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In this paper, the way religious identity is constructed via languages, with a particular focus on Arabic and Bengali terms originating from Persian, will be explored. It is vital to comprehend how Bengali Muslims create this constellation of languages, recognising that religion also has its linguistic demands, as language assists with making identities (Jaspal and Coyle 2010). The two languages will provide traces of how Muslimness is managed in the East End and consider how historically, the role of these languages have shifted. For example, the Persian-origin terms analysed are crucial in understanding Persian's influence in constructing a particular South Asian Muslim/Islamic expression. I critically examine how Arabic and Bengali intermingle while asserting different socio-religio-positionings. The claims-making qua a religious identity is morphed through various political junctures, particularly while forging a religious identity with other Muslims and how Arabic has become the dominant language in Bengali Muslims' lives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The British Yiddish writer Katie Brown wrote humorous stories and sketches for the London Yiddish newspapers Di post (The Post) in the 1930s and Di tsayt (The Times) in the 1940s. The stories, set in London’s Jewish East End, concern the day-to-day effects of immigration, poverty, and Jewish culture in Britain. After the Second World War, in a bombed-out East End where Jewish migration to the suburbs was accelerating, Brown did not write entirely new sketches, but rather edited versions of her prewar stories. Looking at the earlier and later stories together, we get a sense of the changes happening to London’s Jewish community: the decline of Jewish culture and religious practice, the changing relationship with the Eastern European homeland, and the decline of the Yiddish language. Through close reading and analysis, this article gives historical background to Brown and the social, cultural, and political context of her stories. It situates Brown as the only female journalist writing regularly for the press and identifies her unique perspective in making poignant interventions into Jewish debates of the day through stories of small incidents in family life. She raises questions around how to maintain a Jewish identity in England and visibility as a Jew in a Christian world, and traces change through two decades by describing the tension between the immigrant generation and their children. Using a range of neglected source material in Yiddish, this article throws new light on the Jewish East End in its twilight years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]