By Rabbi Rachel Esserman

Rudyard Kipling’s short story “The Man Who Would Be King” told the tale of two British adventurers in India who managed to become kings in a remote part of Afghanistan, although later events left one dead and the other impoverished and, perhaps, mad. Adam Rovner offers a riff on Kipling’s title in his “The Jew Who Would Be King: A True Story of Shipwreck, Survival, and Scandal in Victorian Africa” (University of California Press), which tells the story of Jewish Nathaniel Isaacs’ African adventures. While it is pushing it a bit to claim that Isaacs became a king, his story does read like an adventure novel: A poor Jewish boy from England becomes a merchant in Africa before ingratiating himself with the chief of the Zulus and then creates his own not-quite kingdom on a small island off the coast of Africa. Adventurous and clever, Isaacs managed to outwit his enemies, some of whom would have killed him and others who would have seen him thrown in jail for his excesses. 
Isaacs was born in England in 1808, although little is known of his childhood. In 1822, he was sent to St. Helena to work in his uncle Saul Solomon’s successful merchant business. However, Isaacs wanted to make his own fortune and went adventuring with James King, formerly of the British Royal Navy. Many travails occurred, including a shipwreck, before Isaacs landed on the east coast of Africa. There he ingratiated himself with the Zulu chief in order to take part in the ivory trade. At one point, Isaacs returned to England, but soon left to again to try his hand at trading in Africa. It was during this time that he took over the governance of Matakong, a small island off the coast of Guinea. It was there Isaacs would become “king,” meaning that he ruled the island like a warlord. This was also when he was accused of taking part in the slave trade, which had been outlawed by the British. Although the British government tried to prosecute him, Isaacs successfully managed to evade the law. Even though he had not been a practicing Jew for a good portion of his life, in 1872, he was buried in the Canterbury Jewish Cemetery. 
While Isaacs’ many adventures are exciting, for this reader, the most important parts of “The Jew Who Would Be King” are the author’s discussions of the place of Jews and Blacks in the culture of that time. According to Rovner, both Jews and Blacks were thought to “inhabit a lower stratum of human development.” The author added that “to many of their neighbors, Canterbury’s Jews would have seemed little more than savages, or perhaps even worse. At least savages could be romanticized as noble... Jews in Great Britain, however, were imagined as ignoble and figured as ‘crass and venial, lacking honor and virtue, in thrall to a slave religion or unrestrained passion.’ They might exist on the fringes of polite society, but the trappings of civilization were only a veneer.” That explains why Isaacs was happy to leave England: Africa offered him a better chance of success since his Jewish background mattered little to the Black population of the continent, which would not have shared British prejudice because, at that time, they had little knowledge of European religions.
What is also interesting is the author’s discussion of the differing racial theories of the time. Some believed in a racism similar to that of today: that Blacks and Jews are born inferior and nothing can be done to change that. Others, particularly those who wanted to convert Africans to Christianity, felt that Jews and Blacks had not yet achieved the same level of social development as Europeans. They thought that, with the correct education and training, both groups could be civilized to European standards. It was this latter group that wanted to colonize Africa, which is ironic because this led to the oppression of anyone who was not white or Christian. But it was not religion alone that prompted these missionaries. Rovner notes that “economic salvation and spiritual redemption were intertwined goals for London’s missionary societies,” since this would benefit Europeans in financial ways. In order to influence people to support their efforts, the missionaries “felt a need to represent the people they assisted as victims of degrading cultural practices.” That meant they could be helped; if there was no way to improve them – meaning converting them to Christianity – then there was no point in traveling to Africa. Rovner notes that, to many, both Jews and Blacks were “despised peoples once thought to be theologically damned.” He also writes that the tools that had been used to oppress Jews in England soon found their way to Africa and were used to oppress Blacks. 
“The Jew Who Would Be King” is a scholarly work, which means it reads more like a work of history rather than an adventure story. It is an impressive achievement – filled with a great deal of detail and an interesting analysis of the culture of the time. The author debates if Isaacs’ Jewishness played a role in his life, but admits it’s difficult to determine. Leaving England gave him more economic advantages than if he’d remained in his native land. There were also many non-Jewish adventurers at the time because the lure of riches and power is not to be underestimated. One thing is clear: While Isaacs might not be a Jewish hero to emulate, his story offers insights into the role race and religion played in the 19th century.