Exhibiting Jewish Culture in Post-War Britain: Glasgow’s 1951 Festival of Art

• In Event: Exhibiting Jewishness in Cultural Performances: Between the Local and the Global

Abstract

The immediate post-war decade in Britain saw a surge in arts festivals and cultural events as a way to address post-war realities, raise morale, and shore up national identity, formalised with the establishment of the Arts Council of Britain. It was a moment complemented by a similar post-war engagement with the arts in British Jewish communities; albeit, with a very different set of concerns. This paper examines Glasgow’s 1951 Jewish Festival of Art, the first and largest Jewish festival of its kind in the United Kingdom. The festival in Glasgow, Britain’s second city, was conceived as a response to, and timed to coincide with, the Festival of Britain in 1951 (held to mark the centenary of the Great Exhibition of 1851). As I suggest, the JFA provides a window onto a Jewish community struggling to recast its national identity after the Holocaust and respond to the media attention on Jewish refugees and concerns about Jewish belonging. The displays in Glasgow showcased art of over 51 international and local Jewish artists, Israeli film, musical performances, lectures, antiquities, a display of Hebrew and Yiddish books, as well as a sell-out theatrical run of S. Ansky’s, THE DYBBUK. As chair of the festival, Scottish artist Benno Schotz announced at the opening: ‘the time had been considered ripe for Jews to take stock of their cultural achievements and to see where they stood in relation to the general stream of culture, for the benefit of themselves and their children.’ He also emphasized that the festival was not concerned with ‘Zionist propaganda’ but rather ‘fine art.’ I analyse the material and tangible elements of the festival alongside the social and cultural ideals of its organisers, arguing that the way that Jewishness was exhibited reflected a much more complex negotiation between the concerns of the community and the ‘general stream’ of British and Scottish political culture.

Author

• Mia Spiro, University of Glasgow