The Off Topic Topic

[PDH]

  I am not really from Wyoming.  I was born in California

[Eddie Teach]

I'm not really from the South. I was born in Virginia. 

[Valmy]

I'm not really from the South. I was born in Virginia. 

I am not really from Texas, I was born in Austin.

[CountDeMoney]

I was born in Baltimore, not Bawlmer.

[katmai]

Lived in California as much as I have Alaska, and yet from Colorado.

[alfred russel]

I'm not really from the South. I was born in Virginia. 

I am not really from Texas, I was born in Austin.

I guess I should come clean too...I am actually a Nigerian prince. I have been hiding my identity on the forum because I am ashamed to be destitute. It is especially hard because I have assets worth millions in Nigeria, but can not access them due to my poverty. Please PM me if you think you can help.

[Ed Anger]

I will send you my bank info.

[Valmy]

I guess I should come clean too...I am actually a Nigerian prince. I have been hiding my identity on the forum because I am ashamed to be destitute.

Nonsense everybody knows you are Latino.

[The Brain]

He is a black man. Call him a liar.

[Malthus]

Disraeli was an Anglican convert (he had to be, to enter politics).

Interestingly, he wrote the very first alt-history book: The Wondrous Tale of Alroy, about a Jew who founds a world-spanning empire in the middle ages (!).

His family converted when he was 12 after his dad got into a huge argument with their synagogue.

It's also interesting how much Disraeli later played up to his Jewish heritage to enhance his own 'exoticness' and 'otherness' which he liked to emphasise in his rather theatrical political persona. For example that line to Victoria or his famous response to anti-semitic goading by Daniel O'Connell that 'yes, I am a Jew. And when the ancestors of the right honorable gentlemen were brutal savages in an unknown island, mine were priests in the temple of Solomon.'

Having just read a biography of Gladstone I plan to read one of Disraeli. I can't think of anyone else like them. Two extraordinary figures with such totally different characters (with a shared, but different, theatricality) who dominate an entire generation of history and both achieved a great deal.

Love the Tom of Finland stamps

Yes, but at the time, if he hadn't converted, he could not have been PM - the office required an oath on one's faith as a Christian. Of course, everyone considered him basically a Jew, because of his ancestry (himself included).

I too would love to read a bio of him. I think it is hilarious that he's the 19th century answer to Harry Turtledove in his writing. 

[derspiess]

Disraeli was a Jew?!?

[Valmy]

Disraeli was a Jew?!?

A historical fact so obscure leading British politicians are unaware of it.

[CountDeMoney]

Disraeli was a Jew?!?

You'd think the prefix of "dis" would've meant "not a Jew", amirite?

[derspiess]

Disraeli was a Jew?!?

You'd think the prefix of "dis" would've meant "not a Jew", amirite?

No shit.

[CountDeMoney]

Disraeli was a Jew?!?

You'd think the prefix of "dis" would've meant "not a Jew", amirite?

No shit.

Instead, it's Jersey-speak.  Dis is a Jew, and dat one is a Jew, too.