workingclasshistory:

On this day, 3 August 1947, Britain’s last anti-Jewish riots took place, when a racist mob, several hundred strong, rampaged through the Jewish Cheetham Hill area of Manchester. Two days previously, Zionist Irgun guerrillas had hanged two British Army sergeants in Palestine in response to the execution of three Irgun fighters, which was reported extensively back in the UK. The mob in Manchester smashed windows, threw bricks from cars, attacked a synagogue and shouted abuse at a Jewish wedding party. Over the next couple of days anti-Semitic riots also took place in Liverpool and Glasgow, and there were scores of attacks on Jewish property around the country in places like London, Hull, Bristol and Warrington. Hostility towards Jewish people had been inflamed by politicians and the media. For example Labour Foreign Secretary and former union leader Ernest Bevin had made comments about European Jews “pushing to the front of the queue”, and had falsely insinuated that Jewish black marketeers were hoarding fuel during a crisis. Meanwhile, the conservative Sunday Times newspaper accused British Jews of failing in their “civic duty and moral obligations” by not condemning anti-British violence in Palestine (which some readers may note is basically identical language to that used today about Muslims).
Amidst widespread anti-Semitism, fascists led by Oswald Mosley were organising opening on the streets. Our podcast tells the story of the Jewish ex-servicemen and women who fought them up and down the country: https://workingclasshistory.com/2020/02/17/e35-37-the-43-group/
Pictured: aftermath of anti-Jewish riots in Liverpool, August 1947 https://www.facebook.com/workingclasshistory/photos/a.296224173896073/1490927014425777/?type=3