Fagin’s World: Jewish Charity, Community, and Religion in 19th Century British Cities, with Alysa Levene

Please register for this free online program, in conjunction with the Library’s One Bay One Book program.

Dickens’ Fagin lived in a precarious world. As an East End Jew he was subject to all of the suspicion and stereotyping suffered both by those of his religion, and also those who lived in the ‘underclass’ of crime and poverty. This talk will explore the realities of life for someone like Fagin, living in the large cities of England at this time of growing poverty, and growing Jewish immigration. Using Jewish charity records and census records I will discuss some of the ways that urban Jewish communities helped each other find work and housing, and supported those in need. However, not everyone was so fortunate, and I will also describe what might happen to those who fell through the cracks, or ended up in the more mixed world of crime and the workhouse.

Dr. Alysa Levene is a historian of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century England, and her work has focused on the history of the family, community, poverty, and healthcare. She is interested in the history of everyday life; how people related to family and community members, and the way that they experienced wider forces of industrialization, poverty, and ill health. Her books include The Childhood of the Poor: Welfare in Eighteenth-Century London (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012); Cake: A Slice of History (Pegasus Books, 2016); and Jews in Nineteenth-Century Britain: Charity, Community and Religion, 1830-1880 (Bloomsbury, 2020).