Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Memory, Storytelling and Minorities: A Case Study of Jews in Britain and the First World War

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Minorities and the First World War

  • 637 Accesses

Abstract

As a generalisation, war studies have largely ignored minorities, while racial and ethnic studies has ignored the specific impact of war. This chapter suggests ways in which dialogue might be developed between the different approaches. From the nineteenth through much of the twentieth century, “martial race” theory dominated not only the selection of those deemed fit for military service, but also the way stories of warfare were subsequently constructed. It led to patterns of exclusion and inclusion within which those creating ethnic minority history have engaged and attempted to subvert. Using a case study of Jewish military service in the British Empire, this chapter will analyse the politics of memory that has been at the heart of studying war and minorities.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 89.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Hardcover Book
USD 119.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    Anthony Smith, “War and Ethnicity: The Role of Warfare in the Formation, Self-Images and Cohesion of Ethnic Communities,” Ethnic and Racial Studies 4:4 (1981): 375.

  2. 2.

    See also Santanu Das, ed., Race, Empire and First World War Writing (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), which is a remarkably wide ranging and multi-layered collection of essays.

  3. 3.

    Daniele Conversi, “Homogenisation, Nationalism and War: Should We Still Read Ernest Geller?,” Nations and Nationalism 13:3 (2007); Daniele Conversi, “‘We are all Equals!’. Militarism, Homogenization and ‘Egalitarianism’ in Nationalist State-Building (1789–1945),” Ethnic and Racial Studies 37:7 (2008).

  4. 4.

    Colin Holmes, John Bull’s Island: Immigration & British Society, 1871–1971 (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1988), 87.

  5. 5.

    Panikos Panayi, “Dominant Societies and Minorities in the Two World Wars,” in Minorities in Wartime: National and Racial Groupings in Europe, North America and Australia During the Two World Wars, ed. Panikos Panayi (Oxford: Berg, 1993), 3–4.

  6. 6.

    Thus David Goldberg and John Solomos, eds., A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies (Oxford: Blackwell, 2002), a state of the art collection, includes wide ranging material including contributions on political economy, space, and culture but has no section or sustained mention of war.

  7. 7.

    Panayi, “Dominant Societies”, 23.

  8. 8.

    Tony Kushner, “Local Heroes: Belgian Refugees in Britain during the First World War,” Immigrants & Minorities 18:1 (1999).

  9. 9.

    The exception is in the study of war and memory, pioneered by Paul Fussell, The Great War and Modern Memory (New York: Oxford University Press, 1975). But even in this innovative and productive field, little space has been given to ethnic minorities.

  10. 10.

    Fredrik Barth, “Introduction,” in Ethnic Groups and Boundaries: The Social Organization of Culture Difference, ed. Fredrik Barth (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1969), 9–10.

  11. 11.

    Geoff Eley, “Foreword,” in War and Memory in the Twentieth Century, eds. Martin Evans and Ken Lunn (Oxford: Berg, 1997), ix.

  12. 12.

    Raphael Samuel and Paul Thompson, “Introduction,” in The Myths We Live By, eds. Raphael Samuel and Paul Thompson (London: Routledge, 1990), 4–5; 18–19.

  13. 13.

    Anthony Kirk-Greene, “‘Damnosa Hereditas’: Ethnic Ranking and the Martial Races Imperative in Africa,” Ethnic and Racial Studies 3:4 (1980): 395.

  14. 14.

    Ibid., 397.

  15. 15.

    Joanna Bourke, An Intimate History of Killing: Face-to-Face Killing in Twentieth-Century Warfare (London: Granta, 1999), 16.

  16. 16.

    Bourke, 117 citing Michael MacDonagh, The Irish on the Somme (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1917), 57.

  17. 17.

    MacDonagh, The Irish on the Somme, 57 and John Redmond, “Introduction,” in The Irish at the front (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1916), 2. More generally on MacDonagh’s work see Terence Denman, “The Catholic Irish Soldier in the First World War: the ‘Racial Environment’,” Irish Historical Studies 27 (November 1991): 355.

  18. 18.

    Smith, “War and ethnicity”, 393.

  19. 19.

    Samuel and Thompson, “Introduction,” 19.

  20. 20.

    Homi Bhabha, “Introduction: Narrating the Nation,” in Nation and Narration, ed. Homi Bhabha (London: Routledge, 1990), 4.

  21. 21.

    The lecture was delivered at Magdalen College, Oxford, October 27, 1940.

  22. 22.

    Elisa Lawson, “‘Scientific Monstrosity’ yet ‘Occasionally Convenient’: Cecil Roth and the Idea of Race,” Patterns of Prejudice 42:2 (2008): 223.

  23. 23.

    Cecil Roth, The Jews in the Defence of Britain: Thirteenth to Nineteenth Centuries (London: Jewish Historical Society of England, 1940), 29.

  24. 24.

    Ibid., p.5; Norma Dalrymple-Champneys and Arthur Pollard eds., George Crabbe: The Complete Poetical Works, vol. 1 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988), 396.

  25. 25.

    Peter New, George Crabbe’s Poetry (London: Macmillan, 1976), 2; Dalrymple-Champneys and Pollard eds., George Crabbe: The Complete Poetical Works, 396.

  26. 26.

    Frank Felsenstein, Anti-Semitic Stereotypes: A Paradigm of Otherness in English Popular Culture, 1660–1830 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995), 231.

  27. 27.

    Tony Kushner, Anglo-Jewry since 1066: Place, Locality and Memory (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2009), 134–137.

  28. 28.

    Tony Kushner, The Persistence of Prejudice: Antisemitism in British Society during the Second World War (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1989), 119–125.

  29. 29.

    Roth, The Jews in the Defence of Britain, 5.

  30. 30.

    Joseph Hertz, “The War,” Jewish Chronicle, September 11, 1914, 10.

  31. 31.

    Roth, The Jews in the Defence of Britain, 5–6; 8.

  32. 32.

    Ibid., 9–12.

  33. 33.

    Ibid., 13.

  34. 34.

    Derek Penslar, Jews and the Military: A History (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2013), 211–212.

  35. 35.

    Geoffrey Green, The Royal Navy & Anglo-Jewry 1740–1820 (London: Geoffrey Green, 1989), 88–89.

  36. 36.

    Kirk-Greene, “Ethnic ranking”.

  37. 37.

    Nadia Valman, “Manly Jews: Disraeli, Jewishness and Gender,” in Disraeli’s Jewishness, eds. Todd Endelman and Tony Kushner (London: Vallentine Mitchell, 2002) provides a sophisticated reading of this tendency and Jewish counter-strategies to it.

  38. 38.

    Roth, The Jews in the Defence of Britain, 13.

  39. 39.

    George Sanger, Seventy Years a Showman: My Life and Adventures in Camp and Caravan the World Over (London: C. Arthur Pearson, 1908), 12. For a wider consideration of Roth’s prolific output and its status between defence and ethnic cheerleading, see Elisa Lawson, “Cecil Roth and the Imagination of the Jewish Past, Present and Future in Britain, 1925–1964” (PhD diss., University of Southampton, 2005), chapter 2.

  40. 40.

    “Tribute to Straus Paid in Synagogues,” New York Times, April 21, 1912, 7. See Richard Davenport-Hines, Titanic Lives (London: Harper Press, 2012), 290.

  41. 41.

    Michael Adler, ed., British Jewry Book of Honour (London: Caxton, 1922).

  42. 42.

    Ibid., ix.

  43. 43.

    Ibid., 1.

  44. 44.

    Ibid., xix.

  45. 45.

    Ibid., 7.

  46. 46.

    David Cesarani, The Jewish Chronicle and Anglo-Jewry 1841–1991 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 117–118; “Our Honour Record,” Jewish Chronicle, September 11, 1914, 9, 19–20 and November 19, 1915.

  47. 47.

    Adler, ed., The British Jewry Book of Honour, 27.

  48. 48.

    Ibid., 1.

  49. 49.

    Penslar, Jews and the Military, 1.

  50. 50.

    “Jews Respond,” Jewish Chronicle, August 14, 1914, 5.

  51. 51.

    “Jews and the War,” Jewish Chronicle, November 19, 1915, 7.

  52. 52.

    Bill Williams, “The Anti-Semitism of Tolerance: Middle-Class Manchester and the Jews, 1870–1900,” in City, Class and Culture, eds. Alan J. Kidd and K. W. Roberts (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1985), 94.

  53. 53.

    An excellent overview of recent literature, grounded in original research, is provided by Anne Lloyd, “Between Integration and Separation: Jews and Military Service in World War I Britain,” in Whatever Happened to British Jewish Studies?, eds. Tony Kushner and Hannah Ewence (London: Vallentine Mitchell, 2012).

  54. 54.

    Mark Levene, “Going Against the Grain: Two Jewish Memoirs of War and Anti-War, 1914–18,” Jewish Culture and History 2:2 (1999): 71.

  55. 55.

    Evelyn Wilcock, “The Revd. John Harris: Issues in Anglo-Jewish Pacifism 1914–18,” Jewish Historical Studies 30 (1987–88).

  56. 56.

    Levene, “Going Against the Grain,” 67; 71.

  57. 57.

    Ibid., 80.

  58. 58.

    Green, The Royal Navy and Anglo-Jewry, 182.

  59. 59.

    Jenni Frazer, “Medals, Memories and Military Heroes on Parade in Ajex Museum,” Jewish Chronicle, July 8, 2005, 18. See also “The Jewish Military Museum ‘About Us’ page,” accessed December 13, 2011. http://www.thejmm.org.uk/about-us.

  60. 60.

    Editorial, African Times and Orient Review 4:1 (January 1917), 1–2. On his complex identity and confused origins see Ian Duffield, “Duse Mohamed Ali: his purpose and his public,” in Commonwealth Writers Overseas: Themes of Exile and Expatriation, ed. Alastair Niven (Brussels: Revue des Langues Vivantes, 1976).

  61. 61.

    “War!,” African Times & Orient Review, 1:20, August 4, 1914, 449–450.

  62. 62.

    Williams, “The Anti-Semitism of Tolerance,” 94.

  63. 63.

    Mark Levene, “The Balfour Declaration: A Case of Mistaken Identity,” English Historical Review 107: 422 (1992).

  64. 64.

    There were threats of a boycott because of the possible implications of this question mark. Information provided to the author who was historical advisor to the exhibition, which ran from March 19 to August 10, 2014.

  65. 65.

    British Jewry Book of Honour, 7; “Frank Alexander de Pass” in J Grit, “The Internet Index of Tough Jews”, accessed May 26, 2015. http://www.j-grit.com/military-and-spies-frank-alexander-de-pass-victoria-cross.php.

  66. 66.

    Official opening of the exhibition, March 18, 2014. Charlotte Oliver, “Recalling the Great War Effort,” Jewish Chronicle, March 21, 2014, 14 simply quotes Admiral Lord West that “This exhibition is a timely reminder of the Jewish community’s contribution”.

  67. 67.

    Phil Vasili, Walter Tull, 1888–1918: Officer, Footballer (Mitcham: Raw Press, 2010); Association for the Study of African, Caribbean and Asian Culture and History in Britain, Newsletter 11 (January 1995), 6–7.

  68. 68.

    “For King and Country?” and the permanent exhibition of the Manchester Jewish Museum. See also and Hansard (HC) 103: 715–716, February 20, 1918.

  69. 69.

    The exhibition’s treatment of Rosenberg is highlighted in Adam Foulds, “Spirit of the Maccabees,” Guardian Review, March 15, 2014, 16–17. More generally see Joseph Cohen, Journey to the Trenches: The Life of Isaac Rosenberg 1890–1918 (London: Robson Books, 1975).

  70. 70.

    Derek Taylor, “Our veterans of the Great War,” Jewish News, July 3, 2014, 1.

  71. 71.

    Details from 1911 census and David Lister, Die Hard, Aby! Abraham Bevistein—The Boy Soldier Shot to Encourage the Others (Barnsley: Pen & Sword Military, 2005).

  72. 72.

    Abraham’s case was taken up by Sylvia Pankhurst and her Workers’ Suffrage Federation. The Women’s Dreadnought, April 22, 1916 reproduced his letters home.

  73. 73.

    Ibid.

  74. 74.

    Ibid. and Lister, Die Hard, Aby!

  75. 75.

    Sylvia Pankhurst, The Home Front (London: Hutchinson, 1932), chapter 38.

  76. 76.

    ‘Executed: East London Boy’s Fate,” The Dreadnought, April 22, 1916, 1.

  77. 77.

    “Teenage Tommies”, BBC Two, broadcast November 11, 2014.

  78. 78.

    “First Jewish VC hero honoured with central London memorial,” Jewish News, November 25, 2014, 1.

  79. 79.

    The re-modelled Imperial War Museum, including the First World War Galleries, opened in July 2014 in time for the centenary commemorations and with £6.5 million of Heritage Lottery Funding. Indian, African and other colonial soldiers are mentioned, as are Belgian refugees, but there is no sustained consideration of their experiences or attitudes towards them. And beyond the British imperial war effort, the treatment of the Armenian genocide in the new galleries is thin and misleading, especially unfortunate as the re-modelling also led to the closure of the Genocide gallery linked to the permanent Holocaust exhibition. Author site visit, August 19, 2015.

Bibliography

  • Adler, Michael, ed. British Jewry Book of Honour. London: Caxton, 1922.

    Google Scholar 

  • Barth, Fredrik. “Introduction.” In Ethnic Groups and Boundaries: The Social Organization of Culture Difference, edited by Fredrik Barth, 9–38. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1969.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bhabha, Homi. “Introduction: Narrating the Nation.” In Nation and Narration, edited by Homi Bhabha, 1–7. London: Routledge, 1990.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bourke, Joanna. An Intimate History of Killing: Face-to-Face Killing in Twentieth-Century Warfare. London: Granta, 1999.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cohen, Joseph. Journey to the Trenches: The Life of Isaac Rosenberg, 1890–1918. London: Robson Books, 1975.

    Google Scholar 

  • Conversi, Daniele. “Homogenisation, Nationalism and War: Should We Still Read Ernest Geller?” Nations and Nationalism 13:3 (2007): 371–391.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Conversi, Daniele. “‘We are all equals!’. Militarism, Homogenization and ‘Egalitarianism’ in Nationalist State-Building (1789–1945).” Ethnic and Racial Studies 37:7 (2008): 1286–1314.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Das, Santanu, ed. Race, Empire and First World War Writing. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Duffield, Ian. “Duse Mohamed Ali: His Purpose and His Public.” In Commonwealth Writers Overseas: Themes of Exile and Expatriation, edited by Alastair Niven, 151–169. Brussels: Revue de Langues Vivantes, 1976.

    Google Scholar 

  • Evans, Martin, and Lunn, Kenn, eds. War and Memory in the Twentieth Century. Oxford: Berg, 1997.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fussell, Paul. The Great War and Modern Memory. New York: Oxford University Press, 1975.

    Google Scholar 

  • Holmes, Colin. John Bull’s Island: Immigration & British Society, 1871–1971. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1988.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Kirk-Greene, Anthony. “‘Damnosa Heriditas’: Ethnic Ranking and the Martial Races Imperative in Africa.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 3:4 (1980): 393–414.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kushner, Tony. “Local Heroes: Belgian Refugees in Britain during the First World War.” Immigrants & Minorities 18:1 (1999): 1–28.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Levene, Mark. “The Balfour Declaration: A Case of Mistaken Identity.” English Historical Review 107:422 (1992): 54–77.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Levene, Mark. “Going Against the Grain: Two Jewish Memoirs of War and Anti-War, 1914–18.” Jewish Culture and History 2:2 (1999): 66–95.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lister, David. Die Hard, Aby! Abraham Bevistein: The Boy Soldier Shot to Encourage the Others. Barnsley: Pen & Sword Military, 2005.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lloyd, Anne. “Between Integration and Separation: Jews and Military Service in World War I Britain.” In Whatever Happened to British Jewish Studies?, edited by Tony Kushner and Hannah Ewence, 43–63. London: Vallentine Mitchell, 2012.

    Google Scholar 

  • MacDonagh, Michael. The Irish on the Somme. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1917.

    Google Scholar 

  • Panayi, Panikos. “Societies and Minorities in the Two World War.” In Minorities in Wartime: National and Racial Groupings in Europe, North America and Australia During the Two World Wars, edited by Panikos Panayi, 3–23. Oxford: Berg, 1993.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pankhurst, Sylvia. The Home Front. London: Hutchinson, 1932.

    Google Scholar 

  • Penslar, Derek. Jews and the Military: A History. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2013.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Roth, Cecil. The Jews in the Defence of Britain: Thirteenth to Nineteenth Centuries. London: Jewish Historical Society of England, 1940.

    Google Scholar 

  • Samuel, Raphael, and Thompson, Paul. “Introduction.” In The Myths We Live By, edited by Raphael Samuel and Paul Thompson, 1–22. London: Routledge, 1990.

    Google Scholar 

  • Smith, Anthony. “War and Ethnicity: The Role of Warfare in the Formation, Self-images and Cohesion of Ethnic Communities.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 4:4 (October 1981): 375–397.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Vasili, Paul. Walter Tull, 1888–1918: Officer, Footballer. Mitcham: Raw Press, 2010.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wilcock, Evelyn. “The Revd. John Harris: Issues in Anglo-Jewish Pacificism 1914–18.” Jewish Historical Studies 30 (1987–88): 163–178.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Southampton, Southampton, UK

    Tony Kushner

Authors
  1. Tony Kushner
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Tony Kushner .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Chester , Chester, United Kingdom

    Hannah Ewence

  2. University of Chester, Chester, United Kingdom

    Tim Grady

Copyright information

© 2017 The Author(s)

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Kushner, T. (2017). Memory, Storytelling and Minorities: A Case Study of Jews in Britain and the First World War. In: Ewence, H., Grady, T. (eds) Minorities and the First World War. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-53975-5_9

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-53975-5_9

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-137-53974-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-137-53975-5

  • eBook Packages: HistoryHistory (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation