British Fascist antisemitism and Jewish responses, 1932-40
By: Daniel Tilles
Series: A modern history of politics and violence
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Published: 2015
Place of publication: London : Bloomsbury Academic, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Language: eng
Number of pages: 262
ISBN-13: 9781472510570; 9781472507259; 9781472505682
Subjects: Fascism; History; Antisemitism; Jews; Ethnic relations; HISTORY / Europe / General; HISTORY / Modern / 20th Century; POLITICAL SCIENCE / Political Ideologies / Fascism & Totalitarianism; British Union of Fascists
Description: "British Fascist Antisemitism and Jewish Responses, 1932-40 explores the use of antisemitism by Britain's interwar fascists and the ways in which the country's Jews reacted to this. It analyses these issues in far greater breadth and depth than any previous study and examines the two alongside one another for the first time.Daniel Tilles challenges existing conceptions of the antisemitism of Britain's foremost fascist organisation, the British Union of Fascists (BUF). He demonstrates that antisemitism was a far more central aspect of the party's thought than has previously been assumed, one that had been present from the outset and was inseparable from - indeed integral to - its ideological goals. Moreover, he argues that the BUF's leader, Sir Oswald Mosley, far from being a reluctant convert to the anti-Jewish cause, or simply a cynical exploiter of it, as much of the existing scholarship suggests, was aware of the role antisemitism would play in his fascist doctrine from the start and remained in control of its subsequent development. These insights are in turn used to support the notion that, contrary to prevailing perceptions, Jewish opposition to the BUF played no real part in provoking the fascists' adoption of antisemitism. Britain's Jews did, nevertheless, play a vital role in shaping British fascism's path of development, and the wide-ranging and effective anti-fascist activity they pursued represents an important alternative narrative to the dominant image of Jews as mere victims of fascism"--
Notes: Revised version of the author's thesis (doctoral)--University of London, 2011.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 242-253) and index.
Table of contents: title: Machine generated contents note:; title: Introduction 1. Fascism and Anti-Fascism in 1930s Britain 2. The Evolution of Anti-Jewish Discourse 3. Cleansing the Nation: Antisemitism and Ideology 4. Mosley, Fascism and Antisemitism 5. Early Jewish Responses to the BUF, 1932-5 6. The Defence Debate, 1936 7. Communal Convergence, 1937-40 Conclusion Bibliography Index.