Vintage

Historians clash over Churchill 'anti-Semitism' 

“Winston Churchill's views on anti-Semitism were at the centre of a row last night after Cambridge University claimed to have discovered a 70-year-old document in which the future Prime Minister wrote that Jews may 'have been partly responsible for the antagonism from which they suffer', inviting terms of abuse such as 'Hebrew bloodsucker'. 

…But when The Observer contacted Sir Martin Gilbert, the eminent historian and Churchill biographer, the implication of anti-Semitism began to unravel. Gilbert, who also has a book out this summer, said the article was not written by Churchill at all, but rather his ghost writer, Adam Marshall Diston. He added that Churchill's instructions for the article were different in both tone and content from what Diston eventually wrote, and pointed out that Diston was a supporter of Oswald Mosley, the notorious fascist and anti-Semite. Churchill had stopped its publication in a newspaper….” 

Note that the following article from Ha'aretz (Israel)/Reuters does not include the comment from Sir Martin Gilbert:

Pre-WW2 Churchill article says Jews partly to blame for anti-Semitism 

“A historian has uncovered a pre-World War Two article Winston Churchill wrote about the persecution of Jews but then decided not to publish. In the long lost article, the British wartime leader disapproved of the treatment they experienced but did say of the Jews: "They have been partly responsible for the antagonism from which they suffer." 

Cambridge University lecturer Richard Toye, reflecting on his find, said: "While most people would accept that Churchill was no anti-Semite, this sheds fascinating new light on his views about Jews which were very inconsistent." While researching in the university's Churchill archives, the historian uncovered the unpublished article in a pile of proofs and press cuttings. "It was a dramatic moment," he said….”