List of British Jews

The first Jews arrived in Britain with the Romans but it wasn't until the arrival of William the Conqueror in 1066 that organized Jewish communities first appeared. These existed until 1290 when the Jewish population was expelled by Edward I. (Hence plays such as The Jew of Malta and The Merchant of Venice were written when England was essentially devoid of Jews.) Jews were readmitted in 1656 by Oliver Cromwell, and emancipation took place in 1858. In the late 19th century there was mass Jewish immigration from anti-semitic Russia, and the 1930s saw an influx of refugees from Nazism. The Jewish population peaked at 450,000, but has since declined due to low birth rate, intermarriage and emigration. The current population according to the 2001 Census is around 240,000 (though many experts consider this an underestimate), most of whom live in London. The following is a list of some prominent British Jews.

Academic figures

Philosophers

• Samuel Alexander, philosopher
• Sir Alfred Ayer, philosopher, populariser of logical positivism (Jewish mother)
• Sir Isaiah Berlin, political philosopher
• H. L. A. Hart, legal philosopher
• Imre Lakatos, philosopher of science
• Sir Karl Popper, philosopher of science
• Ludwig Wittgenstein, philosopher

Social scientists

• Michael Balint, psychoanalyst
• Simon Baron-Cohen, autism researcher
• Zygmunt Bauman, sociologist
• Basil Bernstein, linguist
• Meyer Fortes, anthropologist
• Anna Freud, child psychoanalyst
• Sigmund Freud, psychoanalyst (spent last few years of life in Britain)
• Morris Ginsberg
• Paul Hirst, social theorist (Jewish mother)
• Marie Jahoda, psychology of discrimination
• Melanie Klein, psychotherapist
• Judd Marmor, psychiatrist (UK-born)
• Ashley Montagu, anthropologist & humanist

Economists

• Peter Bauer, economist
• Noreena Hertz, economist & activist
• Richard F. Kahn, economist: multiplier
• Nicholas Kaldor, economist
• Israel Kirzner, economist (UK-born)
• Harold Laski, economist
• David Ricardo, economist
• Piero Sraffa, economist

Historians

• Geoffrey Alderman, historian
• Geoffrey Rudolph Elton, historian
• Isaac Deutscher, historian
• Sir Martin Gilbert, historian
• Eric Hobsbawm, historian
• Bernard Lewis, historian
• Simon Sebag Montefiore, historian
• Lewis Bernstein Namier, historian
• Sir Francis Palgrave (born Cohen) (1768-1861), UK historian
• Francis Turner Palgrave (1824-1897), anthropologist
• William Gifford Palgrave (1826-1888), scholar of Arabic (Christian)
• Sir Reginald Francis Douce Palgrave (1829-1904)
• Cecil Roth, historian and editor of the Encyclopedia Judaica
• Simon Schama, historian
• Sir Aurel Stein, archeologist
• Geza Vermes, historian

Theologians and Hebraists

• Chimen Abramsky, Professor of Hebrew
• Stefan Reif, Cambridge academic