Out of the Ghetto - Joe Jacobs

This is the autobiographical account of the early years-of a life-long militant. Joe Jacobs who died in March 1977 had been working for many years on this story. It is not just another local History nor is it the autobiography of aworking man, although it is both these things. It isone man’s highly individual view of a major period of political change seen from a very special corner of England. The General Strike, the Great Depression and above all, the rise of fascism colour this story. The British Communist Party at grass roots level is one
of the book’s major features.

Joe Jacobs was born the son of Eastern European Jewish immigrants and grew up in the Jewish district of Whitechapel in the heart of London’s East End.

This book documents his own political development and the threat posed by Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists. It is a controversial book, which ends by being highly critical of the actions of the British Communist Party and of world communism in general from a militant and revolutionary standpoint.

Contents

• Maps
• Editor’s Foreword
• My East End
• Work and Contact
• Fateful Meeting
• My Mentor, my Pal and my girl
• Work in the Stepney Communist Party
• Enter the Fascists in Force
• Conflicts inside the Party
• The Party Grows in ‘My East End’
• ‘United Front’ Against Fascism
• Three Tailors from Stepney in Spain
• ‘Verbal Battlefields’
• The Battle of Cable Street
• Post Mortem on October 4th
• The Conflict Grows
• Expulsion
• Footnotes
• Glossary of initials used

First published by J Simon (1978). Republished by Phoenix Press (1991). Both editions out of print.