The Battle of Cable Street

AJR Information Volume LI No. 10 October 1996 £3 (to non-members) Dor)'t miss... Burden of history f^chard Grunberger p3 A significant anniversary Conman's contrition Martha Blend p4 The Battle of Cable Street Ghetto that fought back ixty years ago this month, when most of us latched onto, as Hitler did to Stoecker in Germany, ProfWilHan) Fishman were lulled into a false sense of security - in and to Lueger in Austria. pl3 SBerlin antisemitic placards had disappeared to 'Homegrown' is a key word in this context: for boost Olympic tourism, and Austria seemed all that Mosley was an aristocratic war veteran, he quiescent under Schuschnigg's rule - a landmark appeared to many Britons as a foreign - Italian, Nation of event occurred on the English side of the Channel: and latterly, German - import. Besides, since the the 'Battle of Cable Street'. summer of 1936, Spain had provided a blood shopkeepers This country had long enjoyed internal peace, with curdling example of what the militarisation of the last battle on British soil fought in 1745, and no politics could lead to. Only a few weeks before apoleon's politician assassinated since 1812. For the entire pre Cable Street, General Franco's soldiers had mur epithet for vious century the gun had only played a role on the dered the poet Garcia Lorca - an outrage which N the English margins of the political arena, i.e. in Ireland. had inoculated the vast majority of British intellec boomerangs as And now, on 11 October 1936, the East End of tuals against the spurious attractions of Fascism. profit-minded London resembled an armed camp, with anti- And, just as earlier that year the Front Populaire Chirac cosies up to Fascists building barricades to deny control of the had come to power in France, so now in the East Saddam. The streets to the 3,000 Blackshirts Mosley had mus End a united front of Communists, Labour support butcher of Baghdad tered. ers. Liberals and Jews denied Mosley victory in the needs to be caged Blackshirt was a significant term because so far Battle of Cable Street. Since throughout the 1930's in, not helped by Britain had - uniquely among the countries of inter - that 'low dishonest decade' (Auden) - a Fascist splits in the war Europe - been spared the militarisation of defeat was an all-too-rare occurrence, the events of Alliance. politics. Not that the scourges of financial upheaval Cable Street lit a real spark in the encircling gloom. It behoves us to remember those who sixty years ago French splitting and mass unemployment, which destabilised Conti nental societies, were unknown here, but Britain had made the slogan 'They Shall Not Pass' a reality on tactics spring in never - or at least not since Cromwell three hun the mean streets of the East End D part from the anti- dred years earlier - looked to a 'saviour' in (See also page 13) Americanism uniform, or to the armed forces as arbiter of the preached by de national destiny. Gaulle. Nations, Here the army, the 'junior service', had always like individuals, been numerically small; composed entirely of non- often resent those conscripts, nobody would have called it (in the to whom they owe German fashion) 'the school of the nation'. Nor a debt of gratitude, was the Minister of War a general who ordered min and France is isters about, but a civilian who told the brass hats doubly indebted to what to do. the US: firstly for When Mosley tried to lead his uniformed cohorts her liberation in through the East End he therefore failed - unlike the Stahlhelm or the SA in Germany - to stir mar 1944, and secondly tial nostalgia in the breasts of onlookers. His for the boost Jew-baiting undoubtedly elicited some support, but Marshall Aid gave although Britain was no stranger to social to her postwar antisemitism, it lacked a tradition of political recovery. antisemitism that a home-grown racist could have Commercial Road looking towards Gardiner's Corner in tiie 1910s. AJR INFORMATION OCTOBER 1996 he had for many years sat beside a leading (copied nationwide) at the Royal London Double Profile member of Otto Schiff's Council aad Hospital, Whitechapel, as clinical nurse Management Committee, Peter Held, who specialist and counsellor, then spent two was at the time searching for a 'younger years tutoring at the prestigious Nightin New leadership team man' to lead them. In November 1995 gale School of Nursing, St. Thomas's Allan accepted an invitation to take on Hospital. at Otto Schiff the chairmanship and responsibility for new leadership team has been eight homes and sheltered houses with formed to continue and develop 300 residents of the Otto Schiff Housing A the traditions of the residential Association. His mother-in-law is a resi care and nursing homes and sheltered dent of Balint House. housing of the Otto Schiff Housing Allan regards it as most important that Association (OSHA). Established to care Otto Schiff "be there when they need us". for refugees from Nazi persecution and A new brochure guides prospective resi formerly managed by OSHA's dents and their families in choosing predecessors, the CBF Residential Care suitable accommodation and promotes and Housing Association, today's homes the association's expertise in serving the provide the highest standards of care to needs of refugees - part of a need to Jewish men and women in their publicise how well they will be looked af retirement years while maintaining the ter. rich European cultural heritage and way A similar priority is being given to of life. maintaining the high standard of residen tial accommodation to accompany the association's exceptional care. A continu ous programme of investment in upgrading and refurbishing homes - resi dential rooms, public areas, equipment, even the gardens - is in hand. Allan ex pressed particular gratitude to the AJR Tony Shepherd, Chief Executive for supporting the programme of refur In 1988 Tony joined a team carrying bishment being undertaken at Osmond out a feeding programme in Calcutta, In House in The Bishops Avenue. dia. Mornings he worked at a clinic, For the future, he sees the possibility of afternoons on the programme, other times helping people to cope in their own at Mother Theresa's Home for the Dying homes as an area in which OSHA could and Destitute which he found inspiring. well work in close partnership with Back in England, he was one of the first AJR's Social Service Department D NHS Hospital General Managers, respon sible for an £8 million budget and over 300 staff. Three years on he was ap pointed Chief Nursing Officer, then ony Shepherd, whose tenure as Director, of the Jewish Home and Hospi Chief Executive has already run for tal in Tottenham. When the home was Ta year, was brought up in the incorporated into Jewish Care, Tony first Wirral, Cheshire, and had several Jewish Allan Blacher, Chairman became General Manager of their five friends. He began his career as a sixteen- nursing homes, then Senior General Man At fifty years of age Allan Blacher, Otto year-old nursing cadet in a dauntingly ager and Chief Nurse of all 21 residential Schiff's new honorary chairman, brings large psychiatric hospital in Chester. and nursing homes. an energetic, caring and businesslike view On qualifying as an RMN he took up a At the Otto Schiff Housing Association to guiding the association's affairs. Born post as charge nurse (equivalent to a sis he gives a high priority to staff training in South Africa to immigrant parents, ter) at a hospital which used many of the and the creation of smaller home units post-barmitzvah he continued his educa latest techniques, and followed this with from the larger institutions - Osmond tion at Carmel College, Berkshire. Allan the challenge of a south London hospital House will be the first to benefit. Tony stayed in England. He married and he and for the acutely ill. It was a decade of tre Shepherd's wealth of experience, knowl his wife Wendy have a son and daughter. mendous progress and far greater edge of the Jewish community and Developing his expertise in marketing, understanding in the treatment of mental commitment to caring for the elderly and by the early 1980s Allan was commercial illness - open wards, new drugs, long- retired, is beyond doubt. It is more than director of the fast-expanding British Air lasting injections and an improved probable that membership of the Society ports Authority, subsequently diversifying scientific approach. of Friends, the Quakers, strengthens his into interests from chocolates to football After spending a year working for the conviction 'to look for good in pools. celebrated artist David Hockney at everyone' Though a self-confessed avoider of Jew Glyndbourne Opera House, Tony headed D Ronald Channing ish community committees, at synagogue a pioneering psychiatric emergency clinic (Continued in next issue) AJR INFORMATION OCTOBER 1996 The burden of history gun metal, Winston Churchill - another man of destiny dogged by controversy. 5 YEARS AND STILL NO he Pope has just visited France, the Detractors cite his Dardanelles fiasco, and 'eldest daughter of the Church'. anti-Labour and anti-Indian sentiments, PROGRESS ON YOUR TThe occasion was the 1500th but all this pales into insignificance when PROPERTY CLAIM anniversary of the conversion of the measured against Churchill's never-to-be- IN BERLIN & EAST pagan Frankish chieftain Chlodwig who, forgotten role as saviour of the world as King Clovis, is the reputed founder of from the scourge of Nazism. GERMANY? the country. Though Chirac and John Which brings us to Germany, a country We are specialists in speeding up cases.

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