The Jewish Immigrant in England 1870-1914

The Jewish Immigrant in England 1870-1914 is a full analysis and description of that section of the great Jewish migration from eastern Europe which settled in Britain - around 120,000 Jews. The routes to England and the immigrants’ travel experiences are discussed, and the dockside reception is presented, which leads to a consideration of the policies of the native Jewish community. Once in England, immigrants worked very hard. Some were peddlers and small shopkeepers, but the great majority worked as tailors, with varying degrees of skill and levels of pay, in the ready-made clothing industry which was rapidly developing. Their labour in small, crowded, usually dirty workshops became notorious as the sweating system and drew extensive public attention. Work alternated between very long hours and seasonal unemployment and the Jewish labour movement, which professed revolutionary goals in its early years, sought with small success to improve conditions of labour and pay. It was more successful in Leeds than in London, but substantial improvements came with the Trade Board Act of 1909 and the massive strike of 1912. The immigrants lived in distinct neighbourhoods, of which the best known was the East End of London. Rents were high and dwellings were crowded, and there was steady movement into more favourable areas such as Dalston and Hackney. Immigrant Jewish areas possessed a special character, and carried on a rich, active religious and cultural life, which reached its peak around 1910. It declined in the 1920s and until World War II, when it essentially came to its end.