The Battle of Cable Street is a moment of iconic significance in British Jewish history and in the history of anti-fascism in this country. On 4 October 1936, massed ranks of Jews, leftists and dock workers, many of them Irish, confronted the Metropolitan Police and prevented Oswald Mosely and his Blackshirts from marching through the Jewish East End.
In 1936, Jews ignored calls from Jewish leaders to stay at home, keep quiet and put their faith in the police and government. Instead, they built alliances with trade unions, communists and another racialised minority, the Irish
In the current moment, when the far right is resurgent, when Jewish leaders look to the state for support in the struggle against antisemitism, and when alliances between Jews and the anti-racist left are fragile, this public discussion asks what it should mean to remember Cable Street today.
Nadia Valman is Professor of Urban Literature at Queen Mary University of London. She has published widely on the history and culture of London’s East End and co-edited Remembering Cable Street: Fascism and Anti-Fascism in British Society (Vallentine Mitchell, 1999).
Liam Liburd is the Assistant Professor of Black British History at Durham University. His research explores the history of the British white supremacist movement and the relationship between institutional racism and “extremist” racism in modern British history.
Joseph Finlay is a historian and a postdoctoral fellow at BISA. His research centres around British Jews, race relations, anti-racism, empire, decolonisation and questions of philosemitism and antisemitism. He explores contemporary Jewish issues in his newsletter Torat Albion.