None of the groups got what it wanted

The Catholic rebels wanted a Catholic state without Russian interference, while the Orthodox wanted a Cossack state under the jurisdiction of Russia. The Jews wanted to be left alone. None of the groups got what it wanted.

S. Plokhy, Gates of Europe (2025), loc. 2,423, describing the Eighteenth century in Ukraine and the partition of Poland.

Politicians and commentators pushed three lines of attack against the immigrant Jews in France

Politicians and commentators pushed three lines of attack against the immigrant Jews in France: that they were taking jobs from the French, that they were Bolshevik revolutionaries determined to destroy France, and that they were diseased criminals.

H. Freeman, House of Glass: The story and secrets of a twentieth-century Jewish family (2020), 80

But Emperor Franz Joseph I had a fondness for the Jewish religion

But Emperor Franz Joseph I had a fondness for the Jewish religion, and under his rule, Austro-Hungarian Jews emerged from the ghettos and became part of society as the emperor gave Jews equal rights, and financed Jewish institutions. This is why there seems to have been such a flourishing of Jewish productivity in the Austro-Hungarian Empire between 1848 and 1916, from such people as Theodor Herzl, Stefan Zweig and Sigmund Freud: it’s not that this generation of Jews was uniquely talented compared with previous ones, it’s that they were granted a then unique amount of freedom.

H. Freeman, House of Glass: The story and secrets of a twentieth-century Jewish family (2020), 21

Two peoples living in a small country hating each other like hell

The British realised, however, that they had burdened themselves with an insoluble problem. ‘The problem of Palestine,’ wrote Britain’s most senior general, ‘[was] the same as the problem of Ireland, namely, two peoples living in a small country hating each other like hell.’ Nor were the Jews showing the gratitude the British expected of them. When the director of military intelligence visited Palestine soon after the riots, it dawned on him that there was no reason to suppose that the Zionists and British would ever be ‘really friendly’. The friendship would ‘only last as long as the Zionist State were dependent on Great Britain for military protection’, he realised. This was an insight that would prove acute.

J. Barr, A Line in the sand (2011), loc. 1,670

Poor women, frequently Irish, known as Shabbos-goyas or fire-goyas, acted as stokers to the Ghetto at twopence a hearth

There have always been ways of getting around the problem of lighting fires. It was common in the Oriental world for Muslims to go around the houses kindling fires and doing little jobs for the Jews. Israel Zangwill gives us an insight into turn-of-the-century London in his 1892 novel, Children of the Ghetto, where he writes, ‘The Rabbis had modified the Biblical prohibition against lighting any fire whatever, and allowed it to be kindled by non-Jews. Poor women, frequently Irish, known as Shabbos-goyas or fire-goyas, acted as stokers to the Ghetto at twopence a hearth. No Jew ever touched a match or a candle, or burnt a piece of paper, or even opened a letter. The Goyah, which is literally “heathen female”, did everything required on the Sabbath.’ Zangwill tells that, when the reb’s fire sank and he could not give direct orders to the shiksa (non-Jewish woman) to replenish it, he would rub his hands and remark casually (in her hearing), ‘Ah, how cold it is!’

C. Roden, The Book of Jewish Food: An Odyssey from Samarkand and Vilna to the Present Day (1996), Kindle loc. 705

Jewish refugees from Portugal and Spain ... introduced Britain to the street food that would become their national dish - fish fried in flour

We might think the great double act fish and chips is as British as Torvill and Dean, Morecambe and Wise or wind and rain. But in fact it was Jewish refugees from Portugal and Spain, arriving in the seventeenth century, who introduced Britain to the street food that would become their national dish - fish fried in flour. It was French and Belgian Huguenots, coming shortly afterwards, who introduced fried potatoes in the form of frites. What the British did was bring the two together. And what led to the duo becoming a legend was the Industrial Revolution.

V. Franklin and A. Johnson, Menus that made history (2019), 38

They were refugees. We know them as "the peril from the East."

They were refugees. We know them as "the peril from the East." Fear of pogroms has welded them together like a landslip of unhappiness and grime that, slowly gathering volume, has come rolling across Germany from the East. A few clumps of them have come to rest for the time being in the East End of Berlin. A small minority of them are young and healthy, like Geza Furst, the born cabin boy. Mostly they are old and frail, if not broken.

J. Roth, 'Refugees from the East (1920)', tr. M. Hofmann, What I saw: reports from Berlin 1920-33 (2006), 37