David Dee

Sport and British Jewry provides the first wide-ranging examination of the importance of sport in the modern history of the British-Jewish community. Covering the period from 1890 through to 1970, Sport and British Jewry examines the peak era of Jewish involvement and interest in sport and physical recreation in Britain in recent times.

The book tackles three main themes. First, the author examines the relationship between sport and the integration of Jews hailing from the wave of Russian and Eastern European Jewish migration to Britain in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Secondly, the study looks at how sport impacted on Jewish ethnicity. Thirdly, it addresses how sport became linked to expressions of anti-Semitism and Jewish responses to racial discrimination. As a whole, Sport and British Jewry not only demonstrates the significant impact that Jews had on British sport during this time frame, but also shows the considerable effect that sport had on the lives, experiences and identities of Jews within British society.

David Dee brings together the results of comprehensive and up-to-date research in this original study of British Jewry’s sporting past. The range of sources used and the dynamic analysis makes Sport and British Jewry appealing to a broad readership, ranging from academics and students interested in the history of British-Jewry and the history of British sport, to the general reader.

Between the 1890s and the 1960s, sport had a distinctive and varied impact on the social, cultural, political and economic life of the British Jewish community. During this period, Anglo-Jewry developed a clear sporting tradition, in both a direct and indirect sense, and their participation in the world of British sport had a significant impact on processes and discourses surrounding integration, ethnicity and anti-Semitism.

Through a broad analysis of archival materials, newspaper sources and oral history, this thesis seeks to examine the influence that sport exerted on the Jewish community – paying particular attention to the ways in which physical recreation affected the internal dynamics of the community and influenced Jewish relations and interactions with the wider non-Jewish population. As will be shown, whilst sport is a useful lens through which to view socio-cultural development within Anglo-Jewish history, evidence suggests that physical recreation also had a notable and noticeable direct impact on Jewish life within Britain.

Although Jewish sport history is an expanding field in an international context, it has been largely ignored within British academic research. Within the historiography of Anglo-Jewry, little attention has been paid to the socio-cultural impact of sporting participation. Similarly, within research concerning British sport history, race and immigration are themes that have been generally overlooked.

As well as redressing important historiographical gaps, this thesis will also help expand our knowledge of the process behind minority integration and will further demonstrate the wider social importance, and the extensive and varied applications, of the historical study of sport. This thesis demonstrates that sport has been a key area for the creation, maintenance and erosion of Anglo-Jewish identity and has been an arena for the development, reinforcement and undermining of Jewish stereotypes. Sport, effectively, assumed a central role in Jewish life throughout this time period and was a pivotal factor in many social, cultural and political changes affecting the Jewish community of Britain.

Between 1920 and 1950, a large number of British Jews took up sports and recreation within the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB). As members of the Young Communist League (YCL) and the British Workers’ Sports Federation (BWSF), Jews engaged in sporting and recreational activities designed to promote communist policy, fraternity and act as a contrast to the commercialism of ‘bourgeois’ sports. Drawing on a broad array of archival and oral history materials, this article documents the growth and nature of Jewish participation in British ‘communist’ sport and leisure. It focuses on two aspects of this involvement. Firstly, it illustrates that sports and socialising often proved to be a key factor in drawing Jews to communism and became a central aspect of a large number of young Jews’ ‘communist’ lifestyles. Many young Jews participated in the movement mainly because it offered the chance to ramble, camp, cycle, dance or play table tennis.
Secondly, the articles demonstrates that involvement in communist sport and recreation exerted an important impact on Jewish ethnicity. Communist sport catalysed many young Jews' estrangement from their elders by giving them an 'escape' route (Williams) from their immigrant identities and helping them form new lifestyles, relationships and characters.

During the early twentieth century, scores of second and third generation migrant Jews became deeply involved and interested in outdoor recreation (cycling, camping and rambling) associated with the political far-left in Britain. Amongst politically inspired organisations such as the Clarion Cycling Club, the British Workers’ Sports Federation and the Young Communist League, Jews were keen consumers of opportunities for recreation in the British outdoors. This was a growing leisure habit which was zealously protected when threatened and had a significant impact on many Jews’ lifestyles and ethnicities. This article will demonstrate that many Jews ‘wandering’ on organised rambles in the Peaks
or Chilterns were also ‘wandering’ away from their Jewishness by moving closer, in terms of social, cultural and political lifestyles and identity, to their non-Jewish working-class peers.

This article analyses the life, career and death of British-Jewish sports journalist Henry Rose (1899-1958), killed in the Munich air disaster of 1958 alongside Manchester United football club officials, players and several other passengers. Rose may well be the “forgotten” man of the disaster, yet his story illuminates a great deal about contemporary British sport, society and culture. He was a celebrity of his time, due, primarily, to him being at the vanguard of a revolution in British sports reporting that saw a more sensationalist and opinionated style successfully imported from America into the British press. His achievements were all the more remarkable considering significant levels of anti-Semitism which existed in British society at that time. Rose’s death in 1958 and subsequent disappearance from popular memory, which contrasts starkly with the manner in which Munich has been more actively memorialized in other quarters, is also examined.

Between the late 1890s and early 1950s, British boxing was dominated by Jews of Russian and Eastern European migrant origin. In a wider sense, an analysis of boxing can add to our understanding of broader social changes occurring within British Jewry during this roughly sixty year period. However, involvement in boxing during these years (whether as amateurs or professionals, as boxers, managers, promoters, coaches or spectators) also had a noticeable direct impact on the identity of scores of young Jews. This article will show that social change occurring within British Jewry between 1890 and 1960 did not occur separate from the world of British boxing. Although this sport can act as a lens through which to view transformations in terms of Jewish identity, class, religious outlook and culture, it is also the case that boxing clearly influenced changes in these spheres for a significant section of the community.

Harold Maurice Abrahams (1899-1978) – the British-Jewish athlete made famous by the film Chariots of Fire - won gold for Britain in the 100 yard sprint in the 1924 Paris Olympics. Far from being the ‘outsider’ depicted in Chariots of Fire, however, Abrahams’ ‘Anglicisation’ was extensive and played an important role in his life before, during and after his athletics career. This article will show that this film falsely portrays Abrahams as a victim of powerful anti-Semitism and that detailed historical analysis shows instead that his integration went hand-in-hand with his sporting success – something which was celebrated by British Jewry. Such was his assimilation, that by 1936 – a year when Abrahams courted controversy over his stance on the Berlin Olympics – he was criticised for having ‘lost’ all attachment to the community of his birth. As will be shown, in contrast to the film, where Abrahams is seen to be ‘too Semitic’, the Bedford athlete was actually ‘thoroughly Anglicised’. A desire to move into or support middle-to-upper class British society characterised Abrahams personal and sporting life much more so than his Jewishness. As time progressed, Abrahams’ Jewish origins meant less and less, both to Harold himself and to those around him.

Between the 1890s and the 1960s, Jews faced significant levels of racial discrimination within British golf. Anti-Semitism originating from individuals, private clubs, the golfing press and golfing authorities was prevalent across large parts of the last century and was geographically widespread (affecting every sizeable Jewish community in Great Britain). Mirroring wider majority community discrimination towards the growing middle-class Jewish population, Jewish golfers faced racial hostility and exclusion within golf – a racism which was driven by crude stereotypes, snobbery, ignorance and a basic irrational fear of the ‘other’.

Golfing racism was powerful and extensive within Britain, yet Jews did not simply accept the hostility they faced and cease playing the sport. Whilst this article will illustrate and analyse anti-Semitism within British golf, it will also highlight the response to discrimination taken by Jewish communities – large and small – across the country. Unwilling to allow anti-Semitism to prevent their participation in the sport, Jewish golfers strove to create their own clubs and courses. Symbolically, these ‘Jewish’ organisations remained open to all, regardless or race or creed. Jews not only protected their own sporting interests in the face of a non-organised form of anti-Semitism, but also provided a retort to golfing bigotry and racism.

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, Jewish refugees arriving in Great Britain were exposed to an ‘Anglicisation’ campaign designed to aid their integration into British society and their assimilation of British character traits and cultural values. Within this campaign, especially the element focusing on the children of the migrants, interest and participation in sport was consciously ‘transferred’ through the medium of youth and sporting organisations in order to help in their ‘Anglicisation’. This article will show how physical recreation was promoted by the English Jewish establishment and how participation in sport amongst young Jews grew.

Between 1880 and 1914, London became the permanent home for thousands of Jewish immigrants hailing from Eastern Europe. This paper explores the significant role played by sport and physical recreation in the so-called ‘Anglicisation’ of the Jewish immigrant children within a newly created network of youth clubs and social and sporting organisations. While many established English Jews believed that introducing and promoting British sport among the ‘alien’ children was an effective means of ‘Anglicisation’, sections within the Jewish community soon began to fear that the focus on physical recreation was undermining traditional Jewish culture and contributing to a ‘drift’ towards religious indifference and apostasy.

In February 1958, a British European Airways flight to Manchester crashed on take-off at Munich Riem airport, killing 23 of the 44 passengers, including 8 Manchester United FC players and 3 club officials.

Amongst those who perished was Henry Rose, a well-known sports writer for the Daily Express. Rose, whose Ukrainian-Jewish parents migrated to Britain in the 1890s, became famous for his opinionated and gossip-filled reporting style. However, despite being an influential writer, a contemporary celebrity and a victim of one of the greatest tragedies in British sporting history, little is known about Rose in modern society.

Dr Dee’s lecture will shed new light on this interesting character and important ‘forgotten’ figure from the British sporting and journalistic world.

"Two writers upset the widely held belief that Jews and sport don’t mix: Anthony Clavane celebrates the unsung pioneers who played a key role in English football’s transformation from working-class pursuit to global entertainment industry, and David Dee shows the impact British Jews have had on sport from football to boxing and golf.

Enjoy a secret social history of the beautiful game, and more, from players and owners to fans, reflecting an immigrant community’s century of integration in Britain.

“What Chutzpah!” thundered Clavane’s headmaster in the 1960s. “Football is not for a Yiddisher boy!” He and his classmates were subjected to a half hour lecture on why Jews were the people of the book, not of the penalty kick.  “The next morning, at break-time, we played with a tennis ball. When he confiscated that, we switched to an apple core.”

From Leeds to Manchester and the East End, journalist Clavane and historian Dee swap stories of Orthodox Jews who frowned on sport, golf clubs that would not admit Jews, youth clubs wanting to turn out healthy Englishmen, and heroes from Olympian Harold Abrahams to Tottenham Hotspur owner Alan Sugar.

Anthony Clavane is a journalist with the Sunday Mirror and author of Promised Land and Does Your Rabbi Know You’re Here? The Story of English Football’s Forgotten Tribe.

David Dee is Lecturer in Modern History at De Montfort University, Leicester, and author of Sport and British Jewry Integration, Ethnicity and Anti-Semitism, 1890-1970."

Between 1920 and 1950, a large number of British Jews took up sports and recreations under the aegis of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB). As members and organisers of the CPGB’s youth and sporting arms, the Young Communist League (YCL) and the British Workers’ Sports Federation (BWSF), Jews engaged in a variety of sporting and recreational activities designed to promote communist policy, fraternity and fitness and act as a contrast to the competition and commercialism of ‘bourgeois’ sports.

Drawing on a broad array of archival and oral history materials, this article documents the growth and nature of Jewish participation in sport and leisure within the British communist movement. It focuses on two particular aspects of this involvement. Firstly, it shows that sports and socialising – as opposed to the wider communist political programme and ideology – often proved to be a key factor in drawing Jews to the movement and became a central aspect of a large number of young Jews’ ‘communist’ lifestyles. There were many who were later deeply involved in the organisational and ideological aspect of British communism. However, an analysis of sport and recreation shows that there also a significant number who were only ‘mildly interested’ (Rothman) in politics and participated in the movement mainly because it offered the chance to ramble, camp, cycle, dance or play table tennis with similar minded young Jews and non-Jews.

Secondly, the article will also show that involvement in communist sport and recreation exerted an important impact on Jewish ethnicity. During this time period, it became apparent that young Jews hailing from families who had fled to Britain from Russia between the 1880s and 1914 were drifting away from immigrant culture and religion. Involvement in sport and leisure organised by the YCL or BWSF was one factor catalysing their estrangement and detachment from their elders. By giving them a means of ‘escape’ (Williams) from the immigrant milieu, and an important degree of physical, cultural and religious freedom, communist sport helped Jews move away from their immigrant identities and form new lifestyles, relationships and characters.

The paper gives a broad overview of the interactions between sport and British Jewry between 1890 and 1970. It covers three main themes (integration, ethnicity and anti-Semitism) and also goes into detail regarding several local case studies with regards to the Manchester Jewish community and sport and physical recreation.

My paper looked at sports organisations founded and/or supported by British Jews in the period between 1890 and 1939. It argues that British Jewish sports organisations were vastly different to their continental European cousins during this period, with relatively little interest in Zionist and Communist groups, but considerable involvement in non-political associations aimed at using sport for integration and assimilation.

The paper looks at anti-Semitism within British golf during the twentieth century and argues that Jews have faced a considerable level of discrimination from the British golfing establishment, press and community, forcing them to create their own clubs to play free of prejudice.