The popular period piece and English drama “Downtown Abbey” will feature a Jewish love interest for Lady Rose, as reported by the Times of Israel. The character, Atticus Aldridge, played by Matt Barber, is initially introduced as a Russian until Lady Rose’s family discovers he is not the aristocratic Russian they expected but from a Jewish family that was forced out of Odessa because of progroms.
Undeterred, Rose introduces Aldridge’s family to hers, the Crawleys, and it turns out that Lord and Lady Sinderby who are bankers a la Rothschild. The Jewish Chronicle notes, “Such aristocratic Jews fit well with the Downtown Abby milieu and have history on their side too. After all the Rothschilds … built so many country houses that that part of Buckinghamshire became known as Rothschildshire.”
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There was another somewhat Jewish character in Downtown Abbey, Lady Cora, whose father was Isidore Levinson, a dry goods millionaire from Cincinnati, but her mother, played by Shirley MacClaine was not a member of the tribe. Lady Rose likes love interests who raise the eyebrows of her relatives, first with a married man, then with a black jazz musician, now with a Jewish beau. Cousin Isobel is not shocked, because she says the Jews are “not like the Catholics” in that they don’t require conversion for marriage (?). However, she then notes Lord Sinderby is a leader in the Jewish community, so who knows? Maybe Rose will venture to the mikveh.
