JAMES PARKES AND THE AGE OF INTOLERANCE
This exhibition tells the remarkable and little-known story of Reverend Dr James Parkes (1896-1981). He usually found himself isolated from mainstream opinion, yet he fought tirelessly throughout his life for tolerance in an age where intolerance was all too common.
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All images and quotes below are used with permission of the Special Collections, University of Southampton.
“I suspect that dialogue is the divine alternative to conformity.”
James Parkes’ address at the Canadian Council of Christians and Jews (2-6 September 1968)
[MS60/4/7/4]
James Parkes (1896–1981) was one of the most remarkable figures within twentieth-century Christianity, yet since his death, he has largely been forgotten within the church, by Jews, and by British society as a whole.
Parkes was a tireless fighter against antisemitism in all forms. He was one of the first Christians to both accept the Christian roots of antisemitism and that Judaism has its own integrity and validity. Throughout his life Parkes promoted religious tolerance and mutual respect between those of all faiths and none.
Parkes was one of the very few activists campaigning for the Jews of Europe from the 1920s onwards. In the 1930s he helped to rescue Jewish refugees and he campaigned for European Jewry during the Holocaust. During the Second World War Parkes helped to establish the Council of Christians and Jews.
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He authored more than 400 texts. He donated his library and personal papers to the University of Southampton in 1964. These materials formed the foundations for what has since become the Parkes Institute, the world’s oldest and most wide-ranging centre for the study of Jewish/non-Jewish relations across the ages.
Reverend Dr James Parkes
Parkes with his parents and siblings
Top: 1907
Bottom: 1904
[MS60/34/6]
“My dearest Jim,
I don’t know what profession you will choose in the end, but don’t let yourself get absorbed ever in your work that you forget to take your share in making the world a happier and holier place.”
From a letter James Parkes received from his mother, Annie Parkes (4 October 1910)
Tragedies
James Parkes was born in 1896 on the Channel Islands. He was the son of an English-born tomato grower and a bit of an outsider in the insular French world of Guernsey. Tragedy struck when his mother died when he was 14 years old. Her absence cast a shadow over his once happy childhood.
Parkes with his siblings, Molly and David, c. 1914
[MS60/34/6]
Parkes’ idyllic world had been rocked by his mother’s death. In less than a decade, he would also mourn the loss of his two siblings, David and Molly. Like so many others, they perished in the First World War. His older brother, David, died in 1917 at Passchendaele. Molly,
his younger sister, died when her ship – the RMS Leinster – was torpedoed while she was travelling to Ireland in 1918.
During the First World War, Parkes spent time in Ypres Salient. He was left both physically and mentally scarred by his experiences on the Western Front. While Parkes survived the war, less than half of his sixth-form peers did.
“In my last period in the line I was in command of the Company for the simple reason that I was the only officer still alive. But I had, without knowing it, collected a dose of mustard gas. It was realised only when I suddenly went blind on parade some days after we had got out of the line. By various graduations I moved from hospital to hospital and ended up in London during the zeppelin raids of the autumn of 1917. I never got out to France again.”
James Parkes served as an infantryman in the British armed forces for three years during the First World War
Left: Parkes in his military uniform, 1917 [MS60/34/6]
James Parkes writing in his autobiography Voyage of Discoveries (1969)
Becoming An Activist
After the First World War, Parkes studied theology at the University of Oxford. His own recollections suggest that he was repulsed by the student snobbery that he found there. At the university the antisemitic remark ‘Jewboy’ was frequently used.
After graduating, Parkes became a leading member of the Student Christian Movement before joining the International Student Service in Geneva. He regularly observed incidents of antisemitism as he travelled around central and eastern Europe.
Rampant antisemitism was particularly widespread on university campuses. The rise of Nazism – which was rife in German academia and the student body – became obvious to Parkes during the second half of the 1920s. From the British perspective, and perhaps that of the wider western world, Parkes’ awareness was at least a decade ahead of his time.
Parkes reading in his office, 1923
MS60/34/6
Parkes holding a bouquet of flowers, 1928
[MS60/34/6]
A sketch drawn by Parkes of the Octagon at Hertford College, Oxford
[MS60/34/7]
By the late 1920s, there is no doubt that Parkes became obsessed by the plight of the Jews in central and eastern Europe. He referred to them as ‘my Jews’ and this identification became a central feature of his remarkable career. Parkes was one of the very few activists campaigning for the Jews of Europe from the 1920s onwards.
Parkes wanted to understand the phenomenon of modern antisemitism. He embarked on pioneering academic research. He was one of the first to clearly identify that the root of much antisemitism lay in the teaching of the Churches. Parkes saw Judaism as a religion as equally valid as Christianity.
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Parkes’ ideas were particularly shocking because he was ordained as an Anglican clergyman in 1926. Many in the Churches were critical of his views and many Jews were suspicious about his motives.
Parkes (centre) and friends, 1925 [MS60/34/6]
“I have sometimes called myself ‘a parson in the pew’, for although I have been an Anglican priest for nearly twenty years, I have not had a pulpit of my own, but have, because of the special work I was doing, been a wanderer in many countries, and lived in many parishes of other priests.”
James Parkes, February 1943 [MS60/6/10/1]
“ My first concern was antisemitism in the universities; that led me to a study of antisemitism; this in turn forced me to a study of Jewish history; and this I found incomprehensible without a study of Judaism. The growing tragedy in Europe and the growth of the National Home brought in turn a study of Israel and the Diaspora.”
Letter from James Parkes to Mr Sniderman (September 1955)
War Looms
AN ASSASINATION ATTEMPT
HELPING JEWISH REFUGEES
As the plight of European Jewry increased during the mid-1930s, Parkes’ work became more desperate. His research on the infamous Protocols of the Elders of Zion helped to expose the document as an antisemitic hoax during the Berne Trial (1934–1935). Due to his work Parkes’ was placed on Hitler’s ‘black list’ and marked out for immediate elimination in the event of a Nazi victory. The Swiss Fascist Party threatened to kill him. An assassination attempt was made, which resulted in Parkes’ personal assistant suffering severe injuries.
Parkes with cats, c. 1930
[MS60/34/6]
In October 1933, the League of Nations appointed American James McDonald as High Commissioner for Refugees from Germany, and, on the same day, Parkes was recommended as his non-Jewish expert. As part of McDonald’s initial travelling staff, Parkes accompanied McDonald to the first informal High Commission meetings. Although Parkes’ association with McDonald did not result in acceptance of a permanent position, the committee Parkes headed for ISS was officially named as the responsible refugee-student arm of the High Commission. By March 1934, some 1,325 Jewish emigrant students had benefited from the programme Parkes had established for ISS.
In 1935 Parkes moved to Barley near Cambridge. He set to work as a gentleman scholar, primarily financed by Israel Sieff of Marks and Spencer. His library grew at a voluminous pace.
Parkes did not lead a solitary life in Barley. Instead, he was involved in Jewish, Christian, and secular organisations that helped to bring 80,000 refugees to Britain. He worked closely with the Board of Deputies of British Jews to produce materials outlining the nature of Nazi antisemitism and defended Jews against unfounded libel claims. He was also involved with anti-fascist groups who fought against Oswald Mosley and his followers.
Parkes did a great deal to assist many refugees. Just one example of the people he helped was his friend and colleague Alexander Teich, from the World Union of Jewish Students. Parkes had befriended Teich during his work on the continent. Teich became a marked man following the Nazi annexation of
Austria. Parkes acted quickly to bring Teich to Barley in 1938. Teich’s wife and daughter joined in 1939 and they all became an integral part of communal life in Barley. Teich’s granddaughter is the actress Rachel Weisz.
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James Parkes’ work rescuing countless Jews from Europe has not been recognised in Britain or beyond.
James Parkes in 1932
[MS60/34/6]
“Today again [the Jews] are facing an uncertain future with courage and an undaunted determination to survive. Yet they cannot do it by themselves. They must depend also on the ability of the democratic countries of the world to maintain their tradition of toleration, and recover their tradition of hospitality to the oppressed. It is an old saying that every country has the Jews it deserves, and I for my part believe that if the democracies behave generously to their unhappy Jewish neighbours they will gain much more than they will lose.”
James Parkes, 'The History of the Jews', on the BBC Home Service (25 May 1939)
Transcript reprinted in The Listener, 8 June 1939.
The Second World War
James Parkes had an eventful war. He got married, and his father died. In 1940 he developed the persona of John Hadham. ‘John’ wrote popular and highly acclaimed theology for the masses and delivered radio broadcasts.
Much of Parkes’ time was devoted to supporting Jewish causes. The house in Barley was full of evacuees and refugees. He presented broadcasts on the BBC Home Service. A few months prior to the outbreak of the war, Parkes presented a series on the history of the Jews. The programme included a discussion of events taking place in 1930s Europe.
Parkes was a founding member on the executive of the National Committee for Rescue from Nazi Terror. This committee had been set up by Eleanor Rathbone, the MP for the Combined English Universities and stalwart campaigner for refugees. It provided an important means to publicise the events that were unfolding in Europe. Like Rathbone and the publisher Victor Gollancz, Parkes used his typewriter to pressure the British government to help the Jews of Europe.
Parkes was involved in many committees and organisations, but he demonstrated an inability to work as part of a team. He preferred to maintain his independence. For this reason, he turned down the opportunity to be the League of Nations High Commissioner for Refugees during the 1930s and then a peerage with the remit to fight antisemitism during the war. He was briefly the chairman of a Christian socialist political party – Common Wealth – but he resigned after 18 months. He was ill suited to deal with the party’s internal power struggles.
James and Dorothy’s wedding in August 1942
[MS/60/34/6]
“There is only one answer for men who still believe there is any nobility in the cause for which we are fighting: WE WILL RECEIVE THEM. AND IF THERE REALLY BE THREE MILLION [JEWS] WE WILL THANK GOD THAT WE HAVE BEEN ABLE TO SAVE SO MANY FROM HITLER’S CLUTCHES. AND IF THERE BE A JEWISH PROBLEM TO SOLVE, WE WILL SOLVE IT AS CIVILISED MEN AND NOT AS MURDERERS.”
“A month has passed since the House of Commons moved the imagination of the whole people when it stood in silence to record its sympathy with the Jewish victims of Hitler’s fanatical hatred. A month has passed … The Government has promised vengeance after the war, but that will save no lives. Apart from that it appears to have done little or nothing.”
James Parkes, 'The Massacre of the Jews: Future Vengeance or Present Help?' (January 1943)
[MS60/9/5/1]
The Council of Christians and Jews
Parkes was a key figure in the creation of the Council of Christians and Jews (CCJ). He claimed that the organisation first met under a pear tree in his orchard at Barley. Whatever its precise origins, the CCJ was galvanised in 1942 as evidence of the Nazi extermination programme received widespread exposure in Britain. This was the most murderous year yet faced by European Jewry and the year when Polish Jewry was essentially destroyed.
In autumn 1942 delegations appealed to the British government for action on behalf of British Jewry. Yet the government refused to act, warning that doing so would encourage a dangerous rise in domestic antisemitism. The protestations were not entirely futile. Instead, they formed part of the force that led to the Allied Declaration in December 1942, which condemned the mass execution of Jews in occupied Europe. Parkes scorned the declaration for lacking practical steps to help the remnants of European Jewry.
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Within the CCJ executive, concerns were raised that too much attention was being placed on the persecuted Jews of the continent. Many members of the executive insisted that Nazism was an assault on both Judaism and Christianity. Parkes argued that Nazi antisemitism had its roots in Christianity. He therefore remained an isolated figure, even within the CCJ.
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After 1945, Parkes never returned to the places in central and eastern Europe that he had come to know well before the war. While he was one of the first to historicise the Holocaust, he could hardly bear to remember it in his later life.
James Parkes making radio broadcasts during the
Second World War
(MS 60/34/6)
James Parkes lighting up a cigarette in c. 1945 (MS60/34/2)
“…the tremendous task ahead, the task of building a new society with more of justice, more of mercy, more of fellowship, more of respect for persons, than had the society which is passing away in the horrors of war.”
James Parkes, November 1943 [MS60 6/10/1]
“ A month has passed since the House of Commons moved the imagination of the whole people when it stood in silence to record its sympathy with the Jewish victims of Hitler’s fanatical hatred. A month has passed… The Government has promised vengeance after the war, but that will save no lives. Apart from [that] it appears to have done little or nothing.”
Following the Allied Declaration on 17 December 1942, Parkes lambasted the British government’s failure to act
An Advanced Institute of Learning
The library in Barley continued to grow after the end of the war. Yet the home could no longer cope with the scale of the collection or increasing number of visiting scholars. Parkes entered a period of increasing financial instability. Alongside these problems, Parkes suffered from three years of serious ill health during the 1950s. Something needed to be done to ease the burden on him.
The search was on to find a new home for his library. Parkes wanted much more than a physical space for his unique collection. He felt that it must be available as a practical resource. There was little interest in the collection, which mirrored Britain’s general disengagement with the Holocaust at the time. The Wiener Library in London – the world’s oldest Holocaust archive – equally struggled to garner support during this period.
Finally, in 1964, a home was found for the materials at the University of Southampton. Parkes found working with institutions tiring and it is unsurprising that he complained that the university was not making the most of his life’s work. He wanted someone to devote themselves to the work in the vigorous way he had and demanded that a director was appointed. This post was not created during his lifetime.
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Edmond de Rothschild speaking at the opening of the Parkes Library
[MS/1/39]
Official opening of the Parkes Library in the Turner Sims Library at the University of Southampton, 23 June 1965
[MS/1/39]
Parkes showing Rabbi and
Mrs J. Indech a book during the official opening of the Parkes Library
[MS/1/39]
“I hear that you are very troubled as to where to place your library. Would you consider Southampton?”
Offer made by David Gwilym James, Southampton’s second Vice Chancellor, as quoted in Voyage of Discoveries (1969)
Over half a century later the Parkes Library has been transformed. The University of Southampton is now home to a major Jewish documentation centre. Parkes’ desire to create an international research centre has been realised in the form of the Parkes Institute – the world’s largest centre devoted to the study of Jewish/non-Jewish relations.
James Parkes designed the logo that is still used today by the Parkes Institute (right). It was originally based on his father’s bookplate, which showed a squirrel in the tree rather than the book
“The ultimate objective is the development of the Library into a full scale Research Institute attached to a university or universities, which would concern itself with the whole range of relationships between the Jewish and non-Jewish worlds – religious, historical, political, social and economic.”
James Parkes, The Parkes Library: A Centre for Research into the Nature and Causes of Antisemitism and the Relationship between the Jewish and non-Jewish Worlds, 1961
Later Life
In August 1964 James and his wife, Dorothy, moved from Barley to Iwerne Minster in Dorset. James Parkes continued to work. He wrote an autobiography, many pamphlets, articles, and various other publications. He continued to write thousands of letters. Yet age caught up with him and after 1979 his writing ceased. James Parkes died on 10 August 1981 at the age of 84. He was survived by Dorothy, to whom he bequeathed his entire estate.
A rare colour photo of Parkes, playing cards
MS60/34/6
An elderly Parkes, 1979 [MS60/34/6]
Not much else survived him. While Parkes was still alive efforts to recognise his work floundered. Dorothy had tried to persuade Martin Gilbert to write a biography about James Parkes, but nothing came of it. A festschrift in Parkes’ honour was planned, but lack of enthusiasm meant it was abandoned. Parkes was being forgotten while he was still alive.
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Since his death, James Parkes has become an increasingly forgotten figure. He has become a ‘nobody’, while others are celebrated for the work that he pioneered. He ought to be remembered. Remembering activists such as Parkes is partly about honouring their humanity. But it also helps to illustrate the failures of their contemporaries to act in an age where intolerance was all too common.
“James Parkes was
a scholar
in an age of unreason, an individualist
in an age of conformity,
a tolerant man
in an age of intolerance.”
D. Litt tribute for James Parkes (University of Southampton, 1969)
James Parkes at his desk [MS60/34/6]