11 - Jewish-Christian Relations in the Second World War

Summary

Jews from France settled in England in the wake of the Norman Conquest. Their fortunes oscillated until, finally taxed out of economic utility, they were expelled by Edward I in 1290. From the start of the Iberian Inquisition in 1492 tiny numbers of Jews found their way to England, living in London and Bristol as ostensible Christians. At the petition of Rabbi Manasseh Ben Israel of Amsterdam, Jews were effectively readmitted with the concurrence of Oliver Cromwell in the closing years of the Commonwealth. From the 1660s they came gradually and in small numbers from many lands in western and eastern Europe, some fleeing persecution and all in search of a better life. Predominantly poor, many eked out an existence as hawkers and pedlars, gradually settling as shopkeepers and merchants and into a variety of occupations. Over time they established synagogues, schools and institutions.

Antisemitic laws enacted in Czarist Russia in 1882 triggered an epoch of emigration from eastern Europe which continued until the start of the First World War. By 1914 there were some 250,000–300,000 Jews in Britain. Through patriotism and military service, the leadership of the Jewish community was anxious to discharge what many Jews saw as their debt of gratitude to Britain for its acceptance of them: ‘England has been all she could be to Jews. Jews will be all they can be to England’ was the prominent banner hung outside the offices of the weekly Jewish Chronicle throughout the war. Some 50,000 Jews from Britain and the empire served in the First World War. Around 2,500 lost their lives, 6,500 were wounded and five Victoria Crosses were won. Partially in response to rising post-war antisemitism, the Jewish military contribution was memorialized in various ways, including an annual service of Remembrance at the Cenotaph in London which, now embracing the Second World War, continues to this day. In the 1930s Jews were foremost amongst those who fought Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists at the legendary ‘Battle of Cable Street’ in London in 1936 and in numerous other encounters. By 1939 there were some 350,000 Jews in Britain, including around 55,000 recent refugees from Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia and elsewhere in Europe.

Jewish integration into British life was gradual and undramatic. This is the basic thesis of the leading contemporary historians of British Jewry, Todd Endelman and David Feldman.