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 them from entering the law; he also
considers the position of Jewish refugee lawyers who came to England during the
1930s and 1940s. After the war, major changes in the economy and legal system
allowed Jewish law firms to expand rapidly, challenging the dominance of the
City law firms in the commercial world. Many of these firms consequently began
to admit Jewish partners for the first time, and Jewish barristers, hitherto
confined to the less remunerative areas of civil and criminal law, were
likewise able to enter the more lucrative pastures of company and tax law. From
the late 1960s, Jews were also promoted in increasing numbers to position on
the High Court Bench. As well as giving a detailed picture of these mainstream
developments the book also looks at the careers of Jewish communist, socialist,
and maverick lawyers.



The story
John Cooper tells will appeal not only to readers with a general interest in
the subject but also to social historians. It is based on a wide range of
sources, including newspapers and professional journals, archival material, law
reports, and interviews conducted by the author, and there are detailed indexes
of names and subjects. As well as providing an illuminating account of recent
Jewish social history, the book makes a valuable contribution to the history of
the medical and legal professions and to the scholarly debate as to whether or
not antisemitism was of peripheral or central importance in Anglo-Jewish
history.