Fundamental Clash Research Articles

Governing Morality Issues through Procedural Policies

Abstract: Morality issues such as the death penalty, drug consumption, gambling, and same‐sex‐marriage often constitute intractable policy controversies. Classical “morality politics” scholars predict two types of governmental responses to such public problems: either a substantive policy design if there is a broad consensus among electoral constituencies or a non‐decision if there is a fundamental clash of values. We argue that the adoption of a procedural policy design represents a third option. Providing empirical evidence on the plausibility of this hypothesis, we compare the Swiss regulation of four morality issues in the medical field: reproductive medicine and embryo‐related research; abortion; euthanasia; and organ transplant. In fact, “moral values” frames are not always dominant, as the multi‐dimensionality of each morality issue allows for concurrent policy frames promoted by various policy actors.

An Alternative to the Gauge Theoretic Setting

The standard formulation of quantum gauge theories results from the Lagrangian (functional integral) quantization of classical gauge theories. A more intrinsic quantum theoretical access in the spirit of Wigner’s representation theory shows that there is a fundamental clash between the pointlike localization of zero mass (vector, tensor) potentials and the Hilbert space (positivity, unitarity) structure of QT. The quantization approach has no other way than to stay with pointlike localization and sacrifice the Hilbert space whereas the approach built on the intrinsic quantum concept of modular localization keeps the Hilbert space and trades the conflict creating pointlike generation with the tightest consistent localization: semiinfinite spacelike string localization. Whereas these potentials in the presence of interactions stay quite close to associated pointlike field strengths, the interacting matter fields to which they are coupled bear the brunt of the nonlocal aspect in that they are string-generated in a way which cannot be undone by any differentiation. The new stringlike approach to gauge theory also revives the idea of a Schwinger-Higgs screening mechanism as a deeper and less metaphoric description of the Higgs spontaneous symmetry breaking and its accompanying tale about “God’s particle” and its mass generation for all the other particles.

Christianity and Cultures: Japan & China in Comparison 1543–1644 (review)

Reviewed by: Christianity and Cultures: Japan & China in Comparison 1543–1644 Paul A. Rule Christianity and Cultures: Japan & China in Comparison 1543–1644. By M. Antoni J. Üçerler, S.J. [Bibliotheca Instituti Historici Societatis Jesu, Vol. 68.] (Rome: Institutum Historicum Societatis Iesu; published in collaboration with the University of San Francisco, the Ricci Institute, and the Macau Ricci Institute. 2009. Pp. xlvi, 410. €60,00. ISBN 978-8-870-41368-7.) The study of Christianity in China and Japan for institutional and other reasons has generally taken place in mutual isolation; hence the great value of the comparative survey provided by this volume. It is appropriately based on a conference held at the end of 2006 in Macau, the place where the two Jesuit missions (in this period they were mostly Jesuit enterprises) interacted and from which they were controlled. [End Page 404] However, one conclusion that a China specialist would most likely reach from a study of this rich and rewarding collection of papers is that the two fields have more divergences than commonalities. Some of this no doubt derives from language differences and translation difficulties. Worship may mean in English extreme respect—as in the “with my body I thee worship” of the old marriage rite—but when used to translate Chinese bai or to describe ancestor rituals in a theological context, it begs the question. Chinese rituals—especially Confucian rituals, when seen through Japanese eyes, at least as presented here—are necessarily idolatrous, and the issue is seen as whether idolatry may be tolerated. This was never the case in China, where the issue was precisely whether they were idolatrous, and, as Matteo Ricci concluded, the people were certainly not idolatrous and perhaps not even superstitious, a position not reversed until in 1704 the Holy See determined otherwise. A valid question is whether the Buddho-Confucian syncretism so common in Japan is the source of this apparent confusion. There are so many original and stimulating contributions in the collection that it is impossible to do them justice individually. However, a few may be singled out for comment. William Farge’s study of “translating religious experience” through Japanese translations of Christian works in Latin points to an extremely fruitful area for further investigation, of Chinese Christian literature as well as Japanese. However, in China at least, the aim was always adaptation rather than translation (as shown in Li Sher-shiueh’s contribution to this volume), and the Latin is not as intellectualist as Farge argues. Asami Masakazu’s study of Antonio Rubino’s defense of the Jesuit position on Chinese Rites is long overdue. However, it suffers from some misconceptions about Rubino and the theological issues. Amongst the cultural issues covered in this collection are artistic exchanges. Painting and sculpture are discussed but not, unfortunately, architecture and music, which are little explored. Macau is again and appropriately the focus. Thomas Lucas, in his commentary on this section of the book, points to the irony of a probable fourteenth-century European influence on the Guanyin/Kannon imagery of mother and child in China and then Japan. He might have added the further irony of a considerable export trade in porcelain figurines of madonna and child from China to Europe, the Philippines, and the New World. The last substantial chapter, by Timothy Brook, is perhaps the most thought-provoking. Brook asks whether what was called Xixue in China or “Western learning” should rather have been labeled Europaeology, by analogy with Sinology. At stake is the basic question of universality of values and [End Page 405] knowledge. Joseph Needham states that the fundamental clash was not between East and West, but between a universalizing science, which the Jesuits, as good Renaissance scholars, upheld, and an equally universalizing Chinese science. This is not to deny the problem of restricted cultural horizons, but teaching Western philosophical and scientific paradigms was not necessarily cultural imperialism. Rather, it was, in intention at least, a “fusion of horizons” in Hans Georg Gadamer’s terms. Christianity and Cultures advances such a fusion. Paul A. Rule Ricci Institute, University of San Francisco La Trobe University, Australia Copyright © 2011 The Catholic University of America Press

The Collaboration ‘manqué:’ Petrus Camper’s Son at Montbard, 1785-1787

The Dutch anatomist Petrus Camper (1722-1789) was pleased that Buffon wanted to co-write a book on the natural history of whales. His son, Adriaan Gilles Camper (1759-1820), who was studying in Paris, went to Montbard to discuss this project. Although Jacques de Sève completed his engravings from Camper’s drawings at Buffon’s expense by 1786, the cetacean book was published posthumously, 30 years later, under Camper’s name only. Among the problems that led to their failed collaboration were differences about the division of the work, physical ailments, political problems, but, most of all, the fundamental clash between how they regarded natural history. Buffon prioritized reader-friendly natural history over that based on anatomical dissection, which was paramount to Camper. Camper wrote his son about Buffon that: “Despite his [anatomical] mistakes, he taught me by his example to envision things in the abstract, to mix them, etc.” Buffon’s “Discours,” on a new method for the life sciences, insisted that anatomical accuracies had to be integrated with synthetic laws. While his book detailed eight cetacean species, Camper also speculated which of their anatomical parts could be seen as variations of a common vertebrate structure. He drew a comparison of the whale skull with the human skull. Buffon’s discourse, published when Petrus Camper was only 27 years old, had evidently become Camper’s lifelong inspiration. The Campers’ incredible exertions to satisfy a hoped-for collaboration with the “great Buffon” can only be understood in the context that Petrus Camper acknowledged a great intellectual debt to Buffon in his own contributions.

The post-opium scenario and rubber in northern Laos: Alternative Western and Chinese models of development

Background In the past few years rubber planting has spread rapidly throughout northern Laos, especially in Luang Namtha province that borders China. The impetus for this boom has come partly from the spiralling demand for rubber in China (now the world's largest rubber consumer), the high world prices for rubber, and China's promotion of overseas investment through its opium-replacement policy. These economic factors have converged with the desperate need of impoverished highlanders in northern Laos to replace opium as a cash crop as a consequence of a recent opium-eradication campaign and inadequate alternative development. Methods This paper draws upon ethnographic and agro-economic research in northern Laos and neighbouring regions and reports of international development organisations operating in Laos. Results The rubber boom in northern Laos represents a fundamental clash between Western drug-oriented alternative development, on the one hand, and China's national economic strategies abroad and investment-led narcotics policy, on the other. Conclusion China's opium-replacement policy has contributed to a type of unregulated frontier capitalism with socio-economic and environmental effects that threaten the principles and goals of alternative development and even to marginalise the role international development organisations in northern Laos.

Between a rock and a hard place: incompatible objectives at the heart of river basin planning?

River Basin Management Planning (RBMP) is a policy that seeks to integrate multiple objectives for water bodies, that is enacted at multiple scales and through the collaboration of multiple stakeholders, using an adaptive management cycle. Insights from spatial planning and community planning literatures illustrate how many challenges are not particular to RBMP but are fundamental to strategic planning in modern society. The literatures draw attention to the institutional arrangements governing these complex collaborations. The emerging findings are a series of tensions that resonate with the wider literatures (such as between efficiency and inclusion of all voices, quick delivery and implementing best practice). Thus, to what extent are these short-term implementation problems or a deeper and more fundamental clash of policy objectives?

Jay Cooke's Gamble: The Northern Pacific Railroad, the Sioux, and the Panic of 1873 by M. John Lubetkin

attempt to use the principles and vision of the Social Gospel to create a racially united congregation. An important contribution to the large literatureon the Social Gospel, this essay analyzes the rise and fall of Oxnam's Church ofAll Nations, a largeparish inone of thepoorest sections of downtown Los Angeles Michael Engh explores theremarkable careerof Catholic MaryWorkman inLos Angeles,where she "challenged simplistic Americanization, racial prejudice, and traditional gender roles with Roman Catholicism" (p. 27).Workman pioneered a concept ofmutuality thathonored immigrants' traditionswhile assisting in their assimilation. Daniel Cady illumines the role of the career of Robert Shuler (not be confused with theRobert Sch?ler of theCrystal Cathe dral), who migrated out of the South to Los Angeles in the early 1920s,and his support for theKu Klux Klan in Southern California. Chapters 4, 5, and 6 are themost unusual in content. Lauire Maffly-Kipp explores the ways the physical bodies of Chinese people were portrayed in etchings and cartoons and how Chinese people incorporated religious understandings of thecorporeal. Pablo Mitch ell examines the ways newspapers treated what their editors saw as deviant bodily acts among African Americans and members of the Hermanos Penitentes in New Mexico, while TisaWenger examines thePueblo dance con troversiesof the 1920s.These three essays not onlydealwith exotic subjectsbut also challenge conventional categories (largelyoriginating in Western Christianity and Western philosophy) forunderstanding religious experience. Chapter 7 focuses on the racial ideas asso ciated with theChurch of JesusChrist of the Latter-day Saints (Mormons) and, in chapter 8,Mary JanO'Donnell explores how the Islamic Center of Los Angeles has attempted to overcome racial and ethnic division within its membership. Understandably, the editors are reluctant to make toomany generalizations about the ways these essays shouldmake readers thinkdiffer entlyabout the role religion played in shaping the identityof those in the West. Yet, readers are leftthinking about the larger significance of the question. These essays certainly point to theneed tobe careful about glib generaliza tions regardingreligiouspractices in theregion. They suggest thatthe traditional categories for interpretingreligion inAmerica, letalone the West, should be carefully examined forhid den assumptions that deflect attention from much ofwhat actually happened. Yet, there is always a danger inbeing too attracted by the exotic or theunusual. Much more is stilltobe written about theway conventional religion in the West played and continues to play an important role inestablishing social capital and shaping attitudes of public policy, particularly in regard to the civil rights movement in the 1940s, 1950s,and 1960s.The role of theAfrican American church in the West is an important part of the story. An essay ormonograph on this subject has yet to be written and, until it is, there is still more to be done on the three R's ? race, religion, and region. Dale E. Soden Whitworth University JAY COOKE'S GAMBLE:THENORTHERN PACIFICRAILROAD, THE SIOUX,AND THE PANIC OF 1873 by M. John Lubetkin University ofOklahoma Press, Norman, 2006. Illustrations, maps, notes, bibliography, index. 398 pages. $29.95 cloth. In recent years, many late-nineteenth-century American business leaders ? controversial figuresonce derided asRobber Barons? have been rehabilitated by biographers intent on findingpositive qualities concealed behind the facade ofvenality. M. JohnLubetkin attempts, and to a considerable extent succeeds, to do the same for Jay Cooke, the financier of gov 148 OHQ vol. 109, no. 1 ernments and railroads. The author concedes, though in delicate terms, that his subject's career featured "numerous ethical ambigui ties" (p. 14).The banker managed to become "a millionaire many times over" while raising fundsforthe North during theCivilWar (p. 11). The Northern Pacific, Cooke's great postwar contribution tohistory, was "riddledwith graft" (p. 53).More thanbalancing theseundeniable facts, however, the Union was saved and, under Cooke's tutelage, a project of enormous sig nificance to the West was driven nearly to the point of completion before falling temporary victim to thePanic of 1873.Besides, "the only 'proof'" of N.P. dishonesty, Lubetkin insists, "lies in strange contracts, purchasing that defied common sense, shoddy construction, and so forth" (p. 53). JayCookes Gamble is really the story of twomajor Northern Pacific-related gambles. The first involves a fundamental clash with contemporary thinking regarding the build TheOregonHistoricalSocietyis an ideal place foryour upcoming party...

BOATING ON THE SEA OF GRASS: WESTERN DEVELOPMENT ECOTOURISM, AND ELITE CAPTURE IN GUIZHOU, CHINA

Transportation infrastructure in Guizhou, improved through the Western Development Project, has facilitated the development of “ecotourism” around Caohai Lake, offering opportunities for both state agencies and local communities to capitalize on new activities. Competition between the local state and lakeside communities over the profits from ecotourism has come to a head as the state has claimed jurisdiction over tourism on Caohai Lake. This struggle for control represents a fundamental clash between the Chinese state's project of modernization—a vision of top-down economic development—and local farmers' efforts to promote their own more participatory, community-based version of development.

Converging economic paradigms for a constructive environmental policy discourse

Abstract This paper argues that the vision of a fundamental clash between a Homo economicus self-interested perspective, dominant in neoclassical economics, and an environmental limit discourse and duty based perspective, central to ecological economics, is an ineffective route towards facilitating effective environmental policy. An evolution to refocus both perspectives towards finding a common ground faces intense resistance from entrenched positions. A conceptual exploration of the roots of such resistances is discussed and an alternative, but complimentary process that addresses the need for and process of a synthesis of conflicting approaches is proposed. As an exemplar of this argument, the Porter hypothesis is used as a guiding framework of how ecological economics as an action oriented paradigm can increase its influence as a policy guide avoiding confrontational policy contexts.

Two ways of linking economic activity to human rights

The modern enterprise is ambivalently both sensitive and insensitive to the demands of human rights. To some extent, this is a matter of discrepancy between words and deeds. This article, however, focuses on another, more fundamental difficulty. The obstacle facing attempts to turn the moral impulse behind corporate social responsibility into a plausible result arises from fundamental clashes between the fundamental principles that drive the institutions designed to protect certain fundamental rights and the fundamental principles that fix the norms of performance for commercial life. To assess whether the conflict is irreconcilable, the problem needs to be seen in terms of the divergent ways in which adequate respect for and protection of those rights and obligations is understood. Certain resolutions of competition among fundamental rights – based on “functional” or “consensual” justification – can carry hidden bias, while others – based on “civic” justification – might allow the full potential of such rights to be realised. The test for compatibility between human rights and the economy is therefore whether economic imperatives can integrate the demands of civic justification.

Semiologies of Travel: From Gautier to Baudrillard (review)

David Scott. Semiologies of Travel: From Gautier to Baudrillard. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2004. ix + 235 pp. ISBN 0-521-83853-3, $75.00. Scott begins his account of nineteenth- and twentieth-century French travel literature by pointing out how "the quest for the new and the different is paradoxically accompanied by a nostalgia for an integrated semiotic system" (2). In support of his point that, after the nineteenth century, this nostalgia has become "an integral part of the appeal of the exotic," he quotes from my Exotic Memories: Literature, Colonialism, and the Fin de Siècle (Stanford UP, 1991), noting that part of the underlying project of exoticism is to recover a "'concrete apprehension of others that is [ . . . ] typical of traditional communities but has been [ . . . ] eliminated from our own'" (2; Scott's ellipses). While understandably pleased at the positive reference to my book, I was nonetheless puzzled by those two ellipses. Had I really made such an authoritative statement about "traditional communities" and their difference from "our own"? It turned out that my original claim was rather less emphatic: what I had actually said was that the project of exoticism is to recover a "concrete apprehension of others that is (or so the critics of modernity hypothesize) typical of traditional communities but has been, or is being, eliminated from our own" (9). Minor as they might appear, these two edits are in fact symptomatic of major problems with Scott's book. Most notably, by dropping my cautionary parenthetical aside about "the critics of modernity," Scott signals his commitment to having familiar ideological assertions regarding the relation between tradition and modernity stand as truth claims rather than hypotheses. While such assertions are doubtless central to the exoticist project, it is by no means certain what bearing, if any, they have on reality—or, indeed, whether the concepts upon which they depend, such as "modernity" and "tradition," are anything more than cultural phantasms that have for centuries now provided an extraordinarily convenient way of figuring our dominant relation to (those we insist on perceiving as) "others." Very occasionally, Scott does acknowledge the phantasmatic dynamics of the literary tradition he is examining. He admits early on, for instance, that "the comparative stability of other, non-European cultures and civilizations is partly illusory" (6; my italics), and in a very brief "Conclusion" he belatedly identifies several of the "mythologising structures" at work in travel writing (211–12). But from beginning to end of this book what most strikes one is the author's decided unwillingness to question the basic assumptions that have shaped the tradition of French exoticism from Gautier to Baudrillard— [End Page 436] a tradition that he at points rather grandly identifies as "modern travel writing" tout court (56). Scott consistently treats exoticist tropes as veritable signs of the real: he would appear to have no desire to distance himself from the ideological vision of the world promoted by a handful of self-conscious critics of modernity whom he believes "offer the deepest insight into the other" (187). Thus, we find him making many an unironic appeal to such things as "the millennial stability enjoyed by other civilisations—Indian, Chinese—and the numberless so-called primitive societies of the Americas and Australasia" (6), or to "the fundamental clash between modern western culture and the immemorial systems of the East" (68). While this lack of critical distance has disturbing political ramifications (as we will see at the end of this review article), its most obvious consequence is that the author spends much of the book describing what he ought to be analyzing. Instead of the critical interrogation of colonial and neo-colonial discourse to which several decades of postcolonial criticism have now accustomed us, the author most often contents himself with offering elaborate paraphrases of how the writers under consideration have themselves described and analyzed the "other" worlds to which they were drawn "as a real and viable alternative or complement to the known, western, system" (13). This lack of analysis...

ENTERPRISE RESOURCE PLANNING (ERP) AND ITS IMPACT ON THE INNOVATIVE CAPABILITY OF THE FIRM

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) business software has become one of the most successful products in the world. Microsoft, ICI, UBS and Procter & Gamble are a few of the firms that have claimed it has changed the way they work (Gartner, 2002). Indeed, substantial claims are made about the software's capabilities. A complete system could take several years and several hundred million dollars to deploy. SAP, Oracle, Baan and PeopleSoft are the market leaders and SAP has over 20,000 R/3 products installed worldwide; Oracle has installed databases in nearly every one of the world's top 500 companies. This paper surveys the literature and identifies that there is increasing evidence that firms fail to obtain the benefits of these investments within the anticipated timeframes (Pollock et al., 2003). Moreover, and more worrying for senior managers is the extent to which these fully integrated systems using on-line transactional processing are affecting the firm's innovative ability. We argue in this paper that there is a fundamental clash of underlying principles between ERP systems requirements and the success factors of innovative organisations that lie at the heart of the innovation dilemma caused by the introduction of ERP systems into organisations.

Between two cultures: the expert clinician and the pharmaceutical industry

Expert clinicians, valued for their academic status and independence, are used by the pharmaceutical industry for advice, for contract research, and as a means of conveying their message to other clinicians. Both academics and industry depend upon this interaction, but there is a fundamental clash of cultures at the interface between the two. Independence cannot be marketed for a fee, opinion too easily shades into advocacy, and secrecy and science do not mix. Formal guidelines and declarations of interest are inadequate as a means of policing an interface where undisclosed amounts of money change hands so freely. In the absence of effective sanctions, each of us must seek a personal solution to the professional and ethical issues involved.

Islam and International Politics: Examining Huntington's 'Civilizational Clash' Thesis

In his 1993 Foreign Affairs article 'The Clash of Civilizations?', Samuel Huntington suggested that the international system and future conflicts in the aftermath of the end of the Cold War is likely to be defined by cleavages between and among distinct civilizations. Responding to Huntington's anticipation of a fundamental clash between a civilization defined by Islam and the West, this essay argues that Huntington overstates the homogeneity of the predominantly Islamic world and of the Arab world, and errs to the extent to which he appears to suggest that so-called 'Islamic fundamentalism' represents the sole authentic expression of Islam.

Flexibility and Interoperability in CORBA Security

This paper will discuss the fundamental clash between flexibility and interoperability in CORBA security and in distributed object systems security in general. Also, the impact of flexibility and interoperability issues on the security of such systems will be covered. By presenting various relevant technical issues in CORBA security, this paper tries to identify where a reasonable trade-off between flexibility and interoperability is achieved and where CORBA security has unnecessary flexibility or interoperability limitations.

Antisuit Injunctions and the Brussels Jurisdiction and Judgments Convention

A fundamental clash of values, which could affect the very foundations of the Brussels Convention, was revealed in the recent judgment of the Court of Appeal in Turner v. Grovit.

The paradox of Southern progressivism, 1880-1930

Focusing on the cultural conflicts between social reformers and southern communities, William Link presents an important reinterpretation of the origins and impact of progressivism in the South. He shows that a fundamental clash of values divided reformers and rural southerners, ultimately blocking the reforms. His book, based on extensive archival research, adds a new dimension to the study of American reform movements. The new group of social reformers that emerged near the end of the nineteenth century believed that the South, an underdeveloped and politically fragile region, was in the midst of a social crisis. They recognized the environmental causes of social problems and pushed for interventionist solutions. As a consensus grew about southern social problems in the early 1900s, reformers adopted new methods to win the support of reluctant or indifferent southerners. By the beginning of World War I, their public crusades on prohibition, health, schools, woman suffrage, and child labor had led to some new social policies and the beginnings of a bureaucratic structure. By the late 1920s, however, social reform and southern progressivism remained largely frustrated. Link's analysis of the response of rural southern communities to reform efforts establishes a new social context for southern progressivism. He argues that the movement failed because a cultural chasm divided the reformers and the communities they sought to transform. Reformers were paternalistic. They believed that the new policies should properly be administered from above, and they were not hesitant to impose their own solutions. They also viewed different cultures and races as inferior. Rural southerners saw their communities and customs quite differently. For most, local control and personal liberty were watchwords. They had long deflected attempts of southern outsiders to control their affairs, and they opposed the paternalistic reforms of the Progressive Era with equal determination. Throughout the 1920s they made effective implementation of policy changes difficult if not impossible. In a small-scale war, rural folk forced the reformers to confront the integrity of the communities they sought to change. |Focusing on the cultural conflicts between social reformers and southern communities, Link reinterprets the origins and impact of southern progressivism. He shows that a fundamental clash of values divided reformers and rural southerners, ultimately blocking reforms. In a small-scale war between 1880 and 1930, reformers were forced to confront the integrity of the communities they sought to change.

Enterprise promotion – cultural eradication or survival?

Enterprise promotion programmes often receive severe criticism for the damaging effects they inflict on the local culture. A 'Western capitalistic' model for growth which rewards greed and self-interest is being imposed on countries, permanently maiming traditional ways of life. Some even accuse business development of causing the eradication of cultures.At first glance there appears to be a fundamental clash between two of the most fashionable issues in development: the preservation of indigenous cultures and the promotion of small-scale enterprise. However in the Mosquitia, a remote region of Honduras, Central America, rather than being diametrically opposed these two issues are inextricably linked, as business development is proving to be one of the vital means of ensuring the survival of Indian culture.

Nursing models in a special hospital: a critical analysis of efficacity

Models of care from the general field of nursing applied in special hospitals appears to be unworkable in this type of environment in terms of their inability to affect patient care. It is argued that these external models, adopted due to a crisis of confidence in special hospitals, fail because their fundamental constructs clash with that of the institution's particular sociology. A historical analysis of the development of special hospitals and nursing models reveals a dichotomy of emergent values, highly complex in nature, which conflict from the notion of Parsonian role-adoption. From this position, it is suggested that the strength of value systems are such that this leads to a non-negotiable stalemate of forensic elements of client and institution, and the 'treatment' ethic as prescribed by the medicalization of criminology. This article critically analyses the six most commonly-used nursing models in special hospitals and pinpoints the areas of breakdown within this type of environment from a sociological perspective. Finally, it argues for a new direction away from 'generalist' ideals of nursing towards a theoretical construction of 'specialism' in forensic care.

Horns and dilemmas: Jewish evacuees in Britain during the second world war

Although only a short‐lived experience, evacuation during the Second World War has left a profound impact on millions of people in Britain. In some ways British Jewry shared the common problems of evacuation created by class differences and a fundamental clash between town and country. Nevertheless, Jews, because of their particular religious needs and a strong tradition of anti‐Semitism in Britain, had unique experiences as evacuees during the war. Indeed evacuation had a profound importance for the shaping of post‐war British Jewry ‐ scarring those who suffered anti‐Semitic hostility but also assimilating many at the cost of their religious and cultural identity.