Thanks, Diane. I'm sorry you feel you have to insult me at every opportunity.

"Ethnically English" is of course meaningless. English people have ancestors who were Celts, Anglo-Saxons, Roman soldiers from all over the Empire, Normans (themselves mongrel French-Scandinavians), Danes, etc., etc...and, probably Jews as well. There have been Jews in England as long as there have been Normans, and probably longer than that (as you yourself pointed out, they were unsuccessfully and incompletely banished in 1290). The proposition that Jews, whose families may have lived in England for nine hundred years, can't be considered English is a bit thick. And your use of a clearly anti-semitic and literally Medieval law claiming Jews were a non-English race and expelling them from the country as support for your position is troubling.

Your suggestion that Jews are intrinsically un-English could be interpreted as anti-Semitic (though I don't believe you intended it that way), and would certainly cause offense among English Jews. Furthermore, the idea that English Jews might contribute to English culture but can't be considered representative of it seems self-contradictory. Some of the people mentioned on this thread, for good or ill (Malcolm McLaren for example), are Jews, and most English people are unaware of it. Same with folks like Mick Jones of the Clash and Charlie Watts of the Stones. Most people just consider them part of the cultural scene in England, and, I think, "representative" of English culture...again, for good or ill.

One might as well say the Watersons aren't representative of English culture because of their Romany-Irish heritage. They'd tell you where to stick that idea!