Jon Kimche

Who was Jon Kimche?

Jon Kimche was a journalist and historian. A Swiss Jew, he arrived in England at the age of 12, becoming involved in the Independent Labour Party as a young man. In 1934–35, he worked with George Orwell in a Hampstead bookshop, Booklover’s Corner, and he later managed the ILP's bookshop at 35 Bride Street, near Ludgate Circus. As chair of the ILP Guild of Youth, he visited Barcelona in 1937, where he again met Orwell.

In the early war years he contributed articles on military strategy to the Evening Standard, and in 1942, on the recommendation of Michael Foot, was hired by Aneurin Bevan as de facto editor of the left-wing weekly Tribune. He left Tribune to join Reuters in 1945 but returned in 1946, though by now his primary interest was in the Middle East—specifically, in the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine. He was fired from his Tribune job after disappearing from the office in December 1947 to Istanbul to negotiate safe passage with the Turkish authorities for two ships sailing from Bulgaria with thousands of Jews aboard bound for Palestine.