“Act of Grace”: The Discourse of Ex-Gratia Assistance and the British Refusal to Indemnify Jewish Victims of Colonial Violence, ‘Aden 1947

• In Event: Jews around the Mediterranean and Arabian Seas

Abstract

In December of 1947, a British militia – the ‘Aden Protectorate Levies – participated in anti-Jewish riots in ‘Aden. Soldiers gunned down Jewish civilians, including women and children, in the streets and in their homes and assisted civilian rioters in setting Jewish houses and public buildings ablaze.

In the months and years that followed the riots, the ‘Adeni Jewish community, with the help of Jewish leaders in London and New York, waged a campaign for compensation. According to prominent ‘Adeni Jews, the British, as not only the ruling power in ‘Aden but also the overseers of the party most responsible for the carnage and damage, were liable to restore the Jewish Quarter and help the survivors resume their businesses and lives.

Throughout the late 1940s and early 1950s, however, the British regime refused Jewish compensation claims. The colonists determined, instead, to offer small sums on an “ex-gratia basis,” characterizing the funds as charitable donations or investments in the Colony’s economy in order to avoid admitting legal liability. In doing so, they divorced the “assistance” scheme entirely from Jewish demands for justice.

This paper draws on archival documents from the collections of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, the World Jewish Congress, and the India Office to argue that the British regime developed its scheme, including the discourse of ex-gratia assistance, primarily in order to protect the ‘Aden Protectorate Levies from liability.

As Special Magistrate appointed to manage compensation claims following the 1947 riots, K. Bochgaard developed creative ways to minimize the actual transfer of funds from British coffers to the Jewish Quarter. Past scholarship has addressed the general British failure to meet the demands and needs of the riots’ survivors, but little attention has been devoted to the actual mechanisms by which the British deflected survivor claims. Analyzing Bochgaard’s work is useful not only for understanding the relationship between Jewish minorities and the colonial regimes under which they often lived in modern Southwest Asia, but also for conceptualizing the modern colonial/authoritarian state itself, and the methods by which colonial bureaucracies exempt(ed) themselves from responsibility for those whom they rule(d).

Author

• Benjamin Berman-Gladstone, New York University