Reject the attempted appropriation of Cable St
JVL Introduction
In the article below, Joseph Finlay provides an account of the different meanings attributed to the 1936 Battle of Cable Street over time.
From being a landmark in the resistance to fascism in the thirties attempts are now being made to re-present it as being part of a struggle against a generalised conception of “antisemitism” which means anything legacy Jewish communal institutions don’t like.
The Board of Deputies of British Jews organised a major cultural festival to mark the 90th anniversary, with music, art and talks. It was all brought into sharp focus with a panel “What does Cable Street Mean to British Jews Today?”
This featured the Board’s President Phil Rosenberg, a Jewish News journalist and a CST representative. “Presumably” remarks Finlay “no representatives of the Jewish left, or the wider anti-fascist movement, were available.”
In sharp contrast was the magnificent event to mark the actual day, the rally at Cable Street which we reported on in Stopping the Fascists 90 years ago and lessons for today
In this nuanced account of the history and the battle over the legacy of Cable St, Finlay concludes:
What I think is at work here is an attempt to reframe the historic battle against fascism as a battle against antisemitism. Antisemitism, removed from its historic specificities can be used to describe any movement opposed by legacy Jewish organisations. Cable Street is reimagined as something Jews did against their enemies – the role of the left, and of other ethnic groups has been removed.
We have to ensure that this gutting of the significance of the resistance of the past is not allowed to entrench itself. David Rosenberg’s Jacobin article, The Battle of Cable Street Was an Antifascist Landmark, is very helpful in that regard. As is Julia Bard’s speech (see featured image above) which is on the Jewish Socialists’ Group website here.
This article was originally published by Torat Albion on Tue 13 Oct 2026. Read the original here.
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the 90th Anniversary of the Battle of Cable Street
How the specific battle against fascism has been reinvented as a fight against a generalised ‘antisemitism’
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What next? Would the Orange Order put a display too on the 100 years anniversary of Cable Street?
After all, Irish dockers (some how I suspect most of them would have been Irish Catholics) marched in great numbers against the fascist alongside Jews and English working class.
Shame on the BoD!! At the time, I believe they were telling Jews to stay put at home.
Do read the rest of Joseph Finlay’s article. Its further exposure of the ease with which the Board of Deputies etc happily link with the far right who are pro Israeli is set in context. I’d not thought enough about how very pernicious is this attempt to hijack a working class, left wing, anti fascist mobilisation to the pro Israeli narrative.