Tikvah
Editors’ Pick

March 28, 2016

Benjamin Disraeli’s Opportunistic Judaism

No real friend of the Jewish people.

Born in England to Jewish parents who baptized him at the age of twelve, Benjamin Disraeli went on to become prime minister as well as an accomplished novelist. Although some have held him up as a Jewish hero who often spoke with pride of his ethnic origins, Disraeli’s latest biographer, David Cesarani, argues that he was a cynical opportunist who only used his Jewishness when it suited him. Norman Gelb writes in his review:

SaveGift