Jewish Tartan

[gilmore]

"A Bar Kochba weekend camp at Loch Lomond in the 1930s.

The Glasgow Bar Kochba Jewish sports club was founded in 1933 and was based in Turriff Street in the Gorbals. As well as offering members access to facilities in Glasgow, it organised weekend excursions to the countryside and a variety of social functions."

This is an interesting photo in that it shows that by the 1930's at least some Scottish Jews were relating to the kilt differently than had their immediate forebears.

The caption of the earlier photo from the earlier 20th Century read "One major difference between the JLB [Jewish Lads Brigade] and other youth groups was the intention that JLB membership would help the children of immigrants integrate themselves into their new surroundings and learn to be good citizens. Accordingly the Glasgow JLB adopted a number of Scottish traditions including establishing what was claimed to be the world's only all-Jewish pipe band."

Quite a few British and other Jews enlisted in the British armed forces and wore kilts in World War I, going against a long history of anti-Semitism in the European military and exclusion of Jews from armed forces (other than 25-year-long terms of conscription in the Tsarist Russian army), to demonstrate patriotism in their (often new) country.

Here we see that at least some Scottish Jews by the 1930's were not taking the kilt as seriously as a marker of Scots identity as it had been in earlier years.