The past two decades have witnessed a remarkable renaissance in the academic study of the history of the Jews in Great Britain and of their impact upon British history. In this volume Professor Geoffrey Alderman presents essays that reflect the richness of this renaissance, penned by a new generation of British and American scholars who are uninhibited by the considerations of communal image and public obligation that once exercised a powerful influence on Anglo-Jewish historiography. History does not have lessons, says Alderman, but it may provide signposts, and he adds that in the case of the essays presented here “I believe there is one signpost that we would all do well to ponder: in multicultural Britain hard-working immigrants may be welcome, or they may be feared – or both. They are destined to remain not quite British, and, for better or worse, they are destined to bequeath this otherness to the generations that follow them."
Introduction by Geoffrey Alderman. I. Between Daydream and Nightmare: Fin de Siècle Jewish Journeys and the British Imagination by Hannah Ewence … 1 II. The Jews of Leeds: Immigrant Identity in the Provinces 1800-1920 by James Appell 25. III. “Good Jews and Civilized, Self-Reliant Englishment:” Crafting Anglo-Jewish Education in the 19th Century By Sara Abosch 49. IV. What’s in a Name? The Changing Titles of Norwood, the Jewish Children’s Orphanage by Lawrence Cohen 73. V. “The True Art Makes for the Integration of the Race:” Israel Zangwill and the Varieties of the Jewish Normalization Discourse in Fin de Siècle Britain by Arie M. Dubnov 101. VI. “Some Lesser Known Aspects:” The Anti-Fascist Campaign of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, 1936-40 by Daniel Tilles 135. VII. “The Dark Alien Executive:” Jewish Producers, Émigrés and the British Film Industry in the 1930s by Edward Marshall 163. Notes on Contributors 188. Index 191.
