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10 am to 5 pm.

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Newham Bookshop events at The Wanstead Tap, Spring/Summer 2024
  • Thursday 18 April at 7.30 pm

    Sarah Wise
    The Undesirables

  • Thursday 25 April at 7.30 pm

    Andrew Whitehead
    A Devilish Kind Of Courage

  • Thursday 16 May at 7.30 pm

    Viv Groskop
    One Ukrainian Summer

  • Wednesday 29 May at 7.30 pm

    Iain Sinclair
    Pariah Genius

  • Wednesday 5 June at 7.30 pm

    Laura Laker
    Potholes and Pavements




Newham Bookshop by Pete Fallan
Newham Bookshop, Pete Fallan, March 2021.


Wednesday 4 December at 7.30 pm
at The Wanstead Tap


We Fight Fascists
We Fight Fascists
is published in hardback
by Verso at £20
on 22 October 2019.
Buy ticket online
Tickets £8 online
from Newham Bookshop

The Wanstead Tap logo
“One of London’s largest selections of craft beers and a range of local, small batch spirits. We pride ourselves on buying limited-release gins and vodkas as well as a range of mixers to suit every taste.”

We welcome Daniel Sonabend to The Wanstead Tap
to discuss his remarkable book with Michael Rosen

Daniel Sonabend
We Fight Fascists

The 43 Group and Their Forgotten Battle for Post War Britain

The extraordinary story of the Jewish ex-servicemen fighting fascism in post-war Britain

Returning to civilian life, at the close of the Second World War, a group of Jewish veterans discovered that, for all their effort and sacrifice, their fight was not yet done. Creeping back on to the streets were Britain’s homegrown fascists, directed from the shadows by Sir Oswald Mosley. Horrified that the authorities refused to act, forty-three Jewish ex-servicemen and women resolved to take matters into their own hands. In 1946, they founded the 43 Group and let it be known that they were willing to stop the far-right resurgence by any means necessary.

Their numbers quickly swelled. Joining the battlehardened ex-servicemen in smashing up fascist meetings were younger Jews, including hairdresser Vidal Sassoon, and gentiles as well, some of whom volunteered to infiltrate fascist organisations. The Group published its own newspaper, conducted covert operations, and was able to muster a powerful force of hundreds of fighters who quickly turned fascist street meetings into mass brawls. The struggle peaked in the summer of 1947 with the Battle of Ridley Road, where thousands descended on the Hackney market to participate in weekly riots.

The history of the 43 Group is not just a gripping story of a forgotten moment in Britain’s post-war history; it is also a timely lesson in how to confront fascism – and how to win.

Daniel Sonabend is a writer and historian who lives in London. He studied for his MPhil in Political Thought and Intellectual History at Cambridge University. For the past six years he has been researching the 43 Group and working to share its story. This is his first book.

“A great reminder of a post-war resistance to fascism amongst Jewish Londoners. It’s a little-known story as it tends to get hidden behind the pre-war appearance of Oswald Mosley and the British Union of Fascists but, as we read here, Mosley wasn’t finished with his Jew-baiting. My own grandparents lived two hundred yards from the scene of action of most of this book and reading it brought it all to life for me.” – Michael Rosen, author of So They Call You Pisher!

“Brilliant, compelling and very timely. This is the sort of history we should all know about, especially in these troubled times, but were never taught at school.” – Keith Lowe, author of The Fear and the Freedom.

Watch out for online events


Family lessons for
Writing and Reading Newham
available here

On the Record logo

Interested in learning more about Newham Bookshop and some of the people connected with it? We have four lessons for classroom or family use developed from On the Record’s oral history project centered around Newham Bookshop, Writing and Reading Newham. Click here for full details.


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Newham Bookshop is LoveReading’s
Bookshop of the Month

We are proud that Newham Bookshop is LoveReading’s Bookshop of the Month. The article features a Q&A with Vivian Archer, which you can read here.


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