My interest in Jews in the professions was awakened some years ago when I was browsing through an Australian rabbi's library which contained books on the history of Australian and New Zealand Jewry. From them I was astonished to learn of the difficulties placed in the way of refugee doctors from Germany and Austria wishing to requalify in these countries during the 1930s—difficulties so pronounced as almost to deny Jews any opportunity to follow a career as a lawyer or doctor in the glutted employment markets of the Western world during these years. Then there was my own family experience: one of my grandfathers was adamant in his opposition to my uncle's qualifying for a profession, seeing such a career as a well-trodden path to assimilation—a view that deterred many Jews from joining the professions. A third case that lodged in my memory was that of a high-flying Jewish surgeon in London after the Second World War, who—having grown up and qualified in England—was told that there was no place for him, as a Jew, in the most prestigious teaching hospitals. Over the years I have often wondered whether these were random facts or precious insights, and whether or not, with the requisite research, they could be woven into a coherent account. The answers are not straightforward, and therefore not easily summarized; indeed, the position has changed over time. Moreover, in surveying the history of the entry of Jews into the medical and legal professions there are many other factors to consider. Among them is the Jews’ changing view of the prestige attached to each profession, the variations in their perception of the psychological and financial rewards to be gained from pursuing a career in medicine or the law, and the hierarchical structure of these professions. At the same time, just as England moved from being part of the British empire run by an elite contemptuous of immigrants, whom they viewed as inferior, so the Jews themselves imbibed new values. Furthermore, their class and status in today's multicultural society is no longer that of recent immigrants.

It would have been an impossible task to cover the history of Jews in all the principal professions. My choice to focus on medicine and the law was dictated in part by the factors mentioned above, in part for other practical and personal reasons.