West European Studies

The social structure of the Jewish people in Europe was made up of small organized group that were well acculturated and proto- emancipated. These groups stayed both in Britain and German where they started to gain economic prowess and success. They even started to get richer by the day. They acquired high level education and even good positions and good white collar jobs.  The wealthy Jews and their families were able to gain some favors that included exemption from the anti-Jews laws until later when they were given equal citizenship with other people. A problem arose with a small group of gentiles came up with several issues that were so characteristic as their religious allegiance. They wanted to be included in the operations of common law. The British did not see them as their equals in other aspects of life.

After the World War II the Jews in Britain were the largest group of survivors of the war. A new group of refugees also fleeing from the Nazis also arrived in Britain due to the persecution that were inflicted on them, making the number of the Jews increase enormously. They formed their own community leadership where their leader was a chief rabbi.  The number increased so much and they started to advance in all spheres of life ranging from education, social life, economic and even political. They had their own representation in the British parliament most of which were from the Labour party. The number of the Jews who entered the white collar jobs was as twice as much as their European counterparts. It was at this time that Israel looked like a formidable political field. They advanced in technology and had sophisticated weapons. The Palestinians although at first were enemies with the Israelites supported them to rebel against the British rule. This threatened the British and even the Americans who closed doors of their immigration to the Middle East.

The mistreatment and persecutions of the Jews became more pronounced and at the peak of this mistreatment the Jews begun to move to the Middle East, a move that was discouraged strongly by the British government.. They refused to allow Jewish children to move to the American and British empires because they feared domestic violence. Anti- Semitism in the country was so strong. Racialism was at its peak and this was the reason of the governments passiveness. The government had lost faith in the British people and became inactive.

Britain colonized Jerusalem and three years later they obtained a mandate to extend their territory to Palestine and the east of river Jordan. In the spring of the same year, there was violence that was started by the Arabs who were opposed to the British rule. The violence led to the formation of a Haganah self- defense organization whose formation was to spearhead the opposition against the foreign rule and show them that the Jews were ungovernable. The riot intensified in the area and the rumor that the Jews were to build a synagogue in the Wailing Wall and increase further encroachment to the Muslim territory fuelled the riots even further. The British then responded by writing a white paper that attempted to stop immigration to the Palestine land.

In the 1930s the immigration of the Jews into Britain strengthened the economy of Britain since they were people of the middle class who were great business men and women especially the fashion trade. Others were involved in pharmaceutical production and light engineering while few of them were professionals, intellectuals and artisans. This was one of the reasons that the British government would not allow them to move to Palestine even during the persecution.