Sidney Chazan
Sidney Chazan was a Glasgow student who in 1947 was the central figure in British Army and MI5 reports on a circle of young Zionists around the Glasgow Jewish Institute, suspected of sympathy with the Irgun. That summer MI5 told Glasgow police that his activities might bear on a separate Irgun attempt to obtain explosives in Scotland. The reports are in MI5's file on "Jewish Terrorist Activities in the United Kingdom", released as KV 3/438. No evidence in the released papers connects Chazan with the explosives plan, and nothing has been found to show that he was ever questioned or charged.
The 1947 security reports
The first report on Chazan came from 506 Field Security Section of the Intelligence Corps in Edinburgh, dated 27 June 1947 (KV 3/438, part 2, p. 51). The fullest account is a consolidated report, "Jewish Activity in SCOTLAND", sent by Scottish Command to the War Office (MI11) on 14 August 1947, a copy of which reached MI5 (serial 212, part 1, pp. 57–61). It stressed that "all the information contained in this report has been obtained by indirect investigation. No suspect has been approached directly."
The report traced the enquiry to a soldier on leave from a Field Security Section in Ismailia, Egypt, whose friend "suspected Jewish acquaintances of his in GLASGOW of anti-British activities in connection with Jewish illegal organisations in PALESTINE. The chief name was CHAZAN." It described Chazan as follows:
- "SIDNEY CHAZAN, BRAEMAR STREET, LANGSIDE, GLASGOW. This man is studying at the ANDERSON COLLEGE, GLASGOW. He is of mixed Polish - Jewish extraction. His father is an ex-Rabbi. CHAZAN is suspected of being a member of the Revision Movement, and is a prominent member of HABBANIM, the Jewish Young People's Movement. He has in his possession numerous copies of the "Jewish Struggle", "Palestine Information", and many violent anti-British pamphlets. CHAZAN is a regular attender and prominent member of the Jewish Institute in GLASGOW."
"Revision Movement" refers to the Revisionist Zionists, and "Habbanim" to the Zionist youth movement Habonim. The report described Jewish Struggle as "an illegal newspaper published in LONDON" carrying summaries of broadcasts by the Irgun's clandestine radio and speeches by "Jewish terrorists when on trial". It listed eight friends and acquaintances of Chazan. They included two fellow students at Anderson College, a nurse "educated in PALESTINE" whom he had met through Habonim in Edinburgh, and a young former BBC engineer from Glasgow who had told Chazan he was "working for the IRGUN ZVAI LEUMI Radio Station in PALESTINE". The report admitted there was "no concrete evidence" for the last claim. An earlier report, of 30 July 1947, said the "young Jewish clique of which CHAZAN is a member" was becoming "increasingly bitter and resentful" over Palestine, and that "they speak of losing their patience and their tempers shortly unless some decision is arrived at fairly soon" (serial 202d, part 1, p. 76). The consolidated report said investigations were continuing, and recommended that several of the men named be the subject of further enquiries in the Middle East.
The Glasgow Jewish Institute
The 14 August 1947 report, signed by Major D.E. Wright for the General Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Scottish Command, placed Chazan and his circle at the Glasgow Jewish Institute in South Portland Street. It described Chazan himself as "a regular attender and prominent member of the Jewish Institute in GLASGOW" (KV 3/438, part 1, p. 57). Under the heading "THE JEWISH INSTITUTE", the report observed that "most of the personalities mentioned in this report appear to be more or less connected with The Jewish Institute, SOUTH PORTLAND STREET, GLASGOW". It also noted one further man "connected with various Jewish activities" who was "something to do with The JEWISH INSTITUTE" and had a brother in the Palestine Police said to "send full and frequent reports on the PALESTINE situation". The report said he did "not appear to be specifically connected with the investigations in hand" (paras 14–15, part 1, pp. 60–61). In the papers Chazan appears as a member of the Institute, not an officer of it. The Institute's honorary president at the time was Sir Maurice Bloch, but no Bloch, and no Isaac Wolfson, appears anywhere in the 1947 reports.
Chazan and the Glasgow explosives case
In August 1947 Glasgow CID reported that Hugh MacDonald, a Glasgow nationalist, had agreed in Dublin to obtain 12 lb of TNT for two men introduced by the Irish politician Robert Briscoe as members of the Irgun. MI5 linked the two enquiries. On 12 August 1947 H.L. Brown of MI5's B3a section wrote to the Security Service's officer in Scotland: "We have also suggested to Glasgow C.I.D. that the activities of Sidney CHAZAN, the object of your letter of 30th July may be of interest in this connection." One of the copies of the letter was marked for a "PF. for Chazan", an MI5 personal file (serial 203A, part 1, p. 75). No such file has been found in the National Archives catalogue.
At a meeting with Special Branch on 21 August 1947, MI5 agreed that "the location and arrest of the persons who might obtain explosives on behalf of the Irgun in Glasgow were matters to be handled by the Glasgow CID on their own responsibility". The police informant was to "put MacDONALD in touch with someone who might supply explosives". The first objective was "to arrest any man who came to Glasgow to receive explosives from MacDONALD" (serial 216A, part 1, p. 25). On 25 August Brown, writing for Sillitoe, sent the Assistant Chief Constable of Glasgow "particulars of certain persons whom we suspect of acting as accomplices of Jewish terrorists in the U.K.", in case "agents of the IRGUN ZVAI LEUMI may travel to Glasgow to collect explosive from Hugh MACDONALD" (serial 215A, part 1, pp. 26–27). The five people on the enclosed list were suspects linked to the Revisionist Leo Bella's group in London. Chazan was not among them, and Brown added that MI5 had "no information to suggest that any of the persons named in the enclosed list may intend to travel to Glasgow".
The volume closes on 19 September 1947 without recording the outcome. The next volume, KV 3/439 (August 1947 to January 1948), has not been digitised and has not yet been examined.
Family
The following identification is an inference from index records. No birth certificate has been seen, and the 1947 reports give no first names for Chazan's parents.
MI5's description of Chazan, of "mixed Polish - Jewish extraction" with a father who was "an ex-Rabbi", living in Braemar Street, Langside, matches what is known of Rabbi Philip Chazan:
- Philip Chazan, "from Russia", was naturalised as a British subject on 5 September 1921 while living in West Hartlepool (HO 334/92/8403; HO 144/1684/400630). Before 1918 much of Poland was part of the Russian empire.
- On 2 September 1920 Philip Chazan, a rabbi of Synagogue House, West Hartlepool, married Millie Levine, daughter of a Glasgow butcher, at Garnethill Synagogue, Glasgow (statutory marriage register, Milton, 644/9/323, ScotlandsPeople).
- The General Register Office index records the birth of a Sidney Z. Chazan in the Hartlepool registration district in the last quarter of 1926, mother's maiden name Levine (vol. 10a, p. 255; FreeBMD). That would have made him about 20 in 1947.
- The 1940 Glasgow valuation roll lists Philip Chazan as proprietor and occupier of 31 Braemar Street, Langside, in Cathcart parish (ScotlandsPeople).
On this evidence Sidney Chazan was very probably the son of Philip and Millie Chazan, born in Hartlepool and brought up in Glasgow, which would explain why no Scottish birth record has been found. A Philip Chazan died in Glasgow in 1961. Other Chazan households lived in Langside in the 1940s, and no direct family link has been established between them and Philip's family.