THE BRITISH EMPIRE AND JEWS IN NINETEENTH CENTURY MALTA

Abstract

This essay examines the role of Jews in Britain’s imperial strategy and asks whether Britain could have built its empire without them. Recent scholarship concerning Jews and the British Empire places Jews in the “informal empire”, in economic and other activities outside political rule. This was the case in nineteenth‐century Malta, where Jews established themselves in commercial activities in support of Britain’s military ambitions in the Mediterranean. They received some political recognition, though this was short‐lived. Despite the efforts of Moses Montefiore, the British government refused to yield space for building a synagogue. The success of Malta’s leading Jews, in the early and mid‐century, meant that they were never above suspicion. In the late nineteenth century, the British government shielded the Jewish community from an accusation of ritual murder, but this had more to do with promoting British interests vis‐à‐vis the Catholic Church in Malta than advancing Jewish interests. Colonial policy concerning Jews did not result from a coherent rationale concerning Jewish interests nor consistent Jewish influence.

Notes

1. Ferguson, Empire.

2. Lynn, “Trade and Informal Empire”.

3. Fan, “Victorian Naturalists in China” Stoddart, “Sport, Cultural Imperialism and Colonial Response” Dubow, “How British was the British World?”.

4. David Feldman, “Jews and the British Empire” Green, “The British Empire and Jews”. See also Ben‐Artzi, “Jewish Rural Settlement”.

5. Stein, “‘Falling into Feathers’” and “Mediterranean Jewries and Global Commerce”.

6. Levine, Prostitution, Race and Politics; van Onselen, “Jewish Marginality in the Atlantic World” and “Who Killed Meyer Hasefus?”. The characterizations of Jewish identity at stake in the study of Jews and informal empire evoke the “counterhistory” of Jewish robber bands and gangsters. See Berkowitz, “Unmasking Counterhistory”.

7. My discussion derives from materials gleaned from archival sources in Malta, chiefly the National Archives of Malta (Rabat) and National Library of Malta (Valletta). My thanks to Joseph Sapiano, an archivist at the National Archives for a number of years, who shared with me his knowledge of key documents concerning the Jews of Malta.

8. Roth, “The Slave Community of Malta”.

9. Davis, “The Jewish Cemetery”. Christopher Marlowe’s The Jew of Malta, the inspiration for Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, is set in this period of Malta’s history.

10. Hardman, A History of Malta, 85.

11. Busuttil, “Malta’s Economy”.

12. Roth, “The Jews of Malta”.

13. Davis, “The Jewish Cemetery”.

14. Aifforne to Cartwright, 31 January 1806. National Library of Malta [hereafter NAM] (GOV 1.1.1).

15. Benady, “The Jews of Gibraltar”.

16. Plasket to Lushington, 4 May 1819. NAM (CSG 15/1).

17. Laing to Israel, despatch of 6 August 1814. NAM (CSG 01/1).

18. Cardozo, Letters, Testimonials, etc; Benady, “The Jews of Gibraltar”, 159.

19. Ward, Colonial Self‐Government, 84.

20. Gazetta del Governo di Malta, No. 43, 17 August 1814, p. 174.

21. Green, “Rethinking Sir Moses Montefiore”.

22. Montefiore, Private Journal, 114–5.

23. Goderich to Ponsonby, 24 June 1832. NAM (GOV 2.1.25).

24. Alltay to Ponsonby, 25 April 1832. NAM (GOV 2.1.25). This despatch includes copies of correspondence from Correa and Borges da Silva.

25. Ponsonby to Hay, 25 May 1832. NAM (GOV 1.2.9).

26. Ponsonby to Alltay, 31 May 1832. NAM (GOV 2.1.25).

27. Davis, “Disraeli” Dennis Grube, “Religion, Power and Parliament”.

28. Cohen, “Who was Who?”.

29. Mapmakers had included the Maltese Islands with the continent of Africa, but Parliament proclaimed that “as regards the service of our soldiery”, Malta represented “the most southerly island in Europe” (Martin, History of the British Possessions, 152).

30. Austin and Cornewall Lewis, Reports of the Commissioners.

31. John Galt, Voyages and Travels, 118–9.

32. Frankland Lewis, Letters, 70. To express their disdain, sailors and others used “the vulgar adjective” Maltee in reference to the island’s population.

33. Frankland Lewis, Letters, 74.

34. Busuttil, “Malta’s Economy”, 3.

35. Smith, The Fitzgerald‐Law Letters.

36. Not only were some Jews thought to resemble Maltese; some Maltese were thought to resemble Jews. Joseph Ady, paymaster of the 77th regiment in Malta, makes the curious comment that intermarriage between Maltese and British produced a “heterogeneous race” with stereotypical Jewish characteristics, “gifted with every quality of mind; that of cunning and satire… causing them to be crafty and subtle in the most difficult and critical situations of life and making the most discriminating councillors, lawyers and doctors” (Ady, A Brief DescriptionI, 13–4).

37. P’Nina Tayar, How then Shall We Sing?, 56–67.

38. Green, “Rethinking Sir Moses”, 633–4.

39. Montefiore, Private Journal, 91.

40. Sultana, The Journey of William Frere, 84–6.

41. Goderich to Ponsonby, 28 January 1832; Goderich to Ponsonby, 20 November 1832. NAM (GOV 2.1.25).

42. Gunn, ed, Benjamin Disraeli Letters, 154–5.

43. Ibid., 161.

44. Tibawi, British Interests in Palestine, 8.

45. Wolff, Journal, 71.

46. Alltay to Ponsonby, 31 May 1832. NAM (GOV 2.1.25).

47. In addition to Correa, there were two other Jews who spent some time in prison. Two brothers, Abram and Isaac Abugaia, were imprisoned for theft in December 1870 and released within several months on a pardon from the governor. The prison register describes them as “merchants”, born in Algiers, with good health and character. Corradino Prison Register, vol. 28, Entry nos. 263 and 264, 19 December 1870. NAM (CCP 01/28).

48. Endelman, “Writing English Jewish History.”

49. Cannadine, Ornamentalism, 126.

50. Clark, “Jewish Identity and British Politics”.

51. Snyder, “Rules, Rights and Redemption”.

52. Frankel, “‘Ritual Murder’ in the Modern Era”.

53. Malta Times, 28 November 1840. National Library of Malta.

54. Malta Times, 15 May, 10 July and 25 November 1840.

55. The Head‐Quarters, 25 April and 5 May 1846.

56. The Head‐Quarters, 25 April 1846. The Head‐Quarters also took a jab at Corvaja. Baron Giuseppe Corvaja, who had come to Malta from Sicily, had his own project with respect to Jews. In the 1840s, he printed a number of newspapers, mostly in Italian, to promote his vision of an “empire of figures”. He advocated the amalgamation of all money held by banks, insurance companies and industrial concerns into a single “universal bank” to be based at Constantinople and in which “Jews, as particularly endowed with the genius of figures, will be, the principal managers” (Corvaja, Peace or the Empire of Figures, 34).

57. Grey to Reid, 5 December 1851. NAM (GOV 2.1.48).

58. Glenelg to Bouverie, 27 April 1838. NAM (GOV 2.1.32); Glenelg to Bouverie, 1 August 1838. NAM (GOV 2.1.33).

59. Glenelg to Officer Administering Malta, 4 July 1835, NAM (GOV 2.1.28).

60. Bonnici, “Thirty Years”.

61. Lushington to Supt of Police, 17 December 1851. NAM (GSG 04/25).

62. Tayar, How then Shall We Sing?, 68.

63. Sedley to Reid, 22 December 1851. NAM (CSG 04/25).

64. Thackeray, Burlesques, 267.

65. Reid to Grey, 26 December 1851. NAM (GOV 1.3.8).

66. Montefiore, Private Journal, 277.

67. Stanley to Ponsonby, despatch of 21 September 1832. NAM (GOV 2.1.25).

68. Coulton to Borges da Silva, 11 March 1879. NAM (CSG 04/50).

69. Senior, Conversations and Journals, 236.

70. Attard, A History of the Malta Police, 26.

71. Ponsonby to Alttay, 21 Sept 1832. NAM (GOV 2.1.25).

72. Strickland to Supt of Police, 9 December 1892. NAM (Minute paper 12257).

73. Lebovitch‐Dahl, “The Role of the Roman Catholic Church” Schächter, “Perspectives of Nineteenth Century Italian Jewry”.

74. Laprimaudaye to Strickland, 10 December 1892. NAM (Minute paper 12257).

75. Laprimaudaye to Strickland, 10 December 1892. NAM (Minute paper 12257).

76. Malta Standard, 30 December 1892.

77. Public Opinion, 4 February 1893.

78. Malta Standard, 7 February 1893.

79. Green, “The British Empire,” 192–5.

80. Wolff, Journal, 287–8.

81. Johnson, “‘Within the Pale’”.

82. Kertzer, Unholy War.

83. Feldman, Englishmen and Jews.

84. Bezzina, “Church and State”, 48–9.

85. Dixon, The Colonial Administration.

86. Frendo, Party Politics, 100–1.

87. Public Opinion, 7 February 1893.