Ask most people about the Jews of York and – if they know anything at all -they will tell you about the infamous massacre of the City’s medieval Jewish population at Clifford’s Tower in 1190. A popular fiction is that, as a result, a rabbinic edict was issued against sleeping within York’s walls, although no evidence of such an edict (cherem) exists.
It is too often assumed that this was and is the entirety of the York ‘Jewish story’ and yet Jews were back living here within a decade of those terrible events and have had a continuous presence in the city for at least the past 130 years. There was a small Orthodox congregation in York from the 1890s until 1975, based at a synagogue above a joiner’s shop on Aldwark. It closed when it could no longer secure a minyan (traditionally ten adult males required to say certain prayers).
Now, with the growth of the university, the hospital and IT businesses within the city, the Jewish community has once again begun to thrive and prosper. The 2021 census found 350 self-declared Jews in York, certainly an underestimate, with approximately double that number again across North Yorkshire as a whole.
Occasional Jewish celebrations held since the closure of the synagogue were no longer satisfying demand and, by 2014, it had become clear that there was an appetite for more regular and frequent services.
The first such service was held in June 2014 at the Friargate Friends Meeting House. It was conducted by Rabbi Danny Rich, then chief executive of Liberal Judaism, and from this first service the community promoted its openness, inclusivity and egalitarianism. The service attracted nearly fifty people and thirty to seventy people attended monthly Shabbat (Sabbath) morning services from then until lockdown. More regular fortnightly services since the synagogue reopen continue to attract similar numbers with up to a hundred attending high holy day services, Passover, Purim and Chanukah events.
To begin with the community was supported by a succession of student rabbis travelling from London. They led services and events to mark festivals; weddings; b’nei-mitzvah; baby blessings; adult education and conversions for Jews by Choice.
Members go into schools across North Yorkshire and the East Ridings to talk about Judaism to pupils and to show our amazing Czech Torah scroll – rescued from the Holocaust and lent to us by the Memorial Scrolls Trust. Occasional services have been held in Scarborough, Durham and Leeds to support outreach to liberally-minded Jews in these communities.
In 2018, YLJC introduced an additional, once-monthly Friday night service led by members of the community and a Cheder attended by around a dozen children. In recent years we have also sadly had cause to make use of the first Jewish burial plot in the City since medieval times.
With the arrival of coronavirus in 2020, YLJC went online. Since the pandemic passed we have resumed in person services, a daily morning online prayer session, with some classes also on Zoom.
In the summer of 2023, YLJC appointed Rabbi Elisheva Salamo to grow with us. She works under the motto that the lesson from the massacre at Clifford’s Tower is that Jews belong everywhere, especially in York.
Today, with nearly a hundred active members, biweekly services, a warm and supportive community, Jewish education for children and adults, and a full schedule of holiday events, the Jewish story of York is very much an ongoing tale.
Looking to the future, we are now working on a fundraising campaign to make the Rabbi’s post full-time. We play an active role in interfaith in the city and are active members of SACRE which sets Yorks religious education curriculum. We are engaged with the local council and developers in determining the future of crucial Jewish sites within the city such as Jewbury and the Eye of York. And we hope one day to be able to once again open a Jewish community centre/synagogue in the very heart of York.
Please join us on our journey.