The British Lord Who Became Jewish: Four Words on a Door Changed His Life Forever

In the winter of 1788, an English newspaper ran the following item: "Lord George Gordon has become a Jew. By order of Judge Buller, Mr. McManus, a London police officer, traveled to Birmingham, where he arrested Lord Gordon. Lord Gordon has been living in the city of Birmingham since last August, keeping away from everyone except the Jews, with whom he spends his time in friendship and warmth. Since leaving the Christian faith and accepting the laws of the Torah, he has been surrounded by a group of Jews who affirm that the lord is Moses our teacher risen from the dead to teach and illuminate the entire world."

Lord George Gordon was born in 1751 to an aristocratic London family. His father was Cosmo Gordon, a Scottish nobleman bearing the title "the third Duke of Gordon." As was customary in those days, he was sent in childhood to serve in the military, where he was assigned to the Royal Navy. From a young age he showed a passion for justice, always standing up for the weak and oppressed and protesting any wrongdoing. Unsurprisingly, this did not endear him to his commanders, who quickly dismissed him from the service.

Several years later he decided to run for the British Parliament. In 1774, at age 23, he was elected. There he made a name for himself as an honest man with a sharp, uncompromising tongue. People joked that Parliament had three parties: the government, the opposition, and Lord Gordon. He became known across England when he led protests against the government’s plans to grant equal rights to Catholics. Many English citizens belonging to other Christian denominations opposed extending rights to the Catholic minority. At the head of a crowd of forty thousand, Lord Gordon marched to Parliament demanding the repeal of Catholic rights. When the government rejected their demand, the masses rioted and began to rampage through the city. They attacked Catholic churches, banks, and the prison, looted shops, and burned houses. The army was called in to restore order and used live fire on the rioters. The disturbances are known to this day as the "Gordon Riots," in which 285 people were killed—the deadliest riots in London’s history. Lord Gordon was arrested and charged with "treason," a capital offense, but with the help of a skilled attorney he was acquitted and released.

One day, while walking the streets of Ipswich, a small English town, he noticed a house with an intriguing sign on the door. The sign read "Kol dichfin yeitei veyechol"—"Let anyone who is hungry come in and eat." Wanting to meet the kindhearted homeowner, he went inside and befriended the Jewish owner, Reb Yitzchak Titterman, the local chazzan–shochet–mohel. After a long friendship and after seeing up close the beauty of Judaism, he decided to convert. He approached the London rabbi, the gaon Rabbi David Tevele Schiff, z"l, but the rabbi firmly refused. It seems he feared that converting so famous and controversial a figure as Lord Gordon would not bring benefit to the Jews of the country.

Lord Gordon did not give up and looked for other ways to convert. In the meantime, the government charged him again, this time with defaming and disgracing the king’s ministers, the French queen, and the French ambassador to England. Seeing that "evil from the king had overtaken him," Lord Gordon fled to Amsterdam, hoping to convert there and find refuge in the local Jewish community. When the English government heard he had arrived in Amsterdam, it strongly demanded that the Dutch authorities return him to London. The mayor summoned Lord Gordon and ordered him to leave the city within 24 hours. With no choice, he returned to England, but instead of going to London he went to Birmingham, a hundred miles from London, where he hid within the small Jewish community. Rabbi Yaakov, the city’s rabbi, agreed to convert him, and thus Lord George Gordon, at age 36, entered the covenant of Abraham and gave himself the name "Yisrael ben Avraham." Little is known about the period when he lived in Birmingham. All that is known is that he lived in the home of a poor Jewish woman. After several months the government located him, and he was arrested and sent under heavy guard to London. When he arrived in London, his acquaintances were astonished by his appearance: dressed in Jewish garb with a dignified beard, he looked like one of the dignitaries of the beit midrash.

The judge sentenced him to five years in prison. Because he belonged to a noble family, he was given a private cell, and the first thing he did there was to hang a mezuzah on his cell door. He received permission to gather ten Jews from across the prison each day, and thus he prayed with a minyan daily. He had enough money to fund kosher food for himself and for his fellow Jews in the prison. Every Friday night, Yisrael ben Avraham would hold a "tish" with challah and wine, songs, and words of Torah. He regularly received many visitors, Jews and non-Jews alike, who wanted to meet the colorful figure. However, he instructed the prison guards firmly that if the visitor was Jewish—they should admit him only if he wore a beard and payot, since he did not want to be associated with non-observant Jews.

After five years in prison, Lord Gordon was brought to court. As was customary at the time, the judge ordered him to remove his hat. Not wishing to sit bareheaded, Lord Gordon refused. The judge ordered the police to remove his hat by force, but Lord Gordon took a white kippah from his pocket and tied it around his face with his handkerchief, explaining that he was doing so for religious reasons.

The judge demanded that he request a pardon in order to be released, but he refused. "To request a pardon is to admit guilt, and I have no guilt." Unfortunately, just as his release was being considered, he contracted the typhus epidemic then spreading. In 1793, at the age of 42, he died. His family buried him in a Christian cemetery. His grave was known and marked until 2017. That year a new railway line was inaugurated, and under English law graves more than two hundred years old may be relocated. With no one to claim his grave, it was cleared along with all those interred there, and the resting place of his remains is unknown.