169. Anti-Immigrant? Or just anti-Semitic?

A major issue the Balfour government had to deal with was immigration. That became a thinly veiled pretext for anti-Semitism, since increased persecution of Jews inside the Russian empire sent huge numbers abroad seeking for refuge. A great many reached London, though far fewer than was often claimed.

This episode looks at the reactions to the problem, which was often surprising, at least in appearance. Some Jewish leaders backed measures to restrict immigration. So, at one time, did the kind of figure you would imagine to be more sympathetic to people fleeing persecution, such as Keir Hardie in the forerunner of the Labour Party, though he and his colleagues later came down firmly against anti-immigration measures.

Many of the backers, though, were the usual suspects. Some were genuinely convinced that what they were seeking was restriction on destitute and undesirable immigrants. Many others, however, felt that what was really being sought was an anti-Semitic measure to keep Jews out of Britain.

Illustration: Sir William Evans-Gordon, cartoon by ‘Spy’, from ‘Vanity Fair’, 11 May 1905 National Portrait Gallery D45274

Music: Bach Partita #2c by J Bu licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License.