Pride Versus Prejudice : Jewish Doctors and Lawyers in England, 1890 - 1990 (The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization)

This pioneering study is a treasure trove of new information, illustrating the lives and professional experiences of the people involved in such a way as to demonstrate clearly both the obstacles they faced and the status they achieved. Its wealth of detail, in many cases fleshing out the careers of leading Jewish professional figures for the first time, makes engaging reading. The narrative proceeds chronologically with careful attention to social context, starting with the Victorian and Edwardian eras. For the medical profession, the account of subsequent changes begins with the influx of Jews into medical schools after 1914. John Cooper goes on to describe the problems these Jewish medical students, most of them from immigrant families, encountered. Finding employment even as general practitioners was problematic, and almost insurmountable barriers confronted aspirants to consultant status. Afraid of antisemitic claims that Jews were flooding the market, the leaders of Anglo-Jewry even tried in the 1930s to dissuade young Jews from becoming doctors and lawyers. In this context, Cooper also considers the position of refugee doctors before and during the Second World War. The establishment of the National Health Service in 1948 resulted in fundamental changes, particularly in the way in which consultants were selected, and Cooper shows how this permitted Jewish doctors to enter specialties from which they had previously been excluded and to climb to the highest rungs within the medical hierarchy. He summarizes the careers of many prominent Jewish doctors. The experience of Jews in the legal profession, both as solicitors and barristers, is examined in similar detail. Cooper sets the context with a discussion of the treatment of Jewish litigants in the early years of the twentieth century in the Whitechapel County Court and the criminal courts. He shows how the persistence of an anti-Jewish bias in the inter-war period limited opportunities for Jews and dissuaded th