As the Jewish community enthusiastically joins with the rest of Britain to celebrate the coronation of King Charles III, it is perhaps appropriate to recall the past links between Jews and the coronation.
In the Middle Ages, until they were exiled in 1290, the Jews of England were basically the property of the king. He allowed them to profit by lending money at interest (which was forbidden to Christians), and he was a bloodthirsty man who tried to neutralize the debt by killing Jewish creditors. protected them from unscrupulous debtors. In return, however, the king used the Jews as moneymakers to exact special taxes and fines whenever the money was needed, for example to finance wars.
Given this special relationship, it is not surprising that the Jews wanted to make the King as dumb as possible. Thus, at the coronation of King Richard I (The Lionheart) in 1189, leading members of the Jewish community began to profess their allegiance to the new king. When they entered, to quote a commentator of the time, “The courtiers stretched out their hands against the Jews, plundered them, flogged them, and drove them out of the palace with one blow. Some were even half-killed.” Worse still, obeying. Encouraged by the incident, the people of London attacked the Jews, killing more and destroying their homes.
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However, in the Anglo-Jewish tradition, the Ashkenazi community opposed exclusion, leading to communal disputes. Our present board of delegates owes its origins to the way in which this internal dispute was resolved through the formation of a joint committee of delegates from the two communities.
During the long reign of George III, Anglo-Jews began commemorating royal occasions by holding services and creating printed service orders for those in attendance. The oldest in my collection dates from his 1786 celebration of the king’s rescue from the “hands of an assassin”. Similarly, orders of service were printed for Jewish mourning services for subsequent monarchs George IV, William IV and Queen Victoria.
Surprisingly. However, the earliest Jewish service medal commemorating the coronation was created by Chief Rabbi Hermann his Adler to commemorate the coronation of Edward V in 1902. In fact, he created two different ones of his. One for his synagogue service on Thursday 26th June and one for the next Saturday service due to traffic problems likely to occur in London on the day of his coronation. He hoped to postpone the synagogue to London.
If neither of these services took place on the intended date, as the king developed appendicitis and the coronation was postponed until August. but Ashkenazim simply reused the original June one without changing the date.
The principle of alternate dates of different synagogues initiated by Hermann Adler was definitely implemented by Chief Rabbi Hertz for the coronation of George VI in 1937. At this time, the Service Order was printed on his Saturday, May 8th, on his Sunday, May 9th, or on his Wednesday, the 12th, the day of his actual coronation. in May. In fact, there is even one where the enterprising but slightly late Schul has pasted a label that converts the date of May 9 to his Sunday, May 16 (they didn’t bother to change the Hebrew date). did not!).
By the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953, the matter had been simplified. The Chief Rabbi’s office issued her one service order stating that it could be used on the day of her coronation (Tuesday) or the Saturday before it. Unfortunately, in the original version, the prayer for the royal family included Queen Mary, who was alive when her granddaughter became queen but died before her coronation. A new version of the service order marked with has been quickly issued!
We hope that this time around errors of this kind will be avoided and that the coronation will take place on Saturday, simplifying matters for those looking to hold a memorial service at the synagogue.
Finally, it is worth considering that the re-entry of Jews into England in 1656 took place under Oliver Cromwell at the only time England was not ruled by a monarch. After the restoration of the monarchy under Charles II, the king was urged to expel the Jews, but he refused, leaving the Jews in Britain unimagined by their medieval counterparts. It ushered in the era of life. In fact, our community has a lot to celebrate when we witness the coronation of the new King Charles III.
