The Social Politics of Anglo-Jewry, 1880-1920

Anglo-Jewry was a small predominantly Ashkenazi group, which prospered in banking and investments. This book examines the ways in which this small, London-based Jewish elite developed a variety of institutions to socialize the Jewish community in Britain in the late-19th and early-20th centuries.

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Anglo-Jewry was a remarkable elite. A small, predominantly Ashkenazi group, it prospered in banking, investments, and to a lesser degree, commerce. These ambitious leaders created the institutions to make an effective network of social control, stamped British Jews in their image and moulded them to their prudential philosophy. They were confident of their skills, in their achievements, of their status and in their intentions. For almost half a century they held sway over their community, enjoying a fortuitous combination of personal longevity, unchallenged economic success and political supremacy. This book examines the ways in which a small, highly acculturated London-based Jewish elite developed a variety of institutions to socialize the Jewish community in Britain in the late-19th and early-20th centuries. Anglo-Jewry sought to establish a subculture within British society. Jews could be, so this elite contended, an accepted and respected part of British society while preserving the bonds of Jewish history, tradition and belief.
Those assumptions, not to mention the institutions that proclaimed them, came under increasing challenge as the Jewish community multiplied in size and changed in cultural background. While Anglo-Jewry laboured for more than a generation to resocialize these East European co-regionalists, Jewish newcomers displayed a capacity to adapt themselves on their own terms. Through what proved to be a creative tension of growth and development both elite and newcomers were changed. The task at hand, educating and assisting tens of thousands of newcomers, transformed the old order almost as profoundly as it conditioned the new.