HO 144/7329 and HO 334/105/14785

            Zwi Harry Hershkowitz was born in Yemin-Moshe Quarter in Jerusalem on April 16, 1894. His birth certificate, issued for the Home Office on July 20, 1925, was signed by the Chief Rabbi of the Land of Israel, Rabbi Abraham Itshak HaKohen Kook. His parents, Jacob and Faiga (Fanny) Leah Hershkowitz (née Cohen), both deceased by the time of their son’s naturalization application, had been “Ottoman (Spanish protected)” nationals. He had six siblings: Nachman Hershkowitz, age 37, a tinsmith, married; Mayer Hershkowitz, 35, a butcher, married and living in Jerusalem; Zalel, 17, single and living in Jaffa; Channa, 19, married and living in Jerusalem; Schulim Herschkowitz, 29, married and living in Cairo; and Lewis Herscowitz. Hershkowitz was educated in a Jewish school until the age of 14, at which time he was apprenticed to the printing trade for two years.

            When Hershkowitz came to England in May 1910, he worked for various furriers in London until June 1913, when he joined the staff of the Jewish Times at 325 Whitechapel Road, E. In July 1917, he went into partnership with Joseph Fleishman and set up a small furriers workshop at 10 Wilkes Street, E., where they took in outdoor work for various large firms. After about three months, he dissolved the partnership due to the fact that his partner “would not take the business seriously.” Hershkowitz then worked for a firm in the West End for about six weeks and returned to 10 Wilkes Street, E. in December 1917 to set up a business as a manufacturing furrier on his own account, trading as “H. Herschcovitz.”

            In 1919, he moved his business to 44 Jewin Street, E.C., a historic Jewish neighborhood that was torn down in the mid-1900s. By 1926, he had 4-5 mainly British employees, who collectively earned a total of £15-£20 weekly. His stock was valued at £1,500 and he reaped a weekly profit of £10. The business premises consisted of two large rooms, at a rental of £26.5.0 quarterly, inclusive.

            Hershkowitz married British-born Annie Hamburger in 1918 at the Bethnal Green Synagogue on Vallance Road. Their two children were Lily Herschcovitz (1919) and Jack Hershcovitz (1923), both of them born at 88 King Edward Road, Hackney, where the family had resided since 1918. His brother Louis Hershkovitz, a resident of 55 Lauriston Road, Hackney, E8, had been naturalized in 1925. Hershkowitz’s only travel outside of the country included four days in France on holiday in August 1926.

            Hershkowitz claimed to be an “Ottoman (Palestinian)” and was registered with British authorities as an Ottoman. This file confirms that Palestinians living in England were considered enemy aliens (along with subjects from elsewhere in the Ottoman Empire). He was exempted from internment on October 15, 1915 and applied for permission to use the name “Hershcovitz” under Section 7 of the Aliens Restriction (Amendment) Act, 1919. The Home Office clerk compared Hershkowitz’s case to that of Jonathan Carpet Cohen, a.k.a. Janus Cohen, in the context of a birth certificate form a rabbinical authority being sufficient to document the applicant’s membership in a community deemed to be persecuted by the Ottoman Empire.

            Zwi Harry Hershkowitz first applied for naturalization in 1926 and was naturalized the following year. By the time he applied for naturalization he had been living in England for nearly 17 years. His referees were Barnett Gould, a physician and surgeon whose sister was Hershkowitz’s landlady; Mark Lyons, a merchant tailor; Louis Green, a fish caterer; and Joseph Ceen, a furrier.

            This file was originally closed until 2028 and declassified at my request on July 3, 2025.