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Antisemitism |
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British Jews have experienced antisemitism - discrimination and persecution as Jews - since a Jewish community was first established in England in 1070.[1] They experienced a series of massacres in the Medieval period, which culminated in their expulsion from England in 1290.
They were readmitted by Oliver Cromwell in 1655. By the 1800s, an increasing toleration of religious minorities gradually helped to eliminate legal restrictions on public employment and political representation. However, Jewish financiers were seen by some as holding disproportionate influence on British government policy, particularly concerning the British Empire and foreign affairs.
Significant Jewish migration from Eastern Europe in the years prior to World War I saw some antisemitic opposition, which would result in increasingly restrictive immigration laws. An emerging fascist movement in the 1930s, which launched antisemitic campaigns, was accompanied by a government policy of restricting the inflow of Jewish refugees from Nazi controlled territories. Notwithstanding sympathy for the Jews following the Holocaust, immigration controls to Mandatory Palestine were maintained, while Zionist attacks on British forces in Palestine caused some resentment and would trigger anti-Jewish riots in 1947.
In the second half of the 20th century, while the Jewish community became generally accepted, antisemitic sentiment persisted within British fascist and other far-right groups.