ABSTRACT
In August 1956 the 'Parkes Library Limited: A Centre for the Study of Relations between the Jewish and non-Jewish worlds' was formally incorporated. Its main purpose was to provide a Centre 'where non-Jewish sociologists, historians, theologians and other scholars could work in the wide field of relations between Jews and their neighbours, and between Judaism and other religions, and could meet with Jewish scholars engaged on the same work'. The focus was on the responsibility of non-Jews to combat antisemitism, a responsibility which its director, James Parkes, believed had still to be taken up, even with awareness of the horrors of the Second World War. Parkes' first book, The Jew and His Neighbour grew out of his involvement in the International Student Service, confronting the intense hostility faced by Jewish students in European universities, which led to violence and exclusion in many different continental countries.
