The ‘Estranged’ Generation? Social and Generational Change in Interwar British Jewry - Softcover

Dee, David

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1349957704 ISBN 13: 9781349957705

Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018

Synopsis

This book focuses on the nature and extent of social change, integration and identity transformation within the Jewish community of Britain during the interwar years. It probes the notion – widely articulated by Jewish communal leaders at this time – that the immigrant second generation (i.e. British and foreign-born children of Russian and Eastern European Jews who migrated to Britain in the late Victorian era up to the First World War) had ‘estranged’ themselves from their Jewishness, Jewish elders and peers and were fast assimilating into the British mainstream.The volume analyses the second generation’s developing outlooks and behavioural trends in a variety of environments, effectively charting the changes and continuities present therein. As a whole, the book sheds light on the varied ways in which this group developed new identities that both drew from and reflected their Jewish and British heritage.

About this title

About the Author

David Dee is Senior Lecturer in Modern History at De Montfort University, UK. He has written widely on the modern History of the Jewish community in Britain and is the author of Sport and British Jewry: Integration, Ethnicity and Anti-Semitism (2013).

From the Back Cover

This book focuses on the nature and extent of social change, integration and identity transformation within the Jewish community of Britain during the interwar years. It concentrates mainly on examining the notion - espoused by communal and religious leaders throughout the 1920s and 1930s - that an ‘estranged’ generation of Jews of migrant heritage existed within the population. This book, therefore, focuses specifically on the migrant second generation (i.e. British and foreign-born children of Russian and Eastern European Jews who migrated to Britain in the late Victorian era up to the First World War), and analyses their purported ‘estrangement’ from Jewish religion, culture, traditions and lifestyles and their acculturation of the values, characteristics, traits and identities of mainstream British society. It charts and analyses the fear of ‘estrangement’ evident among first generation migrants and the established Jewish community of Britain between the wars. However, the main focus is firmly placed on the migrant second generation themselves, and traces the nature and extent of this group’s detachment from Jewish mores and customs and their attachment to mainstream society.

Edition details

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Publication date: 2018
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1349957704
• ISBN 13: 9781349957705
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 391