GEOFFREY ALDERMAN

Anglo-Jewry The Unspoken Fears

A synagogue was daubed with six swastikas sprayed with red paint; an accompany• ing slogan read "Yids Get Out."

Worshippers leaving synagogue on a Shabbat were pelted with plastic-bag "water bombs" from a moving car.

There was a series of attacks on Jews in broad daylight; "bloody Jew," one attacker announced, "we are out to get you."

An attempt was made to burn down a synagogue; leaflets found at the scene of the crime insisted that Jews had to be exterminated.

Yet another synagogue was daubed with swastikas and antisemitic slogans; one declared "Six million was not enough." At the same time another synagogue was damaged by fire.

A synagogue was burned to the ground.

A Jewish cemetery was extensively desecrated; nearly 200 tombstones were daubed or sprayed with antisemitic slogans; similar desecrations occurred at other Jewish cemeteries. A Jewish cemetery was daubed with Nazi slogans; the perpetrators left a pig's head as a memento of their visit. A synagogue in the same town was severely damaged by a fire which the police acknowledged was started deliberately.

Two synagogues were attacked and extensively desecrated.

A synagogue was extensively vandalized twice within a few weeks.

Geoffrey Alderman is Lecturer in British Official Historian of the Hendon Synagogue. Government and Politics at The Royal Holloway In 1978 he published British Elections: Myth College, University of . He is an academic and Reality, and has just completed a book adviser to the Hillel Foundation, London, a on the history of the Jewish vote in Great co-opted member of the Research Committee of Britain. Dr. Alderman has written this article the Board of Deputies of , and the in his private capacity.

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All these incidents took place neither ted at the time, had been "one long in South America nor in Soviet Russia denunciation of Jews." nor even in Iran. In fact, every one of the By the time of the Fascist-inspired at• attacks listed took place in England. Not tacks of the 1930s, the attitude of the the medieval England from which the Anglo-Jewish leadership had changed Jews were expelled nearly 700 years hardly at all. The advice of the Board of ago, or even the England of the 1930s, Deputies of British Jews was twofold. when Fascists exploited anti-Jewish feel• First, keep a low profile: The Board ing for their own political ends. No, all feared the consequences of Jews being these incidents have taken place in seen to defend themselves in public, and England within the past two-and-a-half it therefore did its best to persuade years, the first two incidents listed Anglo-Jewry not to engage in counter- happened in the Summer of 1977 and demonstrations. (We should remind the last two as recently as the Autumn ourselves at this point that the Board of 1979. simultaneously refused, to its eternal According to any criterion these oc• shame, to institute an official Anglo- currences (and I have picked out merely Jewish economic boycott of Nazi Ger• the most prominent; many never even many.) Fortunately, the Jewish com• get reported) must give rise to concern. munity repudiated the Board's advice on It is easy to dismiss them as the work of both counts: a Jewish Representative hooligans and cranks, and as "isolated Council for the Boycott of German incidents." Such explanations are, and Goods and Services was formed, with always have been, the stock-in-trade of over 190 synagogues and 63 Zionist the Anglo-Jewish establishment. When a societies represented; and in July 1936 week-long orgy of violence was visited the Jewish Labour Council urged Jews upon the Jews of South Wales in August not to stay away from a march, planned 1911, Jewish leaders dismissed the at• for 4 October, which the British Union tacks as the work of thieves and robbers; of Fascists intended to conduct through Stuart Samuel (Herbert's brother) put the Jewish area of Stepney, but to them down to "the outlet of the lust of stop it. This resulted in the famous criminals and the vulgar." Yet there was "battle" of , as a result overwhelming evidence of a history of in• of which the government, at last, cracked digenous Welsh antisemitism, partly down on Mosley and his followers. religious in character, during the Second, the Board of Deputies ac• previous 50 years. The attacks of 1911 tually blamed Jews for the growth of an• were planned, not spontaneous, and the tisemitism in Britain! Neville Laski, the attackers were not "young hooligans"; Board's president, practically asked the prosecuting lawyer described them Jewish businessmen and real-estate as "people who were generally respect• agents to demote themselves to second- able," and a local company manager class citizens, and to deny to themselves declared that they were "respectable terms of trade and business, such as people to all appearances." The cry of price-cutting, which everyone else happi• the mob, one London newspaper repor• ly engaged in. ANGLO-JEWRY: THE UNSPOKEN FEARS 55

Such German-Jewish refugees as of Commons asking for the Statute were allowed into Britain were kept well of 1290 (by which the Jews had out of public sight. The minute books of been expelled from England) to be my own synagogue (Hendon) reveal a re-enacted. pathetic refusal to allow refugees to use Nazi Germany, in fact, had plenty of the synagogue premises, for fear of en• British admirers who, if they did not like couraging "gatherings of German or approve of everything that was done people," even though they were Jews! in the name of the Fuhrer, nonetheless Indeed, even the treatment given to believed (like Lloyd George, whose refugee Jewish children was far from government had in 1917 authorized the what it should have been. Addressing Balfour Declaration) that it was wrong the Birmingham branch of the Jewish for Britain to meddle "in a business Historical Society of England in April which is pre-eminently one which 1977, Professor J.A.S. Grenville, who belongs to the Jews themselves."* came as a child refugee from Germany in Many, probably most thinking people in 1938, drew attention to "the obstacles Britain, believed that Germany had placed in the path to higher education been wrongly dealt with after the end of by the Jewish Refugees Committee, the the first World War; appeasement was refusal to permit free places to be taken not yet a dirty word, and "economic ap• up at independent schools, and the effec• peasement" was highly respectable: it tive moves against any form of adult was OK to do business with Corporal education for the refugees." Hitler. I believe that the Anglo-Jewish And then there was Palestine, that leadership took this attitude because it millstone round the neck of the British knew how deeply anti-Jewish prejudice Empire, which threatened to sour rela• had permeated British society, but was tions permanently between the Mother afraid to say so in public. In particular, Country and her countless Muslim sub• the Board of Deputies knew, from the jects. Jews were expendable. In the last intelligence reports that it commissioned resort, no British government would and received, that antisemitism was sacrifice its own self-interest, to save rampant at all levels, that Oswald Jews in Germany or Palestine. In a Mosley, the Fascist leader, had powerful crisis, could British Jews, even British- friends in the political elite, and that, in• born Jews, expect to be able to declare deed, there were antisémites far more their British citizenship and thereby es• paranoid than those to be found under cape the mob? The leaders of Anglo- the fascist umbrella. In the opinion of Jewry would have liked to say "Yes, of many, the most dangerous British an• course," but they knew they could not. tisémite of the 1930s was Captain Far better to keep one's head well down, Archibald Maule-Ramsay, a Conser• stay out of the limelight, and wait until vative MP and a leading figure in the the storm passed. , who celebrated his * (Lloyd George to Philip Guedalla, 6 November release from wartime internment in 1934, in the Central Zionist Archives, A159, 1945 by tabling a motion in the House ,File 3). 56 FORUM-37: IN THE COMMUNITIES

Well, the storm came, there was much was right." Dr. Colin Holmes,* of the bloodshed, six million Jews were University of Sheffield, believes that Ar• murdered, but the Nazis never reached nold Leese, a leading figure of the prewar Britain, and Anglo-Jewry was spared , was the major the black privilege of the Death Camps. influence upon the political evolution of The Jewish State was re-established. Jordan (now head of the British Move• There were some ugly incidents of Jew- ment and one of the ablest neo-Nazi baiting in London and the provinces in leaders in the UK). In Gothic Ripples, 1947, but were these not just spillovers which Leese began publishing in the from the Palestine imbroglio? Mosley Summer of 1945, he praised Hitler's attempted a comeback, but it fizzled out. Jewish policy and went so far as to de• Britain recognized Israel. In the 1950s fend the extermination camps. British Jews moved quickly out of the Leese's ideas have also permeated the original semi-ghetto areas of settlement National Front, whose magazine, and adapted themselves to a congenial Spearhead, has advertised Gothic Rip• middle-class suburban lifestyle. ples and other extreme antisemitic jour• So "it never happened here" quickly nals. The Front came into being in 1966 became "it could never happen here." as the result of a merger between But the truth was that antisemitism had Jordan's and the not disappeared from Great Britain, and League of Empire Loyalists, whose the prewar British Jew-baiters had not leader, A.K. Chesterton, became the given up their evil game. A few had the Front's Policy Director. Later, other ex• audacity to try and infiltrate respectable tremist groups, such as the Racial party politics. In 1950 the Conservative Preservation Society and John Tyndall's party took the extreme step of vetoing Greater Britain Movement, placed the selection of , who themselves under the Front's umbrella. had been chosen as Conservative can• Tyndall, the Front's chairman, is a didate for Chorley, Lancashire. Foun- rabble-rouser of ability; in 1969 the taine's attitude to Jews was considered Sunday Times quoted him as saying beyond the pale; little wonder that this "The Jew is like a poisonous maggot Norfolk landowner subsequently rose to feeding on a body in an advanced state become deputy-chairman of the National of decay." , the Front's publicity-hungry national activities Front. organizer, is the author of an article en• The links between the National Front titled "Why I Am a Nazi." Dr. Michael and other extreme right-wing groups Billig** has shown quite clearly that, presently to be found in Britain, such as although the main thrust of the Front's the National Party, and the antisemites and Jew-baiters of the 1920s and 1930s are clear and unmistakable. In July 1962, during an infamous rally that was *Anti-Semitism in British Society 1876-1939, Edward Arnold, London, 1979. allowed to take place at Trafalgar Square, , co-founder of the * *Fascists: A Social Psychological View of the National Front, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, British National Party ^.declared "Hitler London, 1978. ANGLO-JEWRY: THE UNSPOKEN FEARS 57 propaganda and the mainstay of its pop• able to raise the sum of over £45,000, ularity has been crude color prejudice, which it knew it would not recover. This fed by the influx of Asian and Afro- remarkable fact in itself presupposes Caribbean migrants into Britain, fairly sophisticated methods of fundrais- basically the Front remains antisemitic ing, and hard work by scores, •perhaps to the core, and is the purveyor of "long- hundreds, of volunteer fundraisers. At established antisemitic traditions"; its the polls over 190,000 electors gave the philosophy demonstrates "a clear Front their support. In certain areas the historical continuity with Nazism and Front's popular appeal held up very well: the survival of the antisemitic belief in a in Hackney North its vote fell from 3.7 world Jewish conspiracy." In contem• percent to 3.0 percent, and in Hackney porary National Front literature South the fall was only from 9.4 percent Zionism is invariably used as a synonym to 7.6 percent. This means that it has for such a "world conspiracy." succeeded locally in building up a core of But how seriously should one take the loyal supporters who do not regard sup• rambling fantasies of the Front and porting the National Front merely as a "protest vote." similar groups? Very seriously indeed. The British Union of Fascists never Locally, in fact, the Front has several fought a general election. But in the successes to its credit. In the West election of 1966 Mosley and three other Bromwich by-election of May 1973, candidates of his postwar Union Move• Martin Webster saved his deposit by ob• ment obtained an average of 3.7 percent taining 16.0 percent of the total vote. At of the votes cast. In 1970 the National the London borough elections of May Front gained an average 3.6 percent of 1978 the Front polled 10.5 percent of the votes in the 10 seats it contested. In the votes in Tower Hamlets and 13.6 February 1974 (54 candidates) the percent of the votes in Hackney. So Front's average was 3.2 percent, and although the Front's share of the vote in October 1974 (90 candidates) it nationwide has dropped continuously was 2.9 percent. In the most recent since 1970, its ability to attract money general election, May 1979, the Front appears to have increased, and in cer• fielded a record 302 candidates; the tain areas its support has been main• average share of the vote fell to 1.3 tained. And, when we look at the for• percent. tunes of even more extreme racist par• At first glance the fall by over a half ties, the picture is, indeed, still grimmer. in the Front's share of the vote might be At Blackburn, Lancashire, in May 1976 taken as indicating a serious decline in two candidates of the National Party (a its popularity. To get a proper perspec• breakaway party from the Front) actual• tive one needs to remember that under ly got themselves elected to the local British electoral law any candidate ob• authority. It is notorious that can• taining less than 12.5 percent of the didates of the extreme right have votes cast will forfeit his "deposit" of obtained election to other local *150. For this the Front was fully authorities by standing on a "rate• prepared, and therefore it was clearly payers" ticket. 58 FORUM-37: IN THE COMMUNITIES

Some extremist groups, which eschew northwest London were no more than electoral politics, are able to attack Jews "isolated acts of vandalism." Alfred and Jewish property with impunity. To Dunitz, an Honorary Officer of the the best of my knowledge, in only one of Hendon Synagogue, declared that the incidents listed at the beginning of "Jewish people have no more to fear than this article has there been a police Catholics and Protestants." Yet even in prosecution. Other groups are able to in• Northern Ireland, where Catholics and dulge openly in anti-Jewish propaganda Protestants are often to be found at each of the vilest kind. I have in front of me, other's throats, the cemeteries and as I write, a copy of a sticker, dis• places of worship of one denomination tributed widely in northwest London in are accorded a certain sanctity by the 1978, proclaiming "The Holocaust a other. Hoax. Help us expose this Jewish- Most insidious of all, however, are the Communist lie." The sticker contains a concerted efforts of the Jewish grandees stereotype sketch of a Jew (complete to keep incidents out of the newspapers. with long nose and skullcap) and, if you Commenting on the desecration of the please, the name and address of the North Finchley and Woodside Park Syn• organization responsible for it.* Little agogue, in April 1978, the Reverend M. wonder that Walter Nelson, in an article Plaskow told the Hendon Times "We on neo-Nazism written for the Jewish don't really want the publicity." Dennis Chronicle in November 1978, declared Signy, editor of the Hendon Times, says "Only in Britain do the Nazis pose a real he is under constant pressure to keep and immediate threat." such stories out of his paper, or at least Do the leaders of Anglo-Jewry also off the front page; this pressure comes, see the situation in this light? At one in Mr. Signy's words, "from the local level, the public level, they bend over police, the council and the Board of backward to reassure the Jewish com• Deputies." The police fear one success• munity that all is well. In a letter written ful attack might lead to another; and to the London Times in September the detection rate is abysmal. The local 1978 Mr. Martin Savitt and Dr. J. borough council is primarily interested Gewirtz (respectively Chairman and in a good public image. And the Board of Deputies would rather the Jewish Executive Director of the Board of community did.not know the true extent Deputies' Defence Committee) referred of what is going on. to "minor National Front irritations." In October 1978 the Sunday Times But if we turn to what is said in reported that Rabbi Cyril Harris, then private, we find that the Board of of Edgware synagogue, had claimed that Deputies — indeed all Anglo-Jewish the desecration of nearly 200 tomb• communal leaders — are far from happy stones at a Jewish cemetery in Golders with the situation. A confidential report Green and other incidents of attacks which has come into my possession upon Jews and Jewish property in (written for a major Anglo-Jewish organization in 1975) refers disturbing• *B.P. Publications, of 95A Chester Road East, Shotton, North Wales. ly to the National Front's infiltration of ANGLO-JEWRY: THE UNSPOKEN FEARS 59 trade unions, tenants' associations, stu• munal planning can never be accurately dent and animal welfare groups, and undertaken. local debating societies. The Front, the So the outlook is not good. What the report concludes, "has a real political in• leaders of Anglo-Jewry know only too fluence out of all proportion to its real well, but are fearful of admitting out strength"; and it adds a grim warning loud, the grass roots of the community that the Front's sphere of activity could experience every day. It has now become increase "if there is a future deteriora• fashionable, once again, to talk and tion in the economic life of the country." write disparagingly about Jews in We know, too, that the work of the public. Anti-Jewish jokes are "in"; one Board of Deputies' Defence Committee student magazine that I have seen asks now absorbs a substantial amount of the "What is the difference between a Jew Board's total budget: nearly half in the and a loaf of bread?" and answers "A six months preceding the May 1979 loaf of bread does not burn when it is general election. Annually since 1977, put into the oven." An as-yet- the Board, the Association of Jewish Ex- unpublished survey of Jews in the Servicemen and Women, and, latterly, London borough of Redbridge, which in• even the Chief Rabbi's office, have all is• cludes the large Jewish population of sued appeals to Jews to vote rather than Ilford, carried out under the auspices of abstain, and so pull down the proportion the Board of Deputies Research Unit in of the votes, nationally and locally, ob• 1976-1977, has shown that over 15 tained by the extremist parties. percent of respondent families admitted Recently, indeed, the hitherto un• to having experienced anti-Jewish pre• spoken fears have occasionally been ar• judice at school, and about 10 percent ticulated in public. Nigel Grizzard, as having experienced such prejudice at Bradford Community Officer and work. We know, too, that the rate of formerly a member of the Board's aliyah from Britain has been increasing Research Unit, writing in the Board's since 1976 and it is now well over 1,000 newsletter The Defender (launched in per year (in a community of, at most, 1979), deprecated the idea of including 408,000). Fear about the long-term a question on Jewish ethnic identity in future of Anglo-Jewry appears to be a the 1981 UK census because, though it prime factor in the motivation of these "would make available all the social and British olim, and those to whom I demographic data required for com• talked, during a three-month sabbatical munity planning," it would also "provide in Israel at the beginning of 1979, freely central government with a master list of admitted that they did not want their all Jews." "This," Mr. Grizzard adds, children to be brought up in an environ• "is a sinister prospect." Thus, 35 years ment, in Britain, where antisemitism after the defeat of Hitler, the fear of had to be accepted as part of the natural political antisemitism in Britain is still order. felt to be great enough to warrant Anglo- I do not want to be thought an alar• Jewry denying itself the most basic mist. I am not saying that a British statistical data, without which com• Holocaust is around the corner. In this 60 FORUM-37: IN THE COMMUNITIES article I have quite deliberately not basis of such a possibility." Bold words, spoken about the grave problem of anti- indeed, for one who lived through it all. Zionism. In my view it is a separate but But they frighten me, for they betray an obviously related matter since a great approach to the problem of British an- many antisemites use anti-Zionism as a tisemitism so blinded as to make me cloak for their activities. But I would not wonder whether our leaders would ever go so far as to agree that every anti- be capable of recognizing the signs of a Zionist is, ipso facto, an antisemite deteriorating situation and of dealing (there are, after all, Jewish anti- with such a situation before it worsened Zionists). Nonetheless, I do wish that irretrievably. And if the writing on the our communal leaders in Britain would wall cannot be read, what chance is show a little less complacency and a there of its message being understood? little more urgency about the problem Or must we wait until, say, a system of of anti-Jewish elements in British proportional representation (there is society. already such a system in Northern The Board of Deputies has gone on Ireland, and every likelihood of a similar record as believing that a "catastrophe" system being implemented for the next could not happen in Britain. Addressing Common Market parliament elections in a Jewish Friendly Society in November the early 1980s) gives the extremists 1978, the late Lord Fisher of Camden, their first seat at Westminster? There then President of the Board, said "it would then, no doubt, be a great wring• would surely be the greatest folly to ing of hands. My fear is that it might think, or plan, for a community on the then be too late.