Chief Rabbi's Emergency Council

1947
Silent
25m

Poignant postwar appeal for Britain’s Jewry to support orphaned Jewish children rescued from Europe

This moving charity appeal shows orphaned Jewish children rescued from Eastern Europe since 1945, and urges its audience (primarily Jews living in the UK) to send funds to support the young refugees. Unusually, it opens with three minutes of stills and intertitles before merging into film footage. An extended sequence shows a typical day in the life of the children housed in a boarding school.

The film highlights the work of the London Social Committee, a group of Jewish volunteers devoted to fundraising to continue the postwar rescue efforts. The Chief Rabbi’s Council was one of the main organisations involved in the bureaucratic organisation of the Kindertransport, the pre-war effort that rescued nearly 10,000 Jewish children and re-located them in the UK. Directed by Chief Rabbi Joseph Herman Hertz and Rabbi Solomon Schonfeld, it sought to ensure that the rescued children continued to receive an orthodox Jewish upbringing, and were housed with orthodox families.

Jewish Britain

Jewish life on screen: a century of insights and hidden histories

This collection uncovers insights, injustices and hidden histories across a century of Jewish life on British screens. It brings together documentary and first-person accounts of Jewish life in the UK, alongside historical dramas and artists’ work exploring the 20th century Jewish experience. The earliest surviving depictions of Jewish characters in British cinema offer a troubling insight into antisemitic representation, yet prejudice was later tackled head-on, with newsreels documenting the anti-fascist movement of the 1930s.

Drop in on joyous family weddings and community gatherings, and see the ways in which UK Jewry supported Jews young and old, and those fleeing persecution, in a selection of fascinating films from the 1900s to the 1980s.

This collection is generously supported by the Neil Kreitman Foundation, Shoresh Charitable Trust, John S Cohen Foundation, and Harold Hyam Wingate Foundation.