Representations of Eastern European Jewish Immigrants in Early Twentieth-Century British Press: Judaism and the Urban Regeneration of London

Abstract

This paper examines the (mis)representations of Eastern European Jewish immigrants in the British newspapers of the early twentieth century. As members of transnational networks, as simple travelers or victims of a forced emigration, Jews pursued economic prospects, freedom from antisemitism or the right to assert their political and cultural liberties while exploring new cities. The migration flows brought them to various European metropolises that were not only observed through the eyes of “the other,” “the stranger,” but also shaped by the cultural articulations of Judaism. Jewish migrants were nonetheless often perceived as dangerous to the ideas of national homogeneity. Positioning itself at the nexus of discourse and experience, a particular focus of this paper is to investigate the manner in which the cultural and religious differences experienced by both Jewish migrants and the settled population were depicted and negotiated, as well as the impact that Jewish immigrants had on the development of the modern city, specifically on London’s East End.