‘Wandering Jews’? British Jewry, outdoor recreation and the far-left, 1900–1939

Abstract

During the early twentieth century, scores of second and third generation migrant Jews became deeply involved and interested in outdoor recreation (cycling, camping and rambling) associated with the political far-left in Britain. Amongst politically inspired organisations such as the Clarion Cycling Club, the British Workers' Sports Federation and the Young Communist League, Jews were keen consumers of opportunities for recreation in the British outdoors. This was a growing leisure habit which was zealously protected when threatened and had a significant impact on many Jews' lifestyles and ethnicities. This article will demonstrate that many Jews ‘wandering’ on organised rambles in the Peaks or Chilterns were also ‘wandering’ away from their Jewishness by moving closer, in terms of social, cultural and political lifestyles and identity, to their non-Jewish working-class peers.

Keywords::

• Jews
• recreation
• socialism
• communism
• cycling
• rambling

Notes

^1. Blumenfeld, Jew Boy, 21–2.

^2. Ibid., 125.

^3. Cesarani, “Funny Thing,” 13.

^4. See, for instance, Heppell, “Rebel, Not a Rabbi”; Srebrnik, London Jews and Cullen, “‘Jewish Communists’.”

^5. See Cullen, “‘Jewish Communists’,” 24–5.

^6. Morgan, Cohen and Flinn, Communists and British Society, 191.

^7. Endelman, Radical Assimilation, 189.

^8. See Dee, Sport and British Jewry, 88–157.

^9. Jones, Sport, Politics and the Working Class, 141.

^10. Endelman, Radical Assimilation, 190.

^11. Holt, Sport and the British, 195–6.

^12. Jones, Workers at Play, 62–75.

^13. Endelman, Radical Assimilation, 74–5.

^14. Jolles, Rubinstein and Rubinstein, Palgrave Dictionary, 844. See also Jewish Chronicle, February 26, 1886.

^15. Williams, Jewish Manchester, 84–6.

^16. Cesarani, “Funny Thing,” 13.

^17. See Dee, Sport and British Jewry, 88–122.

^18. Jones, Sport, Politics and the Working Class, 32, 106–7. See also Pye, Fellowship is Life.

^19. Riordan, “Amateurism, Sport and the Left,” 475.

^20. Rubinstein, “Cycling in the 1890s,” 69.

^21. Pollins, “Moving Here.”

^22. CPGB, Biographical Collection, Folder 6, Paper 5, ‘Jack Rosenberg’; CPGB, Biographical Collection, Folder 7, Paper 3, ‘Jack Symons’.

^23. MJM, Oral History Collection, Interview J63, ‘Jack Cohen’.

^24. MJM, Oral History Collection, Interview J289, ‘Benny Rothman’.

^25. Cantor, a Manchester-born second-generation immigrant, served and died in the Spanish Civil War. Young Communist League, Ralph Cantor. Wilf Lever became a member of the Bury Clarion Cycling Club in the 1930s. Bury Clarion Cycling Club, “Wilf Lever.”

^26. Williams, Jewish Manchester, 121.

^27. See note 23 above.

^28. See note 24 above.

^29. Ibid.

^30. Geerwitz, “Anti-Fascist Activity,” 19.

^31. MJM, Oral History Collection, Interview J63, ‘Jack Cohen’. For the Plebs League, see Miles, “Workers' Education.”

^32. See note 23 above.

^33. Ibid.

^34. See note 24 above.

^35. Morgan, Cohen and Flinn, Communists and British Society, 188.

^36. Heppell, “Rebel, Not a Rabbi,” 32; Heppell, “Question,” 107–8.

^37. Cullen, “‘Jewish Communists’,” 26–38.

^38. Heppell, “Party Recruitment,” 157.

^39. Ibid., 152, 157.

^40. Linehan, Communism in Britain, 146–8.

^41. Jones, Sport, Politics and the Working Class, 81.

^42. Linehan, Communism in Britain, 152; Riordan, “Amateurism, Sport and the Left,” 479 and MJM, Oral History Collection, J88, Interview with Soloman Gadian.

^43. Jacobs, Out of the Ghetto, 39.

^44. Ibid., 104.

^45. WCML, Bernard Rothman Papers, PP/ROTH/7, Interview with Benny Rothman.

^46. Ibid.

^47. Jones, Sport, Politics and the Working Class, 91.

^48. Rothman, along with many other Jewish Federation members, met his future wife on a BWSF camp in the early 1930s. MJM, Oral History Collection, Interview J289, ‘Benny Rothman’.

^49. Rothman, Battle for Kinder Scout, 16–7.

^50. Linehan, Communism in Britain, 46–7.

^51. Heppell, “Party Recruitment,” 165.

^52. See Gewirtz, “Anti-Fascist Activity,” 17–20 and Cullen, “‘Jewish Communists’,” 29–30.

^53. Heppell, “Party Recruitment,” 150–1, 164 and Shaw, “My Father.”

^54. Quoted in Linehan, Communism in Britain, 54.

^55. See note 23 above.

^56. Linehan, Communism in Britain, 56–7.

^57. Morgan, Cohen and Flinn, Communists and British Society, 32.

^58. Linehan, Communism in Britain, 56, 122, 153–5.

^59. WCML, Bernard Rothman Papers, PP/ROTH/8, Interview with Benny Rothman.

^60. See note 24 above.

^61. MJM, Oral History Collection, Interview J61, ‘Clyne Sisters’.

^62. Kaiserman, “From Barber Shop to Paper Mill.”

^63. WCML, Cheetham YCL, TAPE/108, ‘Discussions about Cheetham Young Communist League’.

^64. Gewirtz, “Anti-Fascist Activity,” 19–26.

^65. MJM, Oral History Collection, J89, ‘Joe Garman’.

^66. WCML, Abraham Frost, Papers, TAPE/322A, Interview with Abe Frost.

^67. See note 24 above.

^68. “Battle of Kinder Scout.”

^69. Lowerson, “Battles for the Countryside,” 268 and Goldman, East End My Cradle, 112.

^70. See note 63 above.

^71. Morgan, Cohen and Flinn, Communists and British Society, 193.

^72. Both quoted Jones, Workers at Play, 65–6. The middle-class sporting environment more widely discriminated against Jews for a large part of the twentieth century. See Dee, Sport and British Jewry, 174–95.

^73. Heppell, “Party Recruitment,” 157.

^74. Endelman, Radical Assimilation, 190.

^75. Jones, Workers at Play, 190.

^76. Rothman, Battle for Kinder Scout, 55–9 and Kaiserman, “From Barber Shop to Paper Mill.”

^77. Jones, Workers at Play, 190.

^78. Lowerson, “Battles for the Countryside,” 276.

^79. Jones, Sport, Politics and the Working Class, 144.

^80. Rothman, Battle for Kinder Scout, 16.

^81. Lowerson, “Battles for the Countryside,” 273.

^82. Rothman, Battle for Kinder Scout, 25–35.

^83. See note 59 above.

^84. Ibid.

^85. Rothman, Battle for Kinder Scout, 10.

^86. WCML, Bernard Rothman Papers, Handwritten court notes, July 1932.

^87. MJM, Oral History Collection, J88, ‘Solomon Gadian’.

^88. Heppell, “Rebel, Not a Rabbi,” 47.

^89. Rubinstein, Cycling in the 1890s, 47.

^90. Lowerson, “Battles for the Countryside,” 269.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

David Dee

David Dee has published widely on British-Jewish history, in particular the community's involvement with sport and leisure and the effect of this on Jewish ethnic identity. His first monograph, Sport and British Jewry: Integration, Ethnicity and anti-Semitism, 1880–1970 was published in hardback by Manchester University Press in 2013. A paperback version is to be published in November 2014. He is currently working on a new book which focuses on social change and identity formation amongst the Jewish community in the interwar years.