THEEAD ABOUT 🍊 AND 🍋
You’ll never see this nursery rhyme the same again....
1/5 It’s about impoverished Jews collecting Oranges and Lemons shipped by Livorno Jews to St Clement’s (Eastcheap - by the Thames wharves)...
You’ll never see this nursery rhyme the same again....
1/5 It’s about impoverished Jews collecting Oranges and Lemons shipped by Livorno Jews to St Clement’s (Eastcheap - by the Thames wharves)...
2/5 They were fronted the money near St Martins (Outwich) and if they couldn’t sell their produce (to pay back what they owed) they endedup in Newgate, where they would hear the chimes of St Sepulchre opposite the Old Bailey...
3/5 Jews lived in tenements in Shoreditch and Stepney - places like this were packed with thousands of Jewish immigrants , mainly Ashkenazi but also Sephardi...
4/5 Orange sellers would claim a selling turf in the city, St. Paul’s, Threadneedle Street, Fleet Street, the strand etc, plying their wares desperately trying to sell by nightfall. Many didn’t, so an illegal backup job wasn’t unheard of...
5/5 When you read this rhyme in this new light, hopefully it begins to explain the often untold tragic history of Jews in Britain which is often still part of the culture of this island, whether you realise it or not
When you think about there’s so much tragedy in there. The doubt, the dream of success and joining society, the precariousness of Jewish existence....
It’s sad that British society focussed on those forced to do untoward things to stay alive, such as getting children to steal silk handkerchiefs.
They caricatured it and came up with Fagin as their stereotypical Jew. And all because it wasn’t safe for Jews to even sell oranges
They caricatured it and came up with Fagin as their stereotypical Jew. And all because it wasn’t safe for Jews to even sell oranges
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