The Tents of Michael The Life and Times of Colonel Albert Williamson Goldsmid

Until now, the life story of Albert Williamson Goldsmid, an extraordinary Victorian figure, has been known to comparatively few. Although born a Christian, he belonged to one of the oldest Jewish families in England. His parents left the fold of their fathers but Goldsmid, as a youngster, discovered his Jewish descent and returned to the ancestral faith. He rose to the rank of Colonel in the British Army, and a Member of the Victorian Order (MVO), and emerged over the years as an internationally known champion of his people's renaissance in their ancient homeland. Acclaimed as the model for George Eliot's Daniel Deronda, Goldsmid devoted all his gifts of heart and mind to both the service of his country and his Jewish people. He became an exalted symbol of British-Jewish harmony, and a glowing personification of the movement for Israel's restoration which was so indigenous to Victorian and post-Victorian England. This biography details British Jewish and Zionist politics from a fresh perspective, one from within that community, through the eyes of a personage.