From the arts to science: What a UK Jewish History Month might include
Jewish News and Jewish Renaissance launch campaign for annual celebration ahead of historic Commons debate
Ahead of an historic Commons debate today aimed at securing a national Jewish History Month, Jewish News and Jewish Renaissance are launching a campaign to support the initiative.
Nickie Aiken, Conservative MP for Cities of London and Westminster told Jewish News she was determined to ensure the “significant and positive contribution the community has made” is properly recognised.
She added: “There is so much rich British Jewish history and the significant contribution the community has made to improve the lives of all Britons. Whether it’s in business, science, the arts, politics, the legislator, academia, philanthropy, British Jews punch way above their weight when it comes to making a difference for the better. It is time we recognised and celebrate these outstanding achievements.”
The first Jews arrived in this country more than 2,000 years ago with the Romans. Fast forward and according to the 2021 United Kingdom census, there were 271,327 Jews in England and Wales, accounting for an estimated 0.5% of the total population.
From media and medicine, to literature, art, sport and science, we have canvassed several communal and cultural organisations to explore what might be included.
THE ARTS
The single largest art donation to this country was by Sir Arthur Gilbert (1913-2001, knighted in 2001) and his first wife Rosalinde (1913-95), who donated their entire collection of treasures to London’s Victoria and Albert Museum. It includes gold and silver, enamel miniatures, gold boxes and mosaics.
Emilia Bassano Lanier, a Jewish musician famed for her beauty, is thought to have been the inspiration behind William Shakespeare’s ‘Dark Lady’, who featured in his sonnets. She wrote and lived at the same time as the Bard, who was just four years older. No confirmed representations of Emilia Lanier from her lifetime exist.
Sir Simon Schama and Simon Sebag Montefiore are both British historians, television presenters and authors of popular history books.
Other British Jewish literary luminaries include Howard Jacobson, David Aaronovitch, Bernice Rubens, Anita Brookner and Linda Grant.
Bernard Kops is one of the best-known playwrights of his time. He achieved recognition with his first play, The Hamlet of Stepney Green, which has been performed worldwide. He has written more than 40 plays for stage and radio, nine novels, seven volumes of poetry and two volumes of autobiography.
Playwright and actor Steven Berkoff and film director Sam Mendes are considered national theatrical treasures, Sacha Baron Cohen brought us Ali G, and Sam Wanamaker (1919-1993), who moved to the UK during the McCarthy trials, devoted his life to reinventing at Shakespeare’s Globe theatre in London’s Southbank.
Harold Pinter and Arnold Wesker, two of Britain’s greatest ever dramatists, died in 2008 and 2016 respectively, having both been born in the early 1930s. Pinter won a Nobel Prize in 2005, and Wesker was knighted in 2006.
Veteran actress Dame Maureen Lipman deserved an ‘ology’ as the legendary ‘Beattie’ for the very Jewish British Telecom advert, not to mention her role in Coronation Street, whilst Tracy Ann-Oberman is the first British actress to play Shylock in her groundbreaking portrayal of The Merchant of Venice.
Soulful Jewish singer and songwriter Amy Winehouse made two critically acclaimed albums, Frank and Back to Black. A life-size bronze statue of the star, unveiled at Camden Town in 2014, complete with beehive hairstyle and Star of David necklace, is a must-see tourist attraction in central London.
Liverpool’s Jewish impresario Brian Epstein brought us the Beatles and Amy Winehouse whilst arts promoter Harvey Goldsmith famously brought ‘Live Aid’ to the world.
SOCIAL REFORM and PHILANTHROPY
Known as the Angel of the East End, Miriam Moses was a social reformer and the first female mayor of Stepney (1931–32). One of nine surviving children of Mark Moses, who had moved to England from Poland when he was just eight years old, and his wife, charity worker Hannah (Annie, née Ehrenberg), a blue plaque marks her place of birth at 17 Princelet Street.
Leonard Montefiore supported women’s emancipation in Victorian England. Born in 1853, he died young, aged 26, of rheumatic fever, Montefiore was a nephew of famous financier Sir Moses Montefiore, and his friends included playwright Oscar Wilde and historian Arnold Toynbee.
He was Secretary of the Society for the Extension of University Teaching in Tower Hamlets, a member of the Jewish Board of Guardians, and a passionate advocate of women’s suffrage. An historic fountain in London’s East End built was restored and unveiled in his honour by Baroness Rabbi Julia Neuberger in 2023.
In 2020, the Clore Duffield Foundation, chaired by philanthropist Dame Vivien, the founder of cultural institution JW3 and a director of the Southbank Centre, donated £2,551,371 to 66 cultural organisations in the UK including the Tate, Natural History Museum, National Portrait Gallery, Roundhouse, Unicorn Theatre and Royal Academy of Arts.
POLITICS:
Born Jewish in 1804, Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield, became an Anglican at the age of 12 years old after his father Isaac had an argument with their synagogue.
Disraeli historically served as Britain’s first ever Jewish Prime Minister in 1868 and then between 1874 and 1880.
The Rt Hon Dame Margaret Hodge is the Labour MP for Barking and has been an MP continuously since 9 June 1994. In 2010 Margaret became the first woman elected Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, serving until 2015.
Dominic Raab is the son of a Czech Jewish refugee who fled to Britain in 1938, leaving behind family who would later perish in the Shoah. A British Conservative Party politician, he has been Member of Parliament (MP) for Esher and Walton since 2010 and served as Deputy Prime Minister, Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice from 25 October 2022 to 21 April 2023.
As featured in Jewish News, British Jews have also been leaders of the opposition (Michael Howard for the Conservatives, Ed Miliband for Labour), Foreign Secretary (Rufus Isaacs, Malcolm Rifkind and David Miliband), Home Secretary (Herbert Samuel, Leon Brittan and Michael Howard) and Chancellor (Nigel Lawson and George Osborne).
RETAIL:
Marks and Spencer founder, Jewish immigrant Michael Marks arrived in England from Belarus (then Russian Poland).
Beginning work as a pedlar, in 1884 he opened his first Penny Bazaar stall at Kirkgate Market in Leeds, adding the slogan ‘Don’t ask the price, it’s a penny’.
In 1894 he teamed up with cashier Tom Spencer and on 28th September of that year, the British retail giant ‘Marks and Spencer’ was born.
As of December 2023, there were 1,057 M&S stores in the UK and 406 stores at locations across the globe.
Supermarket behemoth Tesco was founded by the late Sir Jack Cohen. Born Jacob Edward Kohen to Polish parents in 1898, he was a Whitechapel grocer who served in the British Army in Egypt and Palestine during the First World War before returning home to establish the business in Hackney.
In 1924, he created the Tesco brand name from the initials of a tea supplier, T. E. Stockwell, and the first two letters of his surname. There are now 2,863 Tesco stores across the UK.
SPORT
Bare-knuckle boxer Daniel Mendoza was a Sephardi Jew who was champion boxer of England for most years from 1788 until 1795.
Former professional Scottish boxer Gary “The Kid” Jacobs, held the British, Commonwealth and European (EBU) welterweight titles and fought for the WBC crown.
FASHION & STYLE
Famed for the short, geometrical five-point bob style beloved by the likes of Mary Quant, Helen Mirren and Goldie Hawn, celebrity hair stylist Vidal Sassoon was born to Jewish immigrant parents in Hammersmith, west London. He served in Israel’s War of Independence before returning home to the UK to start his hairdressing career as an apprentice, opening his first London salon in 1954.
Sassoon was also part of the legendary anti-Fascist 43 Group, formed by 38 Jewish ex-servicemen and five women, to fight back against the resurgence of Oswald Mosley’s British fascists. In 1982, he established the Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Jewish fashion duo Elizabeth and David Emanuel designed Princess Diana’s wedding dress whilst an exhibition at the Museum of London Docklands celebrating Jewish fashion designers from London, runs until April 2024.
Fashion City: How Jewish Londoners Shaped Global Style includes Mr Fish (born Michael Fish), Cecil Gee, Otto Lucas, the Rahvis sisters and Madame Isobel (Isobel Spevak Harris).
Gee, who began his career in the 1930s, designed the ‘Demob Suit’ — short for demobilisation — which was granted to British soldiers by the army after their release from World War II service.
SCIENCE and MEDICINE
Labour peer, surgeon and scientist Sir Robert Winston grew up in north London and developed techniques that improved in vitro fertilisation. He has presented several BBC series over the years and is an emeritus professor at Imperial College London.
Olga Kennard, Lady Burgen was a Hungarian-born British scientist who specialised in crystallography. She was the founder of the Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre.
Baroness Rabbi Julia Neuberger is a health leader who chairs University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. Formerly chair of the Kings Fund, an ethicist who has appeared on BBC Radio 2’s Pause for Thought), and an author.
J. Michael Kosterlitz jointly won the 2016 Nobel Prize for Physics for studies of unusual states of matter, which may open up new applications in both material sciences and electronics. He was born in Aberdeen, Scotland, to German Jewish emigres — his father was the pioneering biochemist Hans Walter Kosterlitz. Michael Kosterlitz was educated in England at Cambridge and Oxford universities.
Dr Hannah Billig, known as the Angel of Cable Street, was born 4 October 1901 at 41 Hanbury Street in Spitalfields to Russian Orthodox Jews Milly and Barnett Billig, who had fled their native home in fear of their lives following Russian pogroms.
A blue plaque at 198 Cable Street commemorates her work and bravery, when during the Second World War, she provided medical support voluntarily at air raid shelters in Wapping.
HISTORY and HERITAGE
Spitalfields market: From 1880 to 1970, Spitalfields was predominantly Jewish and likely one of the largest Jewish communities in Europe, with over forty synagogues. It is estimated that by 1901, parts of Spitalfields had an almost 95 per cent Jewish population.
Sandy’s Row in the East End is London’s oldest surviving Ashkenazi synagogue. Founded in 1854 by 50 Dutch Jewish families who were all economic refugees from Amsterdam, the Grade 2 listed building was originally a Huguenot chapel built in the 18th century.
Old Jewry, formerly known as Jewry, in the city of London was a thriving centre of medieval Jewish life.
Built in 1701, Bevis Marks Synagogue in Aldgate is the oldest synagogue in the United Kingdom. It was built by Sephardi Jews who had arrived from Amsterdam and is now a Grade 1-listed building in the City of London.
FOOD
Fried fish, known as ‘Pescado frito’, was first introduced into Britain by 16th century Jewish refugees from Portugal and Spain.
Ashkenazi Jewish immigrant Joseph Malin opened the first fish and chip shop in Cleveland Street, within the sounds of the Bow Bells, around 1860.
Even US President Thomas Jefferson, after a visit to England, wrote that he had sampled “fried fish in the Jewish fashion.”
Now a traditional British meal staple, the first Friday in June every year is National Fish & Chips Day. There are an estimated 11,000 ‘chippies’ across the UK today.
Bagels (or beigels) are thought to have originated from Eastern Europe and were sold in Brick Lane in the mid-19th century.
Rumour has it that the hole in the middle of bagels was to allow bakers to thread them onto dowels when they walked the streets selling their bread.
Brits now consume more than 320 million bagels every year.
NEXT WEEK: Cultural institutions tell Jewish News what they think Jewish History month should look like.
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