Postdoctoral fellow

Dr Joseph Finlay

j.finlay@bbk.ac.uk

Joseph Finlay is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Birkbeck Institute for the Study of Antisemitism, funded by the Rothschild Foundation Europe. His research project focuses on Jewish colonial governors in the British Empire in the twentieth century. The project looks at eight politicians who governed diverse territories across the empire from the start of the century until the era of decolonisation in the early 1960s. Joseph gained a PhD in history from the University of Southampton in 2023, on the subject of British Jews and race relations, on which topic he is currently writing a monograph for Manchester University Press. He also recently completed a history of the Jewish Council for Racial Equality.

Joseph’s research focuses on Jewish governors in the British empire, specifically Matthew Nathan (Gold Coast, Hong Kong Natal), Edwin Montagu and Rufus Isaacs (India), Herbert Samuel (Palestine), Isaac Isaacs (Australia), Andrew Cohen (Uganda), Roy Welensky (Central African Federation) and David Marshall (Singapore). The project considers what impact Jewish identity had on their governance, and if it influenced their tendency towards imperial reformism and towards advocating for greater self-governance for indigenous peoples. It further considers how many of the governors were simultaneously racialised as Jews while governing over diverse ethnic groups within their territories, and how they navigated this complex racial terrain. Joseph’s broader research interests include Jews and race relations in Britain, antisemitism and racism, Black-Jewish relations, British Jewish history and Jewish entanglements with empire and decolonisation.

Books

  • Building Jerusalem in Babylon: Jews and Race Relations in Postwar Britain (in preparation for Manchester University Press)
  • Not Only for Ourselves: the Story of the Jewish Council for Racial Equality. HIAS+JCORE, 2026.

Book Chapters

  • British Jews and the Race Relations Acts’, in East, S., Redhead, G., and Williams, T. (eds.) Anti-racism in Britain: Traditions, Histories and Trajectories, c. 1880–present. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2024.

Journal Articles

Joseph also writes the newsletter Torat Albion on British Jewish issues, Israel/Palestine and issues of anti and philosemitism

Share Article