The Jews whom his father knew and invited to dine were men of distinction and achievement. On one occasion, when a guest at an English country house, Lord Randolph was greeted by one of the guests, a leading aristocrat, with the words: ‘What, Lord Randolph, you've not brought your Jewish friends?' to which Lord Randolph replied: ‘No, I did not think they would be very amused by the company.'2Ĭhurchill, a devoted son eager for his father's approval, took his father's side in this pro- and anti-Jew debate. The butt of a popular club land jibe that he only had Jewish friends, he was even rebuked by members of his family for inviting Jews to dine with him at home. In Churchill's family circle, his father Lord Randolph Churchill was noted for his friendship with individual Jews. ‘Their faults were many,' he wrote, and went on to ask: ‘Whose faults are few?' At the age of thirteen he could himself be forgiven for describing the ‘minarets' of the Temple of Zion.1 Writing about the Pharisees, Churchill asked his reader – in this case his teacher – not to be too censorious about that ‘rigid' Jewish sect. One of his earliest surviving essays was ‘Palestine in the time of John the Baptist'. As a schoolboy at Harrow, the stories of the Old Testament were an integral part of his education and imagination. But from his early years the Jews held a fascination for him. Churchill had no Jewish ancestry his claim to an exotic origin came from a possible American Indian ancestor.

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