The British communist party's national Jewish committee and the fight against anti‐Semitism during the Second World War.

Abstract

The Second World War saw an upsurge of anti‐Semitic activity in Great Britain. This provided further opportunity for the Jewish Communist movement, centred mainly in London's East End, to assume a political and ideological presence within the Anglo‐Jewish community. The Jewish Communists fought against the internment of Jewish aliens and charges that Jews controlled the black market. They organized demonstrations against the 1943 release from detention of Sir Oswald Mosley. The National Jewish Committee of the party developed theoretical positions on Jews and Fascism. This intense activity culminated in a number of electoral breakthroughs by the CPGB in Stepney in 1945–1946.