A ‘grave miscarriage of justice’: marriage and divorce in jewish immigrant families in england, 1870-1940

ABSTRACT

This essay analyses disputed marriages/divorces involving Jewish immigrants to England between 1870 and 1940. English courts came to contradictory decisions in these cases due to the difference between religiously-based systems in Eastern Europe and Britain’s secular, centralised approach. The result was split decisions. In civil courts, magistrates upheld religious marriages by awarding maintenance to wives, but the same evidence proved insufficient in the criminal courts to convict for bigamy. Unfortunately, whatever the outcome, these cases fed into anti-alienist rhetoric at the turn of the twentieth century, associating ‘alien’ Jewish immigrants with wife desertion, criminal behaviour, and even polygamy.

KEYWORDS:

• Anti-alienism
• divorce
• Judaism
• immigration
• marriage

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Holmes, John Bull’s Island, 26–29.

2. Tannenbaum, “Making;” Lipman, Century, 14–20; Endelman, Jews of Britain, 127–82; Englander, “Policing the Ghetto.” For the Aliens Act, see Renshaw, Discourse of Repatriation, 50–100; Pellew, “Home Office;” Wray, “Aliens Act;” and Cesarani, “An Alien Concept?”

3. Trubowitz, “Acting Like an Alien;” Evans, “Commerce;” Feldman, Englishmen and Jews, 291–311.

4. Panayi, An Immigration History, 155; Simon, In the Golden Land, 3–5.

5. Kadish, Bolsheviks and British Jews, 184–241.

6. Wagner, Marriage, Property and Law. For English divorce, see Hammerton, Cruelty and Companionship; Savage, “They Would if They Could;” Phillips, Putting Asunder, 525–30.

7. Auerbach, Armed with Swords and Scales, 236–40; Savage, “The Magistrates are Men,” 233.

8. Taylor, Refugees, 29–91.

9. This article references only England and Wales, as the Scots and Irish had different marriage and divorce laws.

10. Feldman, Englishmen and Jews, 24, 394–97.

11. Feldman, Englishmen and Jews, 296; G. Freeze, “Bringing Order;” C. Freeze, Jewish Marriage, 131–200. For conflict with France, see Gudefin, “Creating Legal Difference.”

12. National Archives, Kew [hereafter NA], Divorce Cases, J77/8701/6434; Carlin v. Carlin, February-March 1906. Story taken from “Copy of Evidence Taken at the Thames Police Court.”

13. NA, J77/8701/6434, “Copy of Evidence;” Ancestry.co.uk, 1901 Census. I cannot find any marriage licence between Ethel and Leon.

14. NA, J77/8701/6434, “Copy of Evidence.”

15. NA, J77/8701/6434, “Copy of Evidence.”

16. NA, J77/8701/6434, “Copy of Evidence.”

17. NA, J77/8701/6434, “Copy of Evidence.”

18. Freeze, Jewish Marriage, 110–15.

19. NA, J77/8701/6434, “Notes of Reasons for Decision.”

20. Henriques, “Jewish Marriages,” 418.

21. Justice of the Peace 70 (March 24, 1906): 136–37.

22. Ancestry.co.uk, 1911 Census Reports, England and Wales; Marriage Register, England and Wales.

23. Findmypast.com, 1921 Census Reports, England and Wales.

24. Goldstone v. Goldstone, Law Times 127 (1922): 32–34.

25. NA, J77/642/19595 (1898–1899) and J77/906/7527 (1907–1908).

26. Frost, “Bigamy and Cohabitation.”

27. Freeze, Jewish Marriage, 158.

28. Frost, Living in Sin, 74–75.

29. Frost, Living in Sin, 73; Henriques, “Jewish Marriages,” 437.

30. Regina v. Castor, Criminal Law Magazine and Reporter 9 (1887): 706.

31. 26.Proceedings of the Old Bailey On-line [hereafter POBO], April 25, 1898, Ref. # t18980425–294.

32. Cox’s Reports of Cases in Criminal Law 17 (1890–95): 630–31; POBO, April 10, 1893; Case #415; Reference number t18930410–415.

33. Englander, “Policing the Ghetto,” 42–43; Summers, Christian and Jewish Women, 34–37.

34. POBO, April 10, 1893, Case #416, Reference number t18930410–416.

35. NA, Registrar General Papers, RG 48/215, Case of Bertha Nozyk and Israel Shindler, June-July 1923.

36. NA, RG 8/213, Case of Jack and Sophie Isenblatt, January-August 1922.

37. NA, J77/2725/4539, Spivack v. Spivack, December 1929-January 1930; Cox’s Reports of Cases in Criminal Law 29 (1934): 91–101.

38. Cox’s Reports of Cases in Criminal Law 29 (1934): 98, 100; NA, J77/2725/4539 (1929–30); Times Law Reports 46 (1930): 243–46.

39. Ancestry.co.uk, England and Wales National Probate Calendar, April 13, 1949.

40. Feldman, Englishmen and Jews, 293.

41. Report of the Royal Commission.

42. Both quoted in Landa, Alien Problem, 121–22.

43. Renshaw, Discourse of Repatriation, 50–73.

44. Renshaw, Discourse of Repatriation, 51–52; Garrard, English and Immigration, 13.

45. Renshaw, Discourse of Repatriation, 69–71.

46. Renshaw, Discourse of Repatriation, 55–56.

47. NA, J77/755/2969 (1902–03).

48. Smith, “Marriage of English Subjects,” 376–77.

49. For Abensur, see NA, Treasury Solicitor’s Papers, TS 27/822, Report on British Subjects and the British Nationality and Status of Aliens Act, 1914; Law Times 101 (1890): 401. For Messiah, see NA, Home Office Records, HO 45/11029/417723, Validity of Moroccan Marriage, 1906–1921. See also Savage, “More than One,” 348–74.

50. Rex v. Muscovitch, Cox’s Reports of Cases in Criminal Law 28 (1927): 442–45; quote from 445.

51. London Metropolitan Archives [hereafter LMA], Correspondence of the Board of Deputies, ACC 3121/B4/GR/12, October-November 1927.

52. See, e.g., LMA, ACC 312/B2/13/1/3, Correspondence about Marriage Abuses, 1889–1911.

53. LMA, ACC 3121/B/02/13/01/02, Report of the Law and Parliamentary Committee on Irregular Marriages in Manchester, 1890–1907; quote from report of April 10, 1907.

54. LMA, ACC 3400/02/01/085, Legal Notes of Cases before the Beth Din, 1940s.

55. See NA, RG 48/219, Marriage of Wilsdon and Aref, August-November 1927.

56. King v. Hadijah Ahmed, Criminal Appeals Reports 7 (1912): 149–53 (cited in Spivack); King v. Naguib, Law Reports, King’s Bench Division 1 (1917): 359–62.

57. Winfield, “Personal Law.”

58. Summers, Christian and Jewish Women, 75–76; Frumkin, “Disabilities of Women;” LMA, ACC 3121/E3/88/1, Report of the Council for the Amelioration of the Legal Position of the Jewess, 1924–27.