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Anglo-Jewry since 1066: Place, Locality and memory

Jews in unlikely places

October 15, 2009 10:41
Archaeologist John Boas working in the site of a medieval synagogue discovered under a Guildford shop in 1996

By

Geoffrey Alderman,

Geoffrey Alderman

2 min read

By Tony Kushner
Manchester University Press, £60

Is it possible to write a history of Anglo-Jewry in which the Jews of London and Manchester occupy the periphery, while Jewish communities in much smaller provincial centres take centre-stage?

In Anglo-Jewry since 1066, Tony Kushner, who holds the chair of Jewish/non-Jewish relations at the University of Southampton, sets out to demonstrate that it is not only possible but that the histories of the minuscule Jewish presences in three southern English cities — Winchester, Portsmouth and Southampton — can throw a unique light upon the construction of “the Jew” in English urban life.

Winchester was one of the most important areas of Jewish settlement in medieval England. Today, only the name of a solitary thoroughfare — “Jewry Street” — serves as a tangible reminder of this turbulent past, punctuated as it was with ritual murder accusations, base prejudice and eventual expulsion.