Humanities and Arts
author list,
Hannah Ewence
Hannah Ewence
Institution: Department of History and Archaeology, Exton Park Campus, University of Chester, Parkgate Road, CH1 4BJ, UK
Email: h.ewence@chester.ac.uk
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Doi: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0963926822000165
2022-08-18Abstract Between 1900 and 1939, Jewish Londoners departed the East End for the suburbs. Relocation, however, was not always the result of individual agency. Many Jews became the object of institutional strategies to coerce and persuade them to disperse away from inner-city areas. Simultaneous to this was the emergence of a dominant pro-suburban rhetoric within and beyond Jewish cultural circles, which aimed to raise aspirations towards middle-class lifestyles. This striking suburban ‘urge’ amongst London Jewry, managed by the community's elite institutions and leaders, was far more than a phenomenon running parallel to wider British society. As this article argues, it was a decisive response to an insidious culture of intolerance and antisemitism.