British Fascist antisemitism and Jewish responses, 1932-40

"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"--