List of British Jews

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Template:Short description Template:Use dmy dates Template:More citations needed Template:Sidebar with collapsible lists List of British Jews is a list of prominent Jews from the United Kingdom and its predecessor states.

Although the first Jews may have arrived on the island of Great Britain with the Romans, it was not until the Norman Conquest of William the Conqueror in 1066 that organised Jewish communities first appeared in England. These existed until 1290 when the Jewish population of England was expelled by King Edward I of England.

There was never a corresponding expulsion from Scotland. The eminent scholar David Daiches states in his autobiographical Two Worlds: A Scottish born Jewish Childhood that there are grounds for saying that Scotland is the only Immigrant country with no history of state persecution of Jews.

Jews were re-admitted to England and Wales in 1656 by Oliver Cromwell. Slightly more than 200 years later, in 1858 they were emancipated, that is, accepted as full citizens. In the late 19th century, there was mass Jewish immigration to England from Russia due to Russian domestic policy. In the 1930s, the country accepted many refugees from Nazism. The Jewish population peaked at 450,000, but has since declined due to low birth-rate, intermarriage and emigration, mainly of the younger generation to Israel. According to the 2001 census, the current population is around 295,000, most of whom live in London. The number of people who identified as Jews in the United Kingdom rose by just under 4% between 2001 and 2021.

Academic figures

Scientists

See List of British Jewish scientists, which includes economists.

Historians

  • David Abulafia, professor of history, University of Cambridge<ref>JYB 2005 p218</ref>
  • Geoffrey Alderman,<ref>[1] "her father, Geoffrey Alderman, is a columnist for the Jewish Chronicle, and her family are strict Orthodox Jews" Accessed 3 January 2007</ref> historian
  • Richard David Barnett, museum curator and archaeologist<ref>JYB 1985 p187</ref>
  • Norman Cohn, historian<ref name="JYB 2005 p215">JYB 2005 p215</ref>
  • Isaac Deutscher,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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|CitationClass=web }}</ref> editor of the Jewish Encyclopedia

  • Lisa Jardine, historian<ref>The Times; 11 January 1997; Tony Turnbull: "Born in Oxford, she had moved to Cheltenham at the age of five when her father, the polymath Jacob Bronowski, author of Ascent of Man, took up a research post with the National Coal Board. So it was that this nice little Jewish family moved in to Cleeve Hill, a small village four miles (6 km) from town."</ref>
  • Tony Judt,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}</ref> Director of the Erich Maria Remarque Institute at New York University

|CitationClass=web }}</ref> historian

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|CitationClass=web }}</ref> historian (converted to Anglicanism)

|CitationClass=web }}</ref> historian

|CitationClass=web }}</ref> historian and editor of the Encyclopaedia Judaica

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|CitationClass=web }}</ref> archeologist

  • Barry Supple, economic historian<ref>Jewish Year Book, 2005, p. 215</ref>
  • Geza Vermes<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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Medical

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|CitationClass=web }}</ref> physician and theatre director

|CitationClass=web }}</ref> professor, FMedSci

Philosophers

|CitationClass=web }}</ref> professor of philosophy at Manchester, born in Australia, the first Jewish fellow of an Oxbridge college

|CitationClass=web }}</ref> philosopher, populariser of logical positivism (Jewish mother)

|CitationClass=web }}</ref> political philosopher

|CitationClass=web }}</ref> philosopher social scientist

|CitationClass=web }}</ref> legal philosopher

|CitationClass=web }}</ref> Senior Research Fellow in Philosophy, St Benet's Hall, University of Oxford; concepts of race, antisemitism, Islamophobia, Jewish identity

|CitationClass=web }}</ref> philosopher of science (family became Lutheran)

  • Jonathan Romain, minister of Maidenhead Jewish community and leader of the British reform movement
  • Richard Rudolf Walzer<ref name="JYB 1975 p214"/>
  • Ludwig Wittgenstein, philosopher; Jewish grandparents on both sides of the family who had converted to Christianity in the 19th century; he was christened, raised and eventually buried as a Catholic
  • Richard Wollheim<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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Social scientists

Template:See also

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  • Norman Geras, professor of government<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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Theologians and Hebraists

|CitationClass=web }}</ref> professor of Hebrew

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  • Judah Segal, professor of Semitic languages<ref name="JYB 2005 p215"/>
  • Joseph Wolff,<ref name="ReferenceB"/> missionary

Others

  • Sidney Greenbaum, Quain Professor of English Language and Literature, University College London 1983–90<ref>"if there was anything invariant in his life, it was his strictly observant devotion to orthodox Judaism". [2]</ref>

Artists

Fine arts

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  • Edith Birkin, painter<ref name="edith">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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  • Ruth Rix,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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  • Alfred Wolmark,<ref>Concise Dictionary of National Biography: "born of Jewish parents in Warsaw; naturalized, 1894"</ref> painter
  • Berthold Wolpe,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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Designers and architects

|CitationClass=web }}</ref> fashion designer

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Arts and literature

  • Sir Israel Gollancz,<ref name="ibiblio.org">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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|CitationClass=web }}</ref> art historian<ref>JYB 2000 p211</ref>

Performing arts

See List of British Jewish entertainers (includes classical musicians and actors as "entertainers").

Writers

See List of British Jewish writers.

Business and the professions

Civil service

|CitationClass=web }}</ref> Chief Scientific Adviser to the Ministry of Defence and the Department of Energy

|CitationClass=web }}</ref> first head of the Civil Service College

|CitationClass=web }}</ref> Second Permanent Secretary, Health; later Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration

|CitationClass=web }}</ref> Lord Moser, government statistician

Finance

|CitationClass=web }}</ref> brothers, leading financiers and philanthropists

|CitationClass=web }}</ref> 12th-century financier

|CitationClass=web }}</ref> first Jewish director of the British East India Company

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Law

|CitationClass=web }}</ref> judge, QC and agunah campaigner

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  • David Daube, professor of law<ref>JYB 1995, p193</ref>
  • The Hon Sir Bernard Eder,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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|CitationClass=web }}</ref> MP for Reading, first Jewish barrister (Q.C. 1858)

|CitationClass=web }}</ref> barrister

|CitationClass=web }}</ref> Attorney General

|CitationClass=web }}</ref> solicitor

|CitationClass=web }}</ref> Britain's first female Q.C., judge

"I don't think so", she says, stressing that she judged the case as an international lawyer and not because of her background. "I also think that the fact you happen to be Jewish doesn't mean you think that everything the State of Israel does is right." When the Foreign Office put her name forward for election to the court, there were fears that some countries in the UN would not vote for a Jewish woman. She dismisses such concerns. "I don't think I have ever been perceived as Rosalyn Higgins, the Jewish international lawyer – and I hope not Rosalyn Higgins, the woman international lawyer."</ref>

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  • Harold Lightman, barrister, father of Gavin Lightman and Stafford Lightman<ref>Obituary: Harold Lightman; The Independent; 18 November 1998; John Balcombe; p. 6; "Lightman was disadvantaged in his early legal career by the fact that he had not been to university and was Jewish."</ref>
  • Sir Alan Mocatta,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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|CitationClass=web }} Jewish Chronicle, 11 July 2008, "How Jewish is Lord Chief Justice Phillips?"</ref> President of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom

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|CitationClass=web }}</ref> Q.C., former Lord Chief Justice

Manufacturing

|CitationClass=web }}</ref> clothes manufacturer and disgraced friend of Prime Minister Harold Wilson<ref>Oxford Dictionary of National Biography: "His parents were Orthodox Jews"</ref>

Media

|CitationClass=web }}</ref> Channel 4 News reporter and presenter

|CitationClass=web }}</ref> publisher, Chairman of the Daily Express Group

|CitationClass=web }}</ref> publisher

|CitationClass=web }}</ref> founder of ATV

|CitationClass=web }}</ref> Chairman of the BBC from 2004 to 2006 and executive chairman of ITV plc from 2007 to 2009.

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|CitationClass=web }}</ref> newsreader, TV presenter

|CitationClass=web }}</ref> owner of the Daily Telegraph

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|CitationClass=web }}</ref> writer, presenter and professional poker player

|CitationClass=web }}</ref> founder of Reuters

|CitationClass=web }}</ref> founders of Saatchi and Saatchi

|CitationClass=web }}</ref> founder of the WPP Group

|CitationClass=web }}</ref> publisher

Military

  • Sir Edward Brampton, godson of King Edward IV, a knight and commander during the War of the Roses<ref>The first of the Tudors: a study of Henry VII and his reign (Taylor & Francis, 1981) by Michael Van Cleave Alexander, page 97</ref>
  • Frank Alexander de Pass,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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|CitationClass=web }}</ref> World War II British Army Victoria Cross recipient (Jewish father)

|CitationClass=web }}</ref> World War I British Army Victoria Cross recipient

  • Peter Stevens, World War II bomber pilot/POW and recipient of the Military Cross for numerous escape activities; a German-Jewish refugee living in London at the outbreak of hostilities; born Georg Franz HEIN in Hanover; committed identity theft in order to join the RAF; was naturalized a British citizen in 1946
  • Wing Commander Roland Robert Stanford Tuck, DSO, DFC and Two Bars, AFC (1916–1987), RAF fighter pilot, Battle of Britain and Battle of France (27 air-to-air kills), English Electric Canberra test pilot
  • Jack White, World War I British Army Victoria Cross recipient<ref name="JYB 2005 p215"/>

Property

Retail

|CitationClass=web }}</ref> owner of Selfridges

|CitationClass=web }}</ref> founder of Tesco

|CitationClass=web }}</ref> owner of Bhs, Arcadia Group

|CitationClass=web }}</ref> now Baron Kalms of Edgware, life president of Dixons Group PLC

|CitationClass=web }}</ref> department store founder

|CitationClass=web }}</ref> co-founder of Marks & Spencer (born in the Russian Empire)

  • Simon Marks,<ref name="education_anglo_jewry" /> chairman of Marks & Spencer
  • Gerald Ronson,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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|CitationClass=web }}</ref> founder of Amstrad and star of The Apprentice (UK)

Police

|CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>http://www.gmjpa.org.uk Template:Webarchive</ref> Chief Constable of Brighton Borough 1838 to 1844

Political figures

See List of British Jewish politicians.

Religious and communal leaders

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Show business

See List of British Jewish entertainers.

Sports

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Philanthropists

  • Bernhard Baron, cigarette maker and philanthropist<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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  • Anna Maria Goldsmid,<ref>Oxf, ord Dictionary of National Biography: "Born an Orthodox Jew, in her religious practices Anna Maria remained throughout her life very observant"</ref> philanthropist
  • Sir Basil Henriques,<ref>Concise Dictionary of National Biography: "born into old, established Jewish family"</ref> philanthropist
  • Maurice de Hirsch,<ref>Oxford Dictionary of National Biography: "His grandfather Jacob had established the family as one of the first Jewish families to acquire great wealth and social acceptability in Bavaria ... His mother came from an Orthodox Frankfurt family and ensured that the children were properly instructed in Jewish matters ... he thereafter lived more in London than in Paris."</ref> banker and philanthropist
  • Samuel Lewis,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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Miscellaneous

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  • Antonio Fernandez Carvajal,<ref name="ReferenceA"/> merchant, first Jew to be naturalised as a British citizen
  • Jeremiah Duggan,<ref name="The Press 2006, p.4">The Press, Hendon and Finchley Edition, 16 November 2006, p.4: "Student Jeremiah, who was Jewish"</ref> possible murder victim
  • Brian Epstein (1934–1967), music entrepreneur who discovered and managed the Beatles<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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|CitationClass=web }}</ref> explorer

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|CitationClass=web }}</ref> army contractor, first English Jew to be knighted

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See also

References

Template:Reflist

Bibliography

  • Celmins, Martin. Peter Green: The Authorized Biography. London: Sanctuary Publishing, Ltd.; 3rd edition, 2003. pp. 23–32.
  • JYB = Jewish Year Book (annual)
  • "Obituary: Sir Edward Sassoon". The Times, Saturday, 25 May 1912; pg. 11; Issue 39908; col C.
  • TimesAd: The Times, 6/7/06 p34: "A Call by Jews in Britain" (advert signed by 300 British Jews)
  • David S. Katz, The Jews in the History of England, 1485–1850 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994). xvi, 447 pp.

Template:Lists of Jews by country

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