Not Only for Ourselves: The Jewish Council for Racial Equality

This talk will explore the history of the Jewish Council for Racial Equality (JCORE), founded by Edie Friedman in Leeds in 1976. JCORE was for many years the primary, if not only, British Jewish campaigning for social justice, migrant rights and anti-racism. In 2022 it merged with the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society to form HIAS+JCORE, under the leadership of Rabbi David Mason. In 2026 HIAS+JCORE and the Parkes Institute published Joseph Finlay’s book Not Only for Ourselves, a story of the council from its founding to the merger, and the book will form the basis of this talk. It will discuss JCORE in the context of Jewish engagement with anti-racism and immigration campaigning in Britain more generally, focusing particularly on JCORE's Black-Jewish Forum of the 1990s and 2002. Questions considered will include: how and when did Jews involve themselves in this work? Who were their primary partners? What were the challenges they faced? How were antisemitism and racism considered, as separate or connected? Why was it sometimes easier for British Jews to campaign on immigration reform rather than on anti-racism?

Speaker

Joseph Finlay is a postdoctoral fellow at the Birkbeck Institute for the Study of Antisemitism, researching Jewish Colonial Governors. His doctoral research on British Jews and race relations took place at the University of Southampton, and his book based on it will be published by Manchester University Press in 2026. He also writes the newsletter Torat Albion on British Jewish culture and politics: www.toratalbion.org.uk.

Event information

This event will be held in-person and online.

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