneMina GerowinSir Philip HamptonHugh Kindersley, Sebastian KulczykSteven LangmanJean-Marie MessierArchie NormanNelson ObusGary ParrMark PincusGerald RosenfeldNathaniel RothschildBernard SelzJohann RupertLars KroijerJaime Bermúdez MerizaldeRon BloomRobert Henry Brand, Robert Fred EllsworthVernon E. Jordan Jr.Paul KeatingRobert Kindersley, Anne LauvergeonLord MandelsonHenrique de Campos MeirellesAndrew MitchellPeter R. OrszagVincent S. PérezRodrigo de RatoJenny SanfordSimon Sebag MontefioreLindsay TannerAndrés VelascoAntonio WeissBill WhiteFrank G. ZarbBožidar ĐelićNgozi Okonjo-Iweala, and William D. Cohan. Lazard was founded as Lazard Freres & Co. by three Jewish brothers—Alexandre, Lazare, and Simon:

In the late 1800s and early 1900s, the firm evolved into three “Houses of Lazard” in the United States, France, and England, separately managed but allied. The Lazard partners advised clients on financial matters and built a cross-border network of high-level relationships in business and government. Noted financial advisor George Blumenthal rose to prominence as the head of the U.S. branch of Lazard Frères and was a partner of Lazard Frères in France. In the economic boom following World War II, the American operations of Lazard expanded significantly under the leadership of the financier André Meyer. Meyer and Lazard partner Felix Rohatyn have been credited with virtually inventing the modern mergers and acquisitions (M&A) market…In 1977, as the health of Meyer began to deteriorate, the firm came to be controlled by Michel David-Weill. Under his leadership, the three houses of Lazard were formally united in 2000 as Lazard LLC. In 2002, David-Weill hired Bruce Wasserstein to be CEO…Following Wasserstein’s sudden death in 2009, Lazard’s Board of Directors elected Kenneth M. Jacobs Chairman and CEO.[8]

Blumenthal, Meyer, Rohatyn, David-Weill, Wasserstein, and Jacobs are all Jewish, by the way. Blumenthal first arrived in the United States on behalf of the dynastic Jewish banking family the Speyers, and “with J. P. Morgan the elder, he was one of five bankers whose $65,000,000 gold loans saved Grover Cleveland from giving up specie payments in 1896.”[9] At Lazard, André Meyer created SOVAC (Societé pour la Vente à Crédit d’Automobiles), a finance company that in the late-1920s introduced the concept of automobile financing for consumers, ensuring Lazard Frères would become a significant force in consumer credit as well as in product leasing. Meyer and two colleagues would also represent Lazard on the Board of Directors of Citroën.[10] He was also very close with former US President Lyndon B. Johnson, often serving in an unofficial advisory capacity during Johnson’s time in office. In addition to being on the Board of Overseers of the International Rescue Committee (IRC), a major refugee re-settlement agency run by the Jewish David Miliband, son of Marxist sociologist Ralph Miliband, Rohatyn:

Joined the New York office of the investment bank Lazard Frères under André Meyer. He was made partner in the firm in 1961 and later became managing director. While at Lazard he brokered numerous, major mergers and acquisitions, notably on behalf of International Telephone and Telegraph (ITT), where he became a director in 1966. He also served on the boards of the Englehard Mineral and Chemical Corporation, Howmet Turbine Component Corporation, Owens-Illinois Inc., and Pfizer Inc. He served on the Board of the New York Stock Exchange from 1968 to 1972…In 1996, the Clinton administration put forward his candidacy for the post of Vice Chairman of the Federal Reserve…According to The New York Times, in the 1990s, Rohatyn described derivatives as “financial hydrogen bombs, built on personal computers by 26-year-olds with M.B.A.s.” In 2006 Rohatyn joined Lehman Brothers as a senior advisor to chairman, Dick Fuld.[11] On January 27, 2010, Rohatyn announced his return to Lazard as Special Advisor to the Chairman and CEO, after a short role at Rothschild. Rohatyn was United States Ambassador to France from 1997–2000 during the second Clinton Administration…As ambassador, he also organized the French-American Business Council (FABC), a 40-member council of U.S. and French corporate chief executives that met annually, with meetings held alternately in the United States and France. FABC meetings included President Clinton, President Chirac and Prime Minister Jospin, as well as U.S. cabinet secretaries and French government ministers and meetings continued during the presidencies of George W. Bush and Nicolas Sarkozy[12]…[His son] Nicolas Rohatyn is CEO and Chief Investment Officer at The Rohatyn Group, an investment firm specializing in emerging markets, following a 19-year career at J.P. Morgan.[13]

David-Weill’s father, Pierre, was a partner and former Chairman of Lazard Frères; his grandfather, David, was a partner, and his great-grandfather, Alexandre Weill also worked at Lazard Frères, founded by his cousins. David-Weill hired both Bruce Wasserstein and the Jewish “deal-maker” Steven Rattner, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and a previous member of the Brookings Institution’s Board. Wasserstein’s private equity firm Wasserstein & Co. specialized in the acquisitions of media. Wasserstein’s fourth wife was Angela Chao, sister of Mitch McConnell’s wife Elaine Chao. Rahm Emanuel[14] was hired on at Wasserstein’s firm Wasserstein Perella & Co. in the late 1990s despite not having an MBA or any prior experience working in finance before being appointed to the Freddie Mac Board of Directors in 2000, a brief tenure that was plagued by scandal. Rattner:

[Rattner] was hired in Washington, D.C., as a news clerk to James Reston, New York Times columnist and former executive editor. After a year, he moved to New York as a reporter to cover business, energy, and urban affairs; there he became friends with colleague Paul Goldberger[15]…At the unusually young age of 27, he became the paper’s chief Washington economic correspondent. He became close friends with Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr.[16].…At the end of 1982, Rattner left The New York Times and was recruited by Roger Altman[17] to join the investment bank Lehman Brothers as an associate. After Lehman was sold to American Express in 1984, he followed his boss Eric Gleacher and several colleagues to Morgan Stanley, where he founded the firm’s communications group. In 1989, after Morgan Stanley filed for an initial public offering, he joined Lazard as a general partner and completed various deals for large media conglomerates such as Viacom and Comcast. Alongside Felix Rohatyn, Rattner became Lazard’s top rainmaker in the 1990s. Michel David-Weill named him the firm’s deputy chairman and deputy chief executive in 1997. In March 2000, Rattner and three Lazard partners, including Joshua Steiner,[18] left the firm and founded the Quadrangle Group. They initially focused on investing a $1 billion media-focused private equity fund. Early investors in Quadrangle included Sulzberger, Mort Zuckerman,[19] and Merrill Lynch. Headquartered in the Seagram Building,[20] Quadrangle grew to manage more than $6 billion across several business lines, including private equity, distressed securities, and hedge funds. The firm also hosted an annual gathering for media executives called Foursquare, where speakers included Rupert Murdoch and Mark Zuckerberg.[21]…In 2005, Quadrangle made payments to private placement agent Hank Morris[22] to help Quadrangle raise money for its second buyout fund. Morris had come highly recommended to Rattner from U.S. Senator Charles Schumer.[23] Morris was also the chief political advisor to Alan Hevesi,[24] the New York State Comptroller and manager of the New York State Common Retirement Fund (CRF), which invests in many private equity funds. Morris told Rattner he could increase the size of the CRF investment in Quadrangle’s second buyout fund. Rattner agreed to pay Morris a placement fee of 1.1% of any investments greater than $25 million from the CRF…In 2009, Quadrangle and a dozen other investment firms, including the Carlyle Group, were investigated by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for their hiring of Morris. The SEC viewed the payments as “kickbacks” in order to receive investments from the CRF since Morris was also a consultant to Hevesi. Quadrangle paid $7 million in April 2010 to settle the SEC investigation, and Rattner personally settled in November for $6.2 million without admitting or denying any wrongdoing…In 2008, the firm’s asset management division announced it had been selected to invest the personal assets of New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg…Rattner’s close friend.[25]

Do you see how all this works? This is how a decadent ruling class operates—governing for its own benefit and, for the preponderance of Jews, that of its tribe. Political affiliation is basically irrelevant in such a context, as we will see with presidential candidate Johnny-come-lately Michael Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York City, who may be running as a Democrat, but is bi-partisan in his support for his co-ethno-religionists and those who will do their bidding. Control is essential. As Karl Evers-Hillstrom writes:

Bloomberg, who made his billions as the founder and CEO of financial services firm Bloomberg L.P., has slammed aggressive regulation of the financial sector… Bloomberg’s contributions ebb and flow as the political tides shift…Following the 2010 Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. FEC, Bloomberg took advantage of his newfound ability to give unlimited sums to super PACs. His Independence USA PAC shelled out millions to back Bloomberg’s preferred Republicans and Democrats, and spent roughly 90 percent or more of its money backing winning candidates every cycle since 2014. In 2018, the group spent all of its $38 million backing Democrats and opposing Republicans. It helped kick out key Democratic targets such as former Reps. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.) and Pete Sessions (R-Texas) with multi-million dollar ad buys. Bloomberg’s other major group, Everytown for Gun Safety, was also successful at kicking Republicans out of Congress. The group spent $4.2 million backing Rep. Lucy McBath (D-Ga.), a gun control activist, and helped gun control groups outspend gun rights organizations on independent expenditures for the first time in 2018. The Bloomberg-funded group was also instrumental in helping Democrats turn Virginia blue this week. Also during the midterms, Bloomberg poured $20 million into Senate Majority PAC, the super PAC arm for Senate Democrats. He added another $5 million to the League of Conservation Voters.[26]

Notable Democrats who’ve received funds from Bloomberg in recent years include Cory Booker and Kamala Harris. Interestingly, Bloomberg has never donated to Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, or Bernie Sanders. Naturally, though, people like Jerrold Nadler, Chuck Schumer, and Joe Lieberman have also received Bloomberg’s largesse. What could possibly unite them?

Rhetorically, Sanders and Warren are very much opposed to the Bloomberg/Steyer modus operandi, but as mentioned near the beginning of this piece, their donors are virtually the same as every other major Democratic candidate. Surely there is some in-group tension here regarding Wall Street and venture (vulture) capitalism, but all indications are that it will probably prove either minor or altogether irrelevant. Sanders may have been a True Believer at one time, but he has clearly been co-opted. Big tech and the major multi-nationals appear to be off-limits completely. It remains to be seen how or if Bloomberg is able to explain his way out of his support for “stop-and-frisk” while mayor of New York to the Woke Golems.

On the other side of the aisle, the Center for Responsive Politics informs us that Bloomberg has donated to the Republican National Committee, the Republican Party of Massachusetts, New Jersey Republican State Committee, New York Republican Federal Campaign Committee, and the New York Republican County Committee, as well as current Maine Senator Susan Collins, former Maine Senator Olympia Snowe, Mitt Romney, Orrin Hatch, John McCain, George Bush, George W. Bush, and Rudy Giuliani. He donated $250,000 to Mississippi Conservatives in 2014 and in that same year, donated another $250,000 to West Main Street Values, a single-candidate super-PAC in support of Lindsey Graham. The following year, while Graham was gearing up for a presidential bid of his own, as Ben Kamisar reported in late July 2015:

Of the total [$2.9 million raised since March], $200,000 came from a super-PAC that supported Graham’s Senate bid, West Main Street Values PAC Inc….Ronald Perelman,[27] the billionaire investor that’s a member of Graham’s national finance team, also gave a half-million. Access Industries, a holding company that owns Warner Music Group and others, also donated that same sum…General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt gave $25,000 to the group, as did Boston philanthropist Theodore Cutler.[28] Graham appeared at a fundraiser for the group in March, which was co-chaired by GOP megadonor Sheldon Adelson. Adelson doesn’t appear to have given to the super-PAC directly, but another co-chair, former American Enterprise Institute board member Roger Hertog,[29] donated $100,000 a week after the event.[30] 

Access Industries is owned by the Jewish Len Blavatnik. “So you see, my dear Coningsby,” the Jewish Benjamin Disraeli wrote in his novel Coningsby,[31] “that the world is governed by very different personages from what is imagined by those who are not behind the scenes.” It is my goal—and if I may be so bold as to speak for others, that of the other writers at the Occidental Observer and other dissident voices I’m sure—to shoulder our way into the conversation and show plainly the architects of this modern horror show. With any luck, figures like Steyer and Bloomberg will continue to drop the mask and show the public who they really are, making our job that much easier. To combat the pernicious agenda of the globalist establishment, we must first understand it. We must know the what’s, the when’s, the where’s, the who’s, the why’s, and the how’s and proceed accordingly.


[1] https://www.timesofisrael.com/jewish-donors-prominent-in-presidential-campaign-contributions/

[2] Jewish.

[3] Jewish.

[4] Jewish.

[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Rubin

[6] https://www.sun-sentinel.com/florida-jewish-journal/fl-jj-shalala-decades-israel-congress-20181219-story.html

[7] Ibid.

[8] https://www.wikizero.com/en/Lazard

[9] https://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,790199,00.html

[10] https://www.wikizero.com/en/Andr%C3%A9_Meyer

[11] Jewish.

[12] Jewish ancestry.

[13] https://www.wikizero.com/en/Felix_Rohatyn

[14] Jewish.

[15] Jewish. “You know, I remember when I was young hearing my grandfather ask, apropos of almost anything—‘So, is it good or bad for the Jews?’”

[16] Jewish.

[17] Jewish.

[18] Jewish.

[19] Jewish.

[20] It was designed as the headquarters for what became the Seagram Company with the active interest of Phyllis Lambert, the daughter of Samuel Bronfman who acquired Joseph E. Seagram & Sons in 1928. Much of the family’s initial fortune was gained from bootlegging. The Bronfmans are Jewish and are immensely powerful and influential from their legacy of having owned and grown the Seagram Company into a multi-billion-dollar enterprise with diverse holdings. The building is owned by the Jewish Aby Rosen’s RFR Holdings.

[21] Jewish.

[22] “A top New York political consultant who went to prison for masterminding a massive state pension fund scandal has won parole, officials said Tuesday. Hank Morris, the longtime political guru to disgraced state Controller Alan Hevesi, is scheduled to be released no later than June 3 from the Hudson Correctional Facility and be under community supervision until Feb. 18, 2015. ‘I’d say that he’s very happy,’ said Morris lawyer Orlee Goldfeld. ‘It’s been a long time coming.’” https://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/digraced-ex-controller-hevesi-aide-corruption-free-article-1.1325828

[23] Jewish.

[24] Jewish.

[25] https://www.wikizero.com/en/Steven_Rattner

[26] https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2019/11/bloomberg-enters-presidential-primary/

[27] Jewish.

[28] Jewish.

[29] Jewish.

[30] https://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/fundraising/249802-graham-super-pac-raises-nearly-3m

[31] “Coningsby, or The New Generation is an English political novel by Benjamin Disraeli, published in 1844. It is rumored to be based on Nathan Mayer Rothschild. According to Disraeli’s biographer, Robert Blake, the character of Sidonia is a cross between Lionel de Rothschild and Disraeli himself.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coningsby_(novel)

 

 

Republicans Grovel before Sheldon’s Billions

Usually the media downplays any hint that strongly identified Jews acting out of Jewish motives are able to influence American politics or anything else. But Sheldon Adelson’s conference of Republican hopefuls apparently was too obvious, especially in the wake of his donating around $100 million to Republicans in the 2012 election cycle (and “much more in 2016“).

So the LATimes made it official: Republicans who are serious about being nominated for president had better genuflect before Jewish money: “2016 Republican hopefuls hope to woo Jewish donors.”

The occasion was a meeting of the Republican Jewish Coalition in which Adelson was only one of many politically active Jewish billionaires. And what do Jewish billionaires care about?

During speeches Saturday, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, Ohio Gov. John Kasich and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie all addressed the key concerns of Adelson and many group members — the threat of a nuclear Iran, their desire to strengthen U.S. ties with Israel, and what they view as the waning prestige of the U.S. abroad. With varying degrees of deftness, the candidates each touched on their own ties to Israel and Jewish tradition.

Ah yes, the real issues facing America. I guess we are supposed to believe that, like every neocon who ever graced the op-ed pages of our elite media, these rich Jewish Republicans are absolutely certain that American interests are being served with their obsession about Israel. Read more

Free to Cheat: “Jewish Emancipation” and the Anglo-Jewish Cousinhood, Part 2

Go to Part I.

The Cousinhood on the World Stage.

In 1847, London’s Jewish community had produced a statement for public consumption stressing that the election of Lionel de Rothschild would represent nothing more than the election of another politician who would work for “the welfare of the nation, and the prosperity of his country.”[33] However, later actions by members of the Cousinhood who had taken places in the legislature and in government would provide cause for pondering precisely which nation was being referred to. David Feldman has revealed that entry into the legislature facilitated greater Jewish involvement in the administration of the British Empire, and that the Cousinhood was involved in a succession of financial and political scandals which had at their root “family and religious connections,” “the pursuit of profit,” and attempts to “influence colonial affairs when it deemed [global] Jewish interests were at stake.”[34]

By 1900, through a process of ethnic and familial networking, the Cousinhood had secured many of the most significant administrative positions in the Empire. Feldman notes that the Nathan family alone had by that date secured the positions of Governor of the Gold Coast, Hong Kong and Natal, Attorney-General and Chief Justice in Trinidad, Private Secretary to the Viceroy of India, Officiating Chief Secretary to the Governor of Eastern Bengal and Assam,  and Postmaster-General of Bengal.[35] In Parliament, Lionel Abrahams was Permanent Assistant Under-Secretary at the India Office, working under his cousin Edwin Montagu who was then Parliamentary Under-Secretary for India.[36] Read more

We’re Rich; We’re Jewish; We Have Big Houses

Last year, in keeping with his writing on Jews and money, John Graham wrote a blog called “We’re Rich; We’re Jewish: We Rule.” His point was that Jews have lots of money and use it to advance their interests, in this case promoting gay marriage in New York from a Republican base.  He noted that “the NYT avoids the most significant aspect to this story, but the Capital J blog at the JTA.org website is made of sterner stuff:

The New York Times runs a piece today on how the big money behind the push for sanctioning gay marriage in New York State is coming from Republicans.

The figures named are also Jewish….But I mean every name. Here’s what a quick Google search came up with:

–Paul Singer: on the boards of Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs and Commentary

–Daniel Loeb: Appeared at events for YIVO and the Jewish Enrichment Center.

–Clifford Asness: Likened Obama’s proposed tax policies to pogroms. (Yes, philanthropy would be nicer than name calling, but this is still a form of identification.)

–Steven A. Cohen: this excellent Tablet piece by Allison Hoffman exposes a rabbi who tried to use Cohen’s Jewishness in a scheme to extort money from him, but otherwise notes that Cohen’s philanthropy does not have much of a Jewish slant…

And then there’s former Republican National Committee chairman, Ken Mehlman, who’s organizing the whole GOP push, and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who also backs the initiative (but is no longer a Republican.) Jewish, Republican, pro-gay rights by Ron Kampeas – May 14, 2011

“But I mean every name.” That’s exactly the sentiment I am feeling now as I read just the beginning of a YAHOO! FINANCE article titled “Living Very Large.” It is about Americans who are building massive houses despite the pronounced trend among average Americans to scale back on size.

Just in order of what I’ve read so far we find:

— Hyatt hotel heir Anthony Pritzker has a new 49,300-square-foot mansion. Wiki says that “The Pritzker family is one of America’s wealthiest families, and has been near the top of Forbes magazine’s “America’s Richest Families” list since the magazine began in 1982.”

— Hedge-fund manager Cliff Asness [mentioned above] is building a 25,900-square-foot, Colonial-style home with an indoor swimming pool and tennis court in Greenwich, Conn.

— Nearby, a 31,500-square-foot mansion is being built for Lee Weinstein, founder of data-center concern Xand, with 15 bathrooms (plus additional powder rooms), a 2,500-square-foot master suite and a basement with a theater, wine cellar, juice bar, dance studio and sauna.

— Twenty miles away, in Westport, Conn., Melissa and Doug Bernstein are creating a compound of more than 30,000 square feet with a stand-alone ice-cream parlor, plans show. The main house alone is 29,500 square feet and includes a gym partially covered by glass; there’s also a guest cottage, pool cabana and rec-room-and-garage building. The property also has a pool, tennis court and playground. Read more