Citation

Johnson S. J. Hist. Sociol. 2007; 20(3): 341-361.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2007, John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1111/j.1467-6443.2007.00312.x

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

“Within the Pale”: This paper examines British responses to the East European Jew in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Unlike other analyses, which have concentrated on the impact of Jewish immigration to the UK and the so-called aliens' debate, the author interprets the narrative constructed by British commentators who visited the Tsarist Empire (sometimes to specifically examine its “Jewish Question”) and who spent long periods there (either as independent observers, or as newspaper/journal correspondents). It discusses how Russian attitudes, images and allusions about Jews were transmitted to British discourse and the extent to which Anglo-Russian boundaries of Judeophobia were intertwined. In its assessment it considers British perceptions of anti-Tsarist persecution, life in the Pale, the Jewish-peasant relationship and Anglo-Jewish responses.