BAITING OF JEWS

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 55, 6 March 1937, Page 14

BAITING OF JEWS

HISTORY IN EAST END

When Dr. J. J. Mallon, the warden of Toynbee Hall and one of the two new directors of the 8.8.C., spoke at Friends', House on "Anti-Semitism in East London" he helped, greatly to clarify the minds of most people on the recent issues by giving a brief history of the Jewish problem—such as it was -dn the .East End (says the "Manchester Guardian").

He started by saying that a gratifying feature of the recent disturbances was that no real inhabitant of the East End had been convicted. There was no indigenous anti-Semitism there—toleration and catholicity were in the bones of the place—and no racial hatred. At the same time it was unquestionable that the Jews and Gentiles there did not intermix.

, To explain this he began his brief history. The first Jewish invasion of the East End had been in Cromwellian times, when "better-off" Spanish and Portuguese Jews had been admitted to Houndsditch. The poorer Jews had followed them, but the problem of the East End Jews had never become in any way acute until the big immigration of Russian' Jews, driven out by persecution, in the 1890's. It was the commercial energy of these immigrants which had aroused such animosity as there was for their race in the East End. They were accused, often without any justification, of "sweating" labour and of .illicit trading. If they did trade on Sundays it was for deeply religious reasons. At any rate, he said, they were ■becoming rapidly anglicised, by intermarriage—the best solution of the problem,—their standards -of living were rising, and the complaints about "sweating" and the rest were losing their force.

Then the Fascists came. The East End Jew-baiting had become- one of the worst things in our history; -it'was'not even a spontaneous growth, but somethings engineered from the outside. Jews, of course, offered a broad front of attack, and the Fascist hope , was that, being attacked and being an "informally alive" people,' they would be forced into the Communists' arms. Then Fascists could denounce "the Jewish menace—the Communist, menace" in one breath.

Dr. Mallon ended "on a sanguine note." Good,,he thought, might come out of this recent anti-Semitism. It had taught East Enders its ; dangers.-: The Public Order Bill would "do down" the Fascists and no one else. They, could no longer strut in the East End in such attractive attire. As to practical measures for bringing Jew and Gentile together,'the formation of'mixed clubs and the holding of mixed discussional meetings were being considered. Jarvis.' '