Polaks and Litvaks in fin de siècle Britain: the worst of enemies or the beginning of a Jewish romance?

Source:The Institute for Polish-Jewish Studies

Tuesday 21 Jan 2025 6:15 PM - 7:30 PM

In person talk at UCL by Professor Tony Kushner in association with the Institute for Polish-Jewish Studies.

The rivalry and tension between Polish and Lithuanian Jews and their rival snobberies in matters religious and cultural is an established orthodoxy in East European Jewish historiography.

Here the speaker will explore what happened when Jews of these origins mixed in areas of Jewish migrant concentration in the United Kingdom.

Facing similar problems of making a living and facing a sometimes-hostile response from the ‘natives’ (including the existing Jewish community) in a new country and environment, were past animosities set aside?

The main examples are taken from the city of largest settlement outside London – Manchester. The source material is the 600 oral history interviews carried out from the late 1970s onwards in what is now the Manchester Jewish Museum.

This will be a presentation examining both history and memory and the forging of new identities in places of migrant settlement.

Location:UCL (Full details regarding location is provided on registration)