The divided elite

"The Divided Elite is a study of the Victorian Anglo-Jewish ruling elite, the 'Cousinhood', and of its economic, political, and Jewish interests. Based on a comprehensive theoretical discussion of the notion of a Jewish economic elite, and focussing on the activities of the two leading turn-of-the-century Anglo-Jewish families, the Rothschilds and the Montagus, Daniel Gutwein challenges the current monolithic image of the Cousinhood. The facade of homogeneity, built on common social and class traits, in reality masked a serious division into the rival factions, each with its own economic and political interests, along the same lines that divided the Victorian ruling class as a whole. These rival policies came to the fore on such issues as the absorption of the East European Jewish immigrants, communal and synagogal organization, the reaction to the expulsion of the Jews from Moscow in 1891, and the Balfour Declaration. Factional rivalries were exploited by both sides to advance their non-Jewish positions, with the paradoxical effect that they fostered the Cousinhood's communal solidarity and the commitment to both British and worldwide Jewish concerns."--BOOK JACKET.