Berkowitz, M.;
(2019)
Introduction: Continuing Tumult.
Jewish Historical Studies
, 50
(1)
ix-xiv.
10.14324/111.444.jhs.2018v50.001.
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Abstract
As the Jewish Historical Society of England marks its 125th anniversary, we have now reached volume 50 of Jewish Historical Studies: Transactions of the Jewish Historical Society of England. Perhaps more time and critical distance is advised for such a reckoning: but I believe it is reasonable to assert that the Society and its journal are on a relatively firm and promising footing. Around five years ago I recall a JHSE lecture at St John’s Wood Synagogue, by a well-known scholar on a fascinating contemporary subject, which counted an audience of less than half a dozen. The most recent JHSE London lecture by Professor Bernard Wasserstein, on the withdrawl of the British administration and military from Mandate Palestine, witnessed standing room only at University College London, 17 January 2019 – an audience of more than a hundred. This coming March (2019) has been designated as “Jewish History Month”, with a number of events sponsored by the JHSE. The response to this initiative also may serve as an indicator of the trajectory and impact of the Society. By no means is a primary gauge for success the number of bums on seats. But as a combined lay and academic organization, public engagement and outreach cuts to the heart of our very purpose of encouraging, promoting, and presenting Jewish history. As an explicit means of connecting the founding of the JHSE with its present, the first address to the Society, on 11 November 1893, by Lucien Wolf, is reprinted here, followed by a trenchant analysis by Mark Levene. As the current issue was materializing, it seemed that the most urgent concern for Jews in the UK, and those following the course of AngloJewish history, was the strife over the insensitivity to antisemitism on the part of the leader of the Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn. The most prescient, historically informed analysis of which I am aware was delivered by Professor Jack Jacobs of the City University of New York, who has been a visiting scholar this year at the Pears Institute for the Study of Antisemitism at Birkbeck, University of London. Alas, the text of that superb lecture cannot be reproduced here, but I shall encourage the author, as strongly as possible, to contribute to a future issue on this theme.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Introduction: Continuing Tumult |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.14324/111.444.jhs.2018v50.001 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/ 10.14324/111.444.jhs.2018v50.001 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | © 2018 The Author(s). This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC-BY) 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/4.0/, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. DOI: https://doi.org/10.14324/ 111.444.jhs.2018v50.001. |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of Arts and Humanities UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of Arts and Humanities > Dept of Hebrew and Jewish Studies |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10071597 |
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