Strangers, aliens, and Asians

Compares the immigrant experience of three groups in different centuries in East London, dealing with both their reception and integration. Includes discussion of negative reactions on the part of the local population. Antisemitism is treated mainly in ch. 8 (pp. 191-223), "Xenophobia, Anti-Alienism and Racism", especially on pp. 198-209. Like the Huguenots, Jews were subject to vocal and, occasionally, physical violence but not murder, as have been recent Bengali immigrants. All three groups were scapegoated due to lack of housing and employment, which locals often unfairly blamed on them. In 1753 and 1905 British legislation placed restrictions on "aliens", which was a euphemism for Jews. The latter were stereotyped as unhygienic disease carriers. Difficult economic conditions contributed to xenophobia against members of all three groups. Traditional Christian antisemitism and 19th-century racism helped arouse Londoners against impoverished Jewish immigrants, who were seen as exacerbating economic and social problems in the late 19th-early 20th centuries. (From the Bibliography of the Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism - The Hebrew University of Jerusalem)