The English statesman Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield (1804-1881), supported imperialism while opposing free trade. The leader of the Conservative party, he served as prime minister in 1868 and from 1874 to 1880.

Benjamin Disraeli was born on Dec. 21, 1804, in London, the second child and first son of Isaac D'Israeli, a Sephardic Jew whose father, Benjamin, had come from Cento near Ferrara, Italy. (The family had originally gone to Italy from the Levant.) Disraeli's mother, whom he appears to have disliked, was a Basevi, from a Jewish family that fled Spain after 1492, settling first in Italy and at the end of the 17th century in England. Disraeli's maternal grandfather was president of the Jewish Board of Deputies in London.

Isaac D'Israeli, when elected warden of the Bevis Marks Synagogue, resigned from the congregation rather than pay the fee of £40 entailed upon refusal of office. He had his four children baptized...