Hosmer, THE STORY OF THE JEWS, p. 280-283.

[Here, Hosmer mentions the Damascus case of 1840 – notice his casual deriding of the case, without the slightest bit of objectivity as to what may have really happened. It just so happens that the Jews in the Damascus case told the investigators where the priest’s body could be found – and it was found exactly where they said it was. No amount of torture could have got that out of them if they didn’t really know about the murder.

Apparently, some non-Jews would accept bribes due to need or greed; others seem to have been incorruptible. Compare this ridiculous white-wash with the other evidence I present on my page http://www.jrbooksonline.com/leese.htm. You wouldn't know you were even on the same planet. And indeed, the Jews aren't, in a sense. – JR, ed.]

His blood was of the best Israelite strain. An ancestor of his was the bold sailor, Lamego, that captain of Vasco de Gama, who brought back to Europe the first intelligence that his admiral had found the passage about the Cape of Good Hope. Of his particular family, whose Italian origin is made plain by the name, Montefiore, the earliest memorial preserved is a silk ritual curtain in the synagogue at Ancona, magnificently embroidered and fringed with gold; this was the work of an ancestress as far back as 1630, and is suspended before the ark on the great festivals. Like the Disraelis, the Montefiores came to England, when at length, through Cromwell, the bars had been removed, and with the present century reached fame and wealth. Moses Montefiore's way to fortune was smoothed by his marriage with the sister-in-law of Nathan Meyer Rothschild. His brother, also, was married to a sister of Nathan Meyer; still a third link bound the families together, for the second son of Nathan Meyer married his first cousin, the niece of Moses Montefiore. With the strong Jewish feeling of clanship, one can understand how close the connection must have become with the great house which possessed such power. Moses Montefiore was, in fact, the broker of the Rothschilds during the most heroic period of the great operators. No suspicion, however, has ever attached to him, of the sharp practice which has sometimes hurt the repute of the famous bankers. Free from all overweening greed, he withdrew early from active business, with a fine fortune indeed; but untainted by the spirit of covetousness, and through constant beneficent activity, has won for himself the best possible renown.

He set on foot among his people the movement which resulted in the doing away of Jewish disabilities, and at length brought it about that his nephew, Baron Lionel Rothschild, sat in the British Parliament. But most memorable have been his journeys, --one should rather say his lordly progresses,--again and again undertaken, to Africa, to Asia, and throughout the whole of Europe, in behalf of his suffering co-religionists, whose bonds he has broken and whose poverty he has relieved [i.e., whose release has been secured thru money bribes – JR, ed.], rather as if he were a magnificent potentate than a simple British citizen. Side by side with his wife, of spirit and energy resembling his own, in a kind of princely state, with a coach and six, or a special train, upon land, and upon sea in French or British frigates placed at his disposal, he discharged his self-imposed missions with a curious pomp. Nothing can be more picturesque than the scenes described as attending these expeditions. Barbaric princes yield humbly to the demand that humanity shall be respected. Sultan, Czar, and Pope, no less than petty princeling and robber captain, give him honor and promise amendment. The Jew's urging, it is felt, is backed by immense power, and his hands scatter largesses [bribes – JR, ed.] such as the coffers of few monarchs could afford [this gives away the whole situation with the khedive of Egypt. Even Arab sources well concede that he was strapped for money, a situation which made the release of the Jew murderers a virtual fâit accompli – JR, ed.].

It is scarcely credible that within fifty years civilized men should have aided and abetted in such enormities as occurred in Damascus and Rhodes in 1840. A Jewish persecution sprang up in those towns, scarcely less terrible than the dark deeds of those mediæval zealots to which certain of these pages have referred. The inveterate blood-accusation, that Jews had committed murder to obtain human blood for use in their sacrifices, was again made, and fanaticism once more expressed itself in torture and slaughter. Men were scourged to death, as of old; others were blinded and maimed for life; sixty little children, from three to ten years old, were taken from their mothers and shut up without food; by their starvation, the parents were to be forced, through anguish of soul, into confession. Damascus and Rhodes are, to be sure, Turkish cities, but the French Consul of the former town was one of the most active persecutors [huh? This means he was a "public prosecutor who did his job by investigating, indicting, trying, convicting and punishing cold-blooded murderers". Of course, the Jew does not consider non-Jews as human, which serves as their justification for the crimes. – JR, ed.], and in the latter, the representatives of several civilized powers connived at the cruelties [i.e., were incorruptible and would not accept bribes – JR, ed.].

Montefiore, living retired in his beautiful Kentish villa [you mean this one wasn't "poisecuted"? He seems to have made out fine. – JR, ed.], felt his heart stirred [his wallet was stirred a lot more. – JR, ed.] at the sufferings of the faithful. He roused civilized Europe to indignation [meaning, "selective moral indignation", as the phrase goes – JR, ed.], proceeding himself to the spot where the persecutions were taking place. The French statesman Cremieux, himself of Hebrew race, was at the same time active at the court [Aha! The "court Jew"! Oy! – JR, ed.] of Louis Philippe, and elsewhere were heard influential Hebrew voices. It was the British Jew, however, whose hands and tongue [I could say something here, but I won't. – JR, ed.] were most helpful. He was presently on the spot, backed by all the power of enormous wealth and the might of England. The dead could not be brought back to life, nor could the blinded and crippled regain their lost members, but so far as human means could avail, the wrongs were righted. Out of the agitation grew the powerful "Alliance Israélite Universelle," an organization through which the well-placed Hebrews of civilized lands have sought to make impossible hereafter the renewal of mediæval barbarities. [But if they're all persecuted and hated beings, how did they succeed? It appears the terrible force of money-power, admitted to previously, is the only answer – JR, ed.]

Sir Moses Montefiore has felt keenly the taunt of Cobbett, that the "Israelite is never seen to take a spade in his hand, but waits, like the voracious slug, to devour what has been produced by labor in which he has no share." In Palestine and elsewhere, he has sought to make the Jews agricultural and industrial, and in his records seems never more pleased than when he can describe Hebrew farmers and artisans. Great though his might has everywhere been through his personal force and the power always behind him, he has met with his rebuffs. Said Prince Paskievitch, the Russian governor of Poland, to him, when he was urging upon that official the propriety of doing something for the education of his people: "God forbid! the Jews are already too clever for us. How would it be if they got good schooling!"

The pictures are touching and dramatic which are given in the accounts of Sir Moses Montefiore's journeys, and none are finer than those drawn by his wife, Judith, his frequent companion, a devoted Hebrew like her husband. Both believed in the restoration of Israel to the Holy Land, the soil of which they loved as if they were native to it, with all the wondrous Hebrew patriotism. [But wasn't he supposed to be loyal to Britain? – JR, ed.] On one occasion, as they arrive, she breaks out: "Anchor was cast in the Bay of Beyrout, and magnificent was the scene presented to our view. Immediately before us rose the lofty mountains of Lebanon, precipitous and crowned with snow, in strange contrast with the . . .

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