We Fight Fascists by Daniel Sonaband (Verso, £20)
In April 1946, a government committee decided it would be an error to ban fascist groups as they now posed no threat. Manny Shinwell, a committee member and Jewish Labour MP disagreed; so did multitudes of Jewish ex-servicemen and women who had seen what one part of humanity could inflict on another. Their collective reaction was, “we must kill Fascism… Now, not later”. And so was born the 43 Group. In East London, Hackney, Stoke Newington, they were not frightened to use their fists, to disrupt fascist meetings with smoke bombs, dry ice, fireworks and to damage loudspeaker vans. In a march of Oswald Mosley’s Union movement from Dalston to Tottenham, a tram was overturned and hundreds of people blocked the road while others waited at the Regent Cinema in Stamford Hill to pounce on those who felt the war against Hitler had been a mistake.
The importance of Daniel Sonabend’s book is not simply that it tells the story of the 43 Group’s fight against post-war Fascism, but that it reclaims a history that is as much part of our heritage as are the Rothschilds.
The 43ers were not all angels. They included spivs, gangsters and conmen. Jewish businessmen, the Crazy Gang’s Bud Flanagan and the world of boxing’s Jack Solomons and Ted “Kid” Lewis all gave generously to support them. Tony Bensusan, a JC journalist, initiated the group’s periodical, On Guard. But, as Sonabend remarks: “they were a disparate, decentralised, multi-faceted and sometimes completely chaotic organisation” often at odds with the sedate aims of established Jewish organisations.
