ish history. This study is, then, an attempt to correct the Conti-
nental bias of modern Jewish historiography; it seeks to view
Anglo-Jewish history within the context of English history--with-
out, however, losing sight of the experiences common to West-
ern European Jewry as a whole.

I have not written a narrative history of English Jewry in the
eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. There already are
adequate narratives of various aspects of Anglo-Jewish history by
Cecil Roth, Lucien Wolf, Albert M. Hyamson, and others. In
addition, there are literally scores of specialized studies by mem-
bers of the Jewish Historical Society of England, historians by
avocation rather than by profession. Over the past seventy-five
years, their painstaking and often exhaustive work has added
immeasurably to our knowledge of Anglo-Jewish history. Build-
ing on their research--and adding to it in large areas they neg-
lected--I have written an analytical history, arranged topically, of
the processes by which the Jews who migrated to England be-
came participants in modern English life. This work is a study of
their acculturation to the values and customs of the English peo-
ple, of their integration into spheres of activity that had formerly
been closed to them, and of the forces and elements within En-
glish society that promoted these processes. To a limited extent,
such an arrangement presupposes some familiarity with Anglo-
Jewish history. Since I cannot always assume such knowledge on
the part of readers but do not wish to repeat a story that has been
told elsewhere, I have provided only as much of the narrative as
is absolutely essential to my analysis and have indicated in the
notes where further details may be found.

Having made this disclaimer, I must also note at the same
time that the narrative aspects of Anglo-Jewish history in the
Georgian period are limited. The history of the Jews in En-
gland in this period is overwhelmingly social rather than pri-
marily political or intellectual. There were no great political
milestones in Anglo-Jewish history between the Resettlement
of the mid-seventeenth century and the struggle for political
emancipation in the mid-nineteenth century. The clamor over
the Jew Bill of 1753, an event of minor importance in English
political history, had no long-term consequences for the Jews
of England. Likewise, there were no seminal intellectural
figures--lay or rabbinic--who contributed to the development

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