‘Continental’ Britons

Abstract

When talking about the ‘Germanness’ of the German Jews in Britain, it is important to get the proportions right. The first two chapters of this study were largely devoted to showing the unity of the German-Jewish ethnic identity in which the two component elements had become inseparably blended. The same holds basically true today, although the situation has become complicated through the addition of ‘Britishness’, on the one hand, and the emotional dissociation and actual detachment from German society, on the other. No wonder many respondents feel “split”, “ambivalent”, or, “as nothing much”, if asked to define their identity in terms of nationality. Yet in terms of ethnicity the large majority of the respondents had no problem of determining their identity: Jewish. And many, especially among the older generation, added that they are ‘more aware of their Jewishness in Britain’ than they had been in Germany. Since ‘Jewishness’ as such has become rather a vague term, open to many interpretations, respondents generally felt impelled to qualify the term. Thus it was said: “Not German, but very Jewish, yet not English-Jewish”, “Jewish but German-Jewish”, “Jewish, but more a refugee”, “Jewish, but in a Continental way.” Some defined it in religious terms, others more in terms of a ‘community of fate’. But what united them and differentiated them from English society was their ‘Continentalness’: “I like my Continentals best”, Mrs J. said with great affection.