Isaac D’Israeli 1766-1848
D’Israeli was a British writer, scholar and man of letters. He is best known for his essays, his associations with other men of letters, and for being the father of British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli. Isaac was a Sephardic Jew, descended from the Portuguese Jews. His father had emigrated to London from Italy in 1748. Isaac was born in Essex, and received his education at Leiden. At the age of sixteen he embarked on a literary career with verses written to Samuel Johnson. His wife, Maria Basevi (1774-1847), was also of Sephardic family, though raised in London; togthey had four children: Sarah (1802), Benjamin (1804) named after his paternal grandfather according to Jewish custom, Ralph (1809) and James (1813). Another son, born after Benjamin, died in infancy.
In the year 1817 Isaac had his children baptised, following a long dispute with the Bevis Marks Synagogue, and joined the church of England. The Jewish Encyclopedia explains this as follows:
“Religiously, Isaac D’Israeli was a man far in advance of his times, and was perhaps the first English Jew who took the modern attitude toward Jewish ceremonial. In 1813 D’Israeli was elected warden of the Bevis Marks Synagogue, to which both he and his father had been attached. This office he declined, expressing surprise that he should have been elected at so late a period in his life. No notice was taken of his communication; and in accordance with established usage the recalcitrant was fined £40. Some correspondence ensued, in which D’Israeli, after expressing his unwillingness to pay the fine, finally saying: “I am under the painful necessity of wishing that my name be erased from the list of your members of Yehedim.” D’Israeli never returned to the Jewish fold, and his sons and connections embraced the Christian faith. D’Israeli himself did not, however, receive baptism, and never evinced any desire to exchange Judaism for Christianity. He attended the inauguration ceremonies of the Reformed Synagogue at Berkeley street, London.”
However, Bernstein points out that in D’Israeli’s writings (notably, numerous articles in his Curiosities of Literature and his pamphlet “The Spirit of Judaism” in which he vindicated himself for the step he had taken) he shewed himself to be an “earnest student of religious subjects and of the Scriptures, and that he endeavoured to spread the light of truth” (Bernstein, Jewish Witnesses for Christ. p. 190)
In 1841 Isaac became blind and, though he underwent an operation, his sight was not restored. He continued writing with his daughter’s assistance. In this way he produced Amenities of Literature (1841) and completed the revision of his work on Charles I. He died of influenza at age 81, at his home, Bradenham House, in Buckinghamshire, less than a year after the death of his wife in the spring of 1847.
Works
Curiosities of Literature (4 vols. [1791-1823]; single vol. [1824])
A Dissertation on Anecdotes [1793]
An Essay on the Literary Character [1795]
Miscellanies; or, Literary Recreations [1796]
Romances [1799]
Amenities of Literature [1841]
Calamities of Authors [1812-3]
The Life and Reign of Charles I [1828]
Quarrels of Authors [1814]
Sources
Bernstein, A. Jewish Witnesses for Christ. Oliphant, 1909
Jewish World, April 22, 1881
Picciotto, Sketches of Anglo-Jewish History
Dict. National Biography
B. Disraeli, Memoir prefixed to Isaac D’ Israeli’s Collected Works, 1858
Jewish Encyclopedia on-line