Jews and British Sport: Integration, Ethnicity and Anti-Semitism, C1880-C1960
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Jews and British Sport: Integration, Ethnicity and Anti-Semitism, c1880-c1960 David Gareth Dee Thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for PhD Degree awarded by De Montfort University, Leicester Research sponsored by the Arts and Humanities Research Council Submission Date: March 2011 Contents: Chapter Page Number Number Abstract 4 List of Illustrations 5 List of Abbreviations 6 Acknowledgements 7 1 Introduction 8 2 Sport, ‘Anglicisation’ and Integration 36 ‘Anglicisation’ Through Sport: The Example of the Jewish Youth 45 Movement, 1895-1914 Competitive Sport and Immigrant Integration 80 The ‘Thoroughly Anglicised’ English-Jewish Sportsman?: The 107 Life and Career of Harold Abrahams 3 Sport, Religion and Ethnicity 141 The Impact of Physical Recreation on Observance of the Jewish 149 Sabbath, 1898-1939 The ‘New’ Golden Age of Jewish Professional Boxing 183 Creating a New Jew? Sport, Zionism and The Rise of Maccabi 214 Great Britain 4 Sport and anti-Semitism 249 The British Union of Fascists and the ‘Sporting Jew’, 1935-1939 256 ‘There is no Discrimination Here, but the Committee Never 282 Elects Jews’: Anti-Semitism and Golf Kicking Discrimination into Touch? Sporting Responses to Anti- 322 Semitism 5 Conclusions 352 Bibliography 364 3 Abstract: Between the 1890s and the 1960s, sport had a distinctive and varied impact on the social, cultural, political and economic life of the British Jewish community. During this period, Anglo-Jewry developed a clear sporting tradition, in both a direct and indirect sense, and their participation in the world of British sport had a significant impact on processes and discourses surrounding integration, ethnicity and anti-Semitism. Through a broad analysis of archival materials, newspaper sources and oral history, this thesis seeks to examine the influence that sport exerted on the Jewish community – paying particular attention to the ways in which physical recreation affected the internal dynamics of the community and influenced Jewish relations and interactions with the wider non- Jewish population. As will be shown, whilst sport is a useful lens through which to view socio-cultural development within Anglo-Jewish history, evidence suggests that physical recreation also had a notable and noticeable direct impact on Jewish life within Britain. Although Jewish sport history is an expanding field in an international context, it has been largely ignored within British academic research. Within the historiography of Anglo- Jewry, little attention has been paid to the socio-cultural impact of sporting participation. Similarly, within research concerning British sport history, race and immigration are themes that have been generally overlooked. As well as redressing important historiographical gaps, this thesis will also help expand our knowledge of the process behind minority integration and will further demonstrate the wider social importance, and the extensive and varied applications, of the historical study of sport. This thesis demonstrates that sport has been a key area for the creation, maintenance and erosion of Anglo-Jewish identity and has been an arena for the development, reinforcement and undermining of Jewish stereotypes. Sport, effectively, assumed a central role in Jewish life throughout this time period and was a pivotal factor in many social, cultural and political changes affecting the Jewish community of Britain. 4 List of Illustrations: Figure Description: Page Number: Number: 1 Cartoon from Golf Illustrated, 4 February 1910 292 2 Cartoon from Golf Illustrated, 25 October 1912 294 5 List of Abbreviations: Abbreviation: Full Title: AAA Amateur Athletic Association AJY Association of Jewish Youth BMA British Maccabi Association BUF British Union of Fascists BUSC Birmingham University, Special Collections JAA Jewish Athletic Association JFS Jews‘ Free School, London JLB Jewish Lads‘ Brigade LRO Liverpool Record Office LCC London County Council LFWBC London Federation of Working Boys‘ Clubs LMA London Metropolitan Archives MCA Manchester City Archives MJM Manchester Jewish Museum NA National Archives SJAC Scottish Jewish Archives Centre, Glasgow TWAS Tyne and Wear Archive Services UCCL University College, London, Library UoSSC University of Southampton, Special Collections 6 Acknowledgements: Many people have offered assistance with this work. Firstly, I would like to thank Panikos Panayi, whose help as a PhD supervisor and mentor was a significant factor in bringing this thesis to completion. His guidance has helped my academic and personal development in a number of ways and he has offered me considerable assistance and encouragement in the very early stages of my professional career. Thanks must also go to my other supervisors, Dick Holt and Matt Taylor. I am very appreciative of their support and suggestions, as well their thorough and detailed reading of drafts of my thesis during its various stage of development. Although not directly involved with the thesis, I would also like to express my gratitude to Jean Williams, Dil Porter, Neil Carter, Kathy Burrell, Jeff Hill, James Panter, John Martin, Mark Sandle and Chris Goldsmith for their general advice, assistance and reassurance over the past three years. I would like to thank Tony Collins who, together with Dick Holt, first suggested the topic of Anglo-Jewry and sport to me at Master‘s level. I am also very appreciative for the assistance offered by all of the friendly and helpful staff at the various archives, libraries and record offices that I visited during the research phase of the thesis. I would also like to express my gratitude to the Arts and Humanities Research Council for financing this thesis through their ‗Doctoral Scheme‘. Finally, and most importantly, I must thank those closest to me. I thank my parents for the many sacrifices they have made for me and for their unerring encouragement, not just during the research and writing of the thesis, but over the last 25 years as a whole. My brother and sister, Ian and Caroline, have also been a source of considerable support. Finally, I must attempt to express my gratitude to Caz, who has provided me with unending reassurance, guidance, encouragement and friendship. This thesis is as much their achievement as it is mine. 7 Chapter 1 Introduction In 2006, a 68-page booklet entitled Living and Giving: The Jewish Contribution to Life in the UK was published as part of the celebrations of the 350th anniversary of Jewish readmission to the United Kingdom.1 The publication, which included essays from a variety of well-known Anglo-Jewish professionals and intellectuals, sought to document Jewish involvement in British life and culture since 1656. The outwardly and openly celebratory booklet argued that ‗hardly an economic, social or cultural area remains untouched by the Jewish contribution‘. As well as outlining Jewish ‗achievement‘ in British law, medicine and science, ‗traditional‘ avenues of Jewish participation in British life, the booklet also included a chapter on one area of British society and culture not normally or readily associated with the Jewish community – sport and physical recreation.2 The author himself noted the traditional and popular belief, within both Jewish and non- Jewish society, that members of the British Jewish community had not generally been active within British sport. In his very first line, author, journalist and subsequently editor of the Jewish Chronicle, Stephen Pollard, noted that ‗two words which Jews themselves tend not to associate with Judaism are ―sports champion‖‘. Despite this statement, however, 1 Jews were expelled from Britain by Edward I in 1290 due to various economic and popular anti-Semitic charges against the small Jewish community. They were eventually re-admitted by Oliver Cromwell in 1656, seemingly for religious reasons and economic and trade benefits. Cecil Roth, A History of the Jews in England (Oxford, 1964), Chapter 4: ‗The Expulsion, 1272-1290‘; David Katz, The Jews in the History of England: 1485-1850 (Oxford, 1994), pp. 106-136. 2 Zaki Cooper, ‗Introduction‘ in Zaki Cooper (Ed), Living and Giving: The Jewish Contribution to Life in the UK, 1656-2006 (London, 2006), p. 11. in a brief three-page summary, Pollard demonstrated that Jews had been involved in sport in various guises as participants, spectators and businessmen since the late eighteenth century. Whilst openly admitting that his contribution to the booklet was ‗far from comprehensive‘, Pollard argued that ‗almost every sport has had successful Jewish participants‘ with Jews having both a ‗huge impact behind the scenes‘ and ‗an enormous contribution on the field‘.3 Despite its brevity and tenuous discussion of certain ‗Jewish‘ sporting personalities, Pollard‘s section on sport highlighted something that was widely known but not necessarily widely stated – namely, that Jews had been active in sport over much of the period since the late eighteenth century.4 But whilst Jews may have made a ‗contribution‘ to British sport, how has sport affected the British-Jewish population? What impact did sporting participation and interest have on the social, cultural, political and economic history of Anglo-Jewry? In what ways, and to what extent, did direct and indirect involvement in sport influence and shape Jewish life in modern Britain? These three questions form the focus of this thesis. By analysing and investigating Jewish participation in British sport between the age of Eastern European immigration in the late nineteenth century