February 20 1874 – 3 Adar 5634
Benjamin Disraeli replaced William Gladstone as Prime Minister, serving what would be his second and final term in office. Disraeli was born Jewish, but his father had him baptized after a dispute the elder Disraeli had with the London Sephardic community’s sole synagogue around the time of his son’s bar mitzva. Since he was not technically Jewish under English law, Disraeli was not limited in pursuing his political career. Nevertheless, he was the target of anti-Semitic barbs, while remaining proud of his Jewish heritage. In one quick witted retort he said “Yes, I am a Jew, and when the ancestors of the right honorable gentleman were brutal savages in an unknown island, mine were priests in the temple of Solomon.” Disraeli was a leader of the Conservative Party but the legislation he passed including the Public Health Act, the Conspiracy and Protection Act that allowed peaceful picketing and the Employer and Workmen Act led the Liberal, Laborite MP Alexander Macdonald to say ‘The Conservative party have done more for the working classes in five years than the Liberals have in fifty.’”