Hot shots At the Jerusalem film festival
little more about Frances Braham and Lady de Stern.
Many Jewish country house owners had far less tenuous connections with the Jewish world. Lord Bearsted played a leading role in the Kindertransport and was a linchpin of communal philanthropy and solidarity during the interwar years, when Jews in Britain watched with horror the fate of their co-religionists on the continent, and did what they could to support them. Upton’s involvement in the European Days of Jewish Culture and Heritage will provide visitors with an opportunity to learn more about the Bearsteds’ Jewish life through the stories of objects from the collection and archives on September 2 and October 7.
Like the Bearsteds, Ferdinand de Rothschild was a leading figure in the Anglo-Jewish community, and like them he kept this side of his life to London. But James and Dorothy de Rothschild, were committed Zionists and Waddesdon includes a room that commemorates the family’s role in obtaining the Balfour Declaration and support for the State of Israel over the years. For Waddesdon, the European Days of Jewish Culture provide an opportunity to explore this aspect of the family’s history, in greater depth: through special tours of the house, and through performances by Jewish storyteller Adele Moss, who will tell the legendary story of the family’s rise to riches in ways that connect with Jewish culture and folklore.
Two other Anglo-Jewish country houses belonged to similarly engaged Jewish families: Townhill Park House near Southampton, and the Salomons Estate just outside Tunbridge Wells.
Townhill belonged to the son and grandson of the strictly observant Samuel Montagu: communal grandee, liberal MP, and founder of the Orthodox Federation of Synagogues. Combining religious observance with gentility posed particular chal- lenges for Jewish gentry. During the interwar years, the second Lord Swaythling used to provide guests at his shoots with kosher pheasant for dinner — and send their rather less kosher hunting spoils back with them when they left. The house is now a school, but its Gertrude Jekyll garden has been recently restored and the property is a regular in the annual UK Heritage Open Days, with tours this year on September 16.
The Salomons Estate outside Tunbridge Wells speaks even more powerfully to the lost world of the Anglo-Jewish aristocracy. Sir David Salomons MP was the first Jewish Lord Mayor of London. His nephew Sir David Lionel GoldsmidStern-Salomons was a scientist and inventor. An enthusiast for modern technology, he and his wife Laura were pioneers of the motoring age. Their purpose-built ‘motor stables’ were perhaps the first of their kind — although most visitors will be more excited by Sir Lionel’s extraordinary Science Theatre, replete with state-ofthe-art Edwardian technology. The Salomons’ only son Reginald died at Gallipoli, and their daughter Vera established the Museum for Islamic Art in Jerusalem. She died childless, leaving her family home to Kent County Council for the benefit of the local community. But Vera stipulated that a two-room museum celebrating her family and its achievements should be kept open to the public, and there will be tours of the property in early September. Jewish visitors will be fascinated by the late 18th century religious vestments, and by the bench from which David Salomons had to be forcibly ejected when trying to take his seat as an MP at a time when Jews were still unable to swear the parliamentary oath.
One cabinet displaying personal memorabilia includes a piece of the kotel given to the first Sir David by the Victorian artist David Roberts; and a portrait of his uncle-bymarriage, the great Victorian Jewish leader Sir Moses Montefiore.
Montefiore, of course, had his own Jewish country house in Ramsgate —now, sadly destroyed, although the greenhouses, mausoleum and synagogue (open to visitors on October 7) remain. He was, for decades, the poster-boy for a certain kind of Englishness. For in the words of The Times, Montefiore had “solved once for all the problem of the competence of the most faithful Jews to be not the less a complete Englishman”.
Indeed, he had “been the victorious defender of persecuted Jews because he was the perfect English gentleman”.
Visiting the country homes of Montefiore’s contemporaries and their descendants reminds us that there were many different ways of being both Jewish and English. It expands our understanding of Jewish heritage because it shifts the focus from synagogues, cemeteries, immigrant quarters and places of communal belonging to sites of assimilation, social mobility and integration.
At the same time, it reminds us of the diverse stories and hybrid identities that may be hidden behind a gothic house, a hunting box, and an English garden.
For the National Trust, participating in the European Days of Jewish Culture and Heritage is a first step towards engaging more profoundly with the Jewish heritage of its places. For readers of the JC, this new awareness of Jewish stories in sites so closely associated with Englishness is a happy indication of the more inclusive approach to national heritage we take in the 21st century.
For further information about the European Days of Jewish Culture and Heritage activities and National Trust properties: www.jewisheritage.org www.nationaltrust.org.uk