David Dee
I am a social historian with specific interests in British Jewry and sport and leisure.
I am currently Senior Lecturer in Modern History within the School of Humanities - based in the Faculty of Art, Design and Humanities at De Montfort University
I am currently Senior Lecturer in Modern History within the School of Humanities - based in the Faculty of Art, Design and Humanities at De Montfort University
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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.
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.
Articles/Essays
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.
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.
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.
Talks
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.
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."
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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."
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.