Students launch York tours to show more than site of massacre

The plaque on the medieval synagogue in York (Photo: JCR-UK)[Missing Credit]

From there, the tour stops at several more locations, each one chartering a different stage of York’s Jewish history from the expulsion of English Jews in 1290 to their eventual return in the 1600s.

The tour also runs along the city’s ancient walls, to the old Jewish cemetery and to other historical hotspots.

Rubinstein and Solomon told the JC that before they began to research and plan the tour, neither were aware of York’s extensive Jewish history “beyond a vague knowledge of the Clifford's Tower Massacre of 1190. [But] as the tour’s [length increased], and our own community [and network] expanded, we became increasingly intrigued about this history.”

They added: “Neither of us are reading history at university, but we have always had an affinity for the subject.

“We have both spent plenty of time on Jewish walking tours across Europe, and upon the realisation that York had just as much, if not more rich Jewish history, we started questioning why there was not already a flourishing tour business.”

The tour is also free as the pair want everybody to have the opportunity to discover the city’s astonishing Jewish past.