The nineteenth century is full of forgotten heroes. Sir Moses Montefiore (1784–1885)—once the most famous Jew in the world—is merely one among many. For a major public figure, he has been astonishingly neglected. There is as yet no scholarly biography, and there have been no attempts to locate his activities in a wider, non-Jewish environment.1 In the context of nineteenth-century historiography, however, this neglect appears less than surprising. Ultimately, the scholarship on Montefiore reflects the segmentation that predominates in the historiography of nineteenth-century religion. Yet closer analysis reveals that his multifaceted role and broad resonance as a public figure could provide a useful corrective to the simplistic categories and “idealist” oppositions too readily applied to the history of the nineteenth century...
