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JEWISH HERITAGE EUROPE
An Online Resource Centre
UNITED KINGDOM HOME PAGE
Jews are first recorded in the British Isles after the Norman Conquest of 1066. Though documentary proof of resident Jews is lacking for Wales and Scotland, a well-established community developed in mediaeval England. However there were massacres of Jews, especially in the 13th century, and the expulsion of the entire community took place in 1290, in the reign of Edward I.
Jews returned to England in 1656 in the wake of the petition by Rabbi Menasseh ben Israel of Amsterdam, during the brief period when the country was a Republic. Bevis Marks Synagogue in London was opened in 1701 and is today a Grade I Listed building. In the 18th century small Jewish communities formed in the seaports and market towns of southern England and by the 19th century in the growing industrial cities of the midands and the north, such as Birmingham, Liverpool and Manchester. Jews reached Wales in the 18th century: the Swansea Jewish cemetery dates from 1768. Individual Jews are recorded in Scotland from the late 18th century; the community in Edinburgh was established in 1816; Glasgow’s in 1823.
In England, Jewish political emancipation was achieved after a gradual process of social acceptance. In 1858 Baron Lionel de Rothschild was finally allowed to take up his seat in the Westminster Parliament. Anti-alien and anti-Semitic sentiment existed but was largely confined to the fringes of the political process, especially in the 1930s. As a result of the Balfour Declaration of 1917 for the establishment of ‘a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine’, and Britain’s role as Mandatory Power in Palestine from 1920 to 1948, British Jewry found itself at the centre of world events.
In the period 1881-1914, mass immigration of some 100,000 Ashkenazi Jews, refugees from persecution and economic hardship in parts of Russia and eastern Europe, doubled the size of British Jewry. A further 50,000-60,000 refugees from Nazi Europe arrived in the 1930s. The Jewish population peaked at about 450,000 in the 1950s, and today stands at 267,000. The largest communities are in London and Manchester.
The Survey of the Jewish Built Heritage in the UK and Ireland, begun in 1997, has recorded over 350 synagogues and Jewish sites that date from before the Second World War (see www.jewish-heritage-uk.org).
The Board of Deputies of British Jews:
Address
Telephone
Fax
Email
Website
Office of the Chief Rabbi:
Address
Telephone
Fax
Email
Website
Adler House
735, High Road
London
N12 0US
+44 (0)20 8343 6301
+44 (0)20 8343 6310
info@chiefrabbi.org
www.chiefrabbi.org
(Updated August 2008)
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