New Directions in Anglo-Jewish History

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."

Geoffrey Alderman (Ph.D. University of Oxford, 1969) is the Michael Gross Professor of Politics & Contemporary History at the University of Buckingham and is the acknowledged authority on the history of the Jews in modern Britain. In 2006, Oxford conferred on him with the degree of Doctor of Letters in respect of his work in this field.

Simon Mayers:
“'New Directions in Anglo-Jewish History' presents a collection of seven essays on diverse aspects of modern Anglo-Jewish history. The introduction to the volume by its editor, Geoffrey Alderman, prepares the reader for something dynamic and original. . . . Considering the prominence of Alderman as a scholar in the field of Anglo-Jewish history and his deserved reputation as a witty and insightful ‘communal gadfly,’ we should expect an exciting, provocative and controversial collection of essays. The essays are indeed well researched, stimulating, and of an excellent standard. . . . [T]his volume contains something for anyone interested in Anglo-Jewish history.”

Annotation ©2010 Book News Inc. Portland, OR:
"After noting the recent renaissance in academic study of modern Anglo-Jewish history in Great Britain, Alderman (politics and contemporary history, U. of Buckingham) briefly summarizes earlier historiography that perpetuated the myth of a universally- welcomed homogenous group of immigrants. In seven essays, UK scholars address themes including the influence of the wider society on Jewish self-image, e.g., internalization of critical images as outsiders in the early works of Anglo-Jewish author Israel Zangwill (d. 1926); the place of Jews in the working-class; and a case study countering the allegedly lax response of British Jews to home-grown fascism in the 1930s."

Todd M. Endelman, William Haber Professor of Modern Jewish History, University of Michigan:
"This valuable collection of essays by new scholars in the field of Anglo-Jewish history is a welcome addition. The essays introduce topics that have received little attention hitherto - such as immigrant identity in the provices at the turn of the century and émigré Jews in the British film industry in the 1930s - as well as question conventional historical views - such as the belief that the response of the Board of Deputies to British fascism was weak and ineffective."

Colin Holmes, Emeritus Professor of History, University of Sheffield:
"Studies of Anglo-Jewry have changed dramatically since 1960 and Lloyd Gartner’s important work, The Jewish Immigrant in England. The essays in New Directions in Anglo-Jewish History take this progress a stage further. There is work on migrants, those who became “houseless, homeless, friendless in a strange place.” There is a welcome awareness Anglo-Jewish history needs to break away from a London-centric approach. New perspectives are offered on the elite responses to fascist anti-Semitism in the 1930s. The important role of Jews in the British film industry pushes the boundaries further still. Such essays and the other contributions to this volume, bear witness to the greater academic recognition recently accorded to Anglo-Jewish history. Moreover, all the texts carry insights which remain relevant in an age of globalization when migration continues apace and other immigrants and refugees continue to confront that mixture of “dream and nightmare” such uprooting invariably entails."

David Cesarani is research professor in History at Royal Holloway, University of London:
“This excellent collection is the advance guard of the second wave of scholarly research into the Jewish experience in Britain since the predominance of gifted amateurs ended in the 1980s. It is multi-disciplinary, wide-ranging, conceptually sophisticated, full of irony and frequently witty. There are no apologetics here. With these mainly young scholars, who hail from a variety of backgrounds, British Jewish history has reached maturity. The results are fascinating, sometimes shocking, but always illuminating."

Professor Tony Kushner, Parkes Institute, University of Southampton:
“The essays in this neatly-edited volume provide exciting new insights into Anglo-Jewish history. They represent the second generation of critical scholarship on the subject matter and are united in their innovative and subtle nature. Topics as varied as literature, film and orphanages are explored in essays that range in chronology from the mid-Victorian era through to the eve of the Second World War. They break through barriers of history from above and below, of history and culture, and of Jewish and non-Jewish responses, providing critical perspectives on new and old topics alike. Taken together they represent the coming of age of the study of Anglo-Jewry, a subject matter until recently sadly ignored in British as well as Jewish historiography.”