'The next stage is to find a building for a synagogue, she said, although the group is enjoying its Quaker links.' Photo: courtesy of Elisheva Salamo
Friends welcome York’s first rabbi in 800 years
'The appointment of the rabbi is the first time the community has had a leader since the Jews of York were wiped out in a pogrom more than 800 years ago.'
Friargate Meeting House was the site of a historic event in the Jewish community this month – the appointment of York’s first rabbi in 800 years.
Elisheva Salamo arrived in York at the beginning of the month to take up her new post. With no synagogue yet in the city, the Jewish community has been congregating in the Meeting house since 2014.
The appointment of the rabbi is the first time the community has had a leader since the Jews of York were wiped out in a pogrom more than 800 years ago.
Ben Rich, co-founder of the York Liberal Jewish Community (YLJC), spoke on the BBC Radio 4 PM show about the 1190 massacre. Despite ‘trying hard not to be defined by something that happened eight hundred and fifty years ago’, he said, the massacre is still commemorated at least once a year.
‘It’s mentioned not just in York but pretty much in every Jewish community around the world. It was considered a very important moment.’
Despite rumours that there was a ban on Jewish people living in York, Elisheva Salamo said that she hasn’t found evidence of this, and there is proof that Jews were living in York after the massacre, with a modern-day ‘nice size’ community. The YLJC was founded ten years ago and has been building its presence ever since, with currently around 100 members.
‘Sometimes when something so horrific happens, we have a bigger response as a community and make some decisions about what that might mean. And I think one of the powerful things about coming here to be the rabbi is being able to take that knee-jerk “we can’t do that”, and say, but, wait, “let’s do something positive”, instead of thinking of York as a place where something negative happened.’
The next stage is to find a building for a synagogue, she said, although the group is enjoying its Quaker links. ‘We meet in the Friends Meeting House,’ said Elisheva Salamo, ‘which I think is lovely and apropos, especially as an American, because so much of our history is also involved with the Quakers.’
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