Sources in Israel for the Study of Anglo-Jewish History An Interim Report

Anglo-Jewish history is a topic of marginal interest in Israeli academic life. The subject is neither comprehensively taught at Israeli universities nor intensively researched by Israeli students, although local interest in Anglo-Iudaica can sometimes be discerned. One heartening indication is the progress of the Israel branch of the jhse which was founded in Jerusalem in 1978 on the initiative of Professor Lloyd Gartner; another is the comparative popu? larity of occasional symposia and exhibitions on Anglo-Jewish themes at Bet Hatefuzot ('The Museum of the Diaspora' on the campus of Tel-Aviv University). Nevertheless, most Israeli scholars tend to regard the history of Anglo-Jewry as a topic of secondary importance. This attitude cannot be attributed solely to an understandable desire to direct academic concern towards the larger Jewish communities of Europe and the United States. Considerations of a more opaque nature also seem to come into play. In some quarters, for instance, there appears to exist a feeling that little of substan? tive interest can be learnt from a study of Anglo Jewish history; the community, after all, has invar? iably been situated on the cultural as much as on the geographical periphery of Jewish life, rarely contributing much of significance to the intellec? tual or social development of the Jewish people as a whole.1 Elsewhere, neglect of Anglo-Jewry has been excused on the grounds that priority must be accorded to those communities which were vir? tually wiped out by the Holocaust. Hence the justification for establishing specialized Institutes for the study of German, Dutch or Polish Jewry which, unlike Anglo-Jewry, now possess only the slimmest of 'home bases' on which to rely for the reconstruction of their pasts. It is the purpose of the present article to indicate that Israeli institutions nevertheless can, and do, make substantial contributions to our knowledge of the development of Jewish communal life in Great Britain. Most critically is this so at the level of primary documentary materials for the late 19th and 20th centuries. In this area, the quantity of archival sources presently located in Israel is large, and its quality is high. Not only do Israeli libraries and institutions contain a large number of pub? lished works and papers of relevance to Anglo-Jew? ish history, but they also possess a sizeable propor? tion of the manuscript sources to which historians of the community must necessarily refer. This circumstance prompts two suggestions. One is that a study of many aspects of recent Anglo-Jewish history in Israel is viable; the second and more important is that in some areas of research a visit to Israeli institutions is vital. My primary interest has been to indicate the extent and type of manuscript sources in Israel appertaining to Anglo-Jewish history, although the picture would be unbalanced without due regard to the availability of other categories of written mater? ials which constitute important bases from which any historical study must proceed. The second consideration concerns the aims of the present paper. In its present form, it is designed to constitute no more than an introductory guide to the mater? ials available in Israel. It does not purport to present a comprehensive catalogue of such materials. It is hoped, however, that the body of the paper, together with its footnotes, will provide some indication of the provenance, accessibility and possible significance of the sources which have hitherto been found and consulted.2