Patrick Comerford
On my bus journeys between Milton Keynes and Hoddesdon in Hertfordshire this week, I visited both Luton and Cambridge, and In Luton I went in search of the town’s Jewish history and the story of its Jewish communities and synagogues.
Although Luton is the largest urban area in Bedfordshire, Bedford, with a population of about 100,000, remains the county town. It is 74 km north-west of London, 40 km west of Cambridge and 27 km north-east of Milton Keynes.
Bedford is home to one of the largest concentrations of Italian immigrants in Britain, with estimates that about 30% of the population at least is of partial Italian descent.
The town has a large variety of places of worship, including Saint Paul’s Church and Saint Peter’s Church, the largest Sikh gurdwara in the United Kingdom outside London, and the former headquarters of the Panacea Society, founded in 1919, which believed that Bedford would have an important role in the Second Coming of Christ and that Bedford was the original location of the Garden of Eden.
However, there is no longer a synagogue in Bedford. Bedfordshire Progressive Synagogue, which was formed in 1967, is based in Luton although it meets in Bedford once a month, and the nearest Orthodox synagogue is the Luton United Synagogue in Luton.
Bedford had a mediaeval Jewish community until the mass expulsion of Jews from England in 1290. Mediaeval Bedford was one of the 26 centres in England to have an archa. These archae were official chests, provided with three locks and seals, and they held and preserved all deeds and contracts of the Jewish communities.
The archae were part of the reorganisation of English Jewry ordered by Richard I following the massacres of Jews in England 1189-1190. During the riots and massacres after his coronation, the mobs had destroyed Jewish financial records, resulting in heavy losses of Crown revenues.
The archae were introduced to safeguard royal interests in case of future disorder. All Jewish possessions and financial transactions were registered in designated cities. In each city with an archa, a bureau was set up with two reputable Jews and two Christian clerks, under the supervision of a new central authority known as the Exchequer of the Jews.
Bedford was one of the original cities with an archa. Other centres included London, Canterbury, Lincoln, Norwich, Oxford, Winchester and possibly Bristol, Cambridge, Gloucester and Northampton or Nottingham. The centres had increased in number to 27 by the mid-13th century. By the time of the mass expulsion of Jews from England in 1290, Jews had already been excluded from eight of these centres and only 19 archae were active.
The earliest record of Jews living in Bedford dates from 1185, when Jacob of Bedford and Solomon of Bedford paid substantial sums to King Henry I to recover debts. From then on, the names of Jews from Bedford occur sporadically in the records, with some Jews migrating to other places, such as Hitchin, Thetford and Essex.
A decade later, Fleur de Luz, a Jewish woman, was one of seven members of the Jewish community in Bedford who contributed £1 8s towards the ransom of Richard I in 1194, under the provisions of the Northampton donum – the equivalent of up to £2 million today.
Bonefard of Bedford, a Jew in Bedford, was accused in 1202 of causing the death of a child named Richard, a nephew of Robert of Sutton, by ‘ementulating’ him. This was probably a case of conversion to Judaism on the part of Richard. It was tried before a jury of the Hundred and Bonefard was acquitted.
Jews in Bedford suffered from violence during the Barons’ Wars in 1263 and again in 1274, and three Jews were hanged for coin clipping in 1278.
It appears the Jews in 14th century Bedford lived on the High Street. When Jews were forcibly expelled from England in 1290, Jewish-owned property in the High Street in Bedford passed to the Crown, including two messuages on the High Street belonging to Cok Fil Benedict and Pictavus.
His name indicates that Pictavus was an immigrant from Poitou. One of his two sons, Benedict fil’ Pictavus, was baptised in Ely; the other son, Jacob, was hanged for felony, and his messuage on High Street was given by the king to the town crier of Newnham.
Jews began resettling in Bedford in the 1780s, although the first modern congregation was not established until 1803, when it was formed by Michael Joseph. This early synagogue followed Ashkenazi Orthodox ritual. But little is known of the congregation, its synagogue or its officers, and it was closed and services were discontinued in 1827.
Nevertheless, it seems there was a continuing Jewish presence in Bedford, and it seems to have been traditional that willows from the Great Ouse were sent to London at Sukkot for use as lulavs.
A second modern Jewish congregation was formed in 1837, and Moses (Morris) Lissack, a ‘teacher of languages and dealer in jewellery', was living in Bedford by 1839. The congregation met only on the solemn festivals, and a private room in Offa Street, Bedford, initially served as the place of worship.
The synagogue was located on High Street in Bedford by the 1850s. However, it had only five known members, including Godfrey Levy, who presided over the congregation in 1853. His son Lewis Levy was the last secretary of this congregation. He received his authorisation as shochet in 1832 and in 1862 he performed a marriage ceremony.
The synagogue had only three seat-holders by 1874. It became defunct by the 1870s and was dissolved. Moses (Morris) Lissack, the teacher and jeweller, who had been living in Bedford in 1839, was the only Jew in Bedford in 1879.
In the early 20th century, Bedford Hebrew Congregation was formed in 1903. It followed Ashkenazi Orthodox ritual, and although it was an unaffiliated congregation, it was under the aegis of the Chief Rabbi. The Revd Daniel Caplan (1879-1959) was the Reader and Shochet from 1903 until about 1906. Alfred Newmann was President from about 1903 to 1907 and treasurer around the same time. No address is listed for this congregation, its final listing in the Jewish Year Book was in 1906-1907, and it had come to an end by about 1907.
Yet, the Abrahams family, the best-known Jewish family in Bedfordshire, was living in Bedford by the early 20th century. The father of the family, Isaac Abrahams, was a Jewish immigrant from Polish Lithuania, then part of the Russian Empire. He was a financier and settled in Bedford with his Welsh Jewish wife, Esther Isaacs.
The eldest son was the physician Sir Adolphe Abrahams (1883-1967), the founder of British sport medicine; he was knighted for helping refugee doctors to gain permission to practise in the UK. The next son, Sir Sidney Solomon ‘Solly’ Abrahams (1885-1957), was a British Olympic athlete and long jumper, and Chief Justice of Ceylon (Sri Lanka).
Harold Maurice Abrahams (1899-1978) was an English track and field athlete. As an Olympic champion in the 100 metres sprint in 1924, his feat depicted in the 1981 film Chariots of Fire. Harry Abrahams reported from the 1936 Berlin Olympics for the BBC, exuberantly covering Jack Lovelock’s win in the 1500 metres. His daughter reported that Abrahams had sat close to Hitler and had said afterwards: ‘I wish I’d shot him.’
At the beginning of World War II, with an influx of evacuees, a congregation was re-established in Beford yet again in 1939 as Bedford Hebrew Congregation. The Jewish population in Bedford soon included over 400 families who were evacuated from London, and the congregation included evacuees, refugees and military personnel, as well as some resident families
This too was an unaffiliated congregation under the aegis of the Chief Rabbi. The rabbis in Bedford in the 1940s included Dayan Dr Julius Jakobovits, about 1941, and Rabbi A Rappaport, from at least 1945 until about 1947.
Julius (Yoel) Jakobovits (1886-1947) was born in Lackenbach (then in Hungary, today in Austria), the son of a rabbi and brother of two rabbis. He studied in Pressburg (Bratislava) and in Berlin. Later the synagogue in Berlin where he was the rabbi was destroyed on Kristallnacht in November 1938. After Kristallnacht, he found refuge in Britain but was briefly interned on the Isle of Man.
After his release, he was rabbi with the Bedford Hebrew Congregation. He then served two neighbouring evacuee communities in Windsor and Slough, and in 1945 became Dayan at the London Bet Din. He was the father of Lord (Immanuel) Jakobovits (1921-1999), Chief Rabbi of Ireland (1949-1958) and later Chief Rabbi of Britain and the Commonwealth (1967-1991).
S Orgel was President of the Bedford Hebrew Congregation ca 1945-1947. However, no address is listed for the congregation. The community did not have a synagogue and survived through the endeavours of a small number of people. Numbers began to dwindle again after World War II, and the congregation was practically dormant from the late 1940s until the early 1960s, so that it was not even listed in the Jewish Year Book from 1948 to 1963. After that services were generally held only on high holy days.
John Trevax was honorary secretary of the congregation ca 1945-1947. A Rochlin was honorary secretary ca 1964-1971 and chair ca 1971-1978, and RJ Berman was honorary secretary from 1978 until the 2000s. The congregation came to an end by the early 2000s, and it ceased being listed in the Jewish Year Book in 2012.
There is no longer a synagogue in Bedford, and the nearest Orthodox synagogue is the Luton United Synagogue in Luton.
Bedfordshire Progressive Synagogue or Rodef Shalom Synagogue was formed in 1967. Initially, it met mainly in St Albans and from time to time in Bedford. Since 1982, it has been based at Luton, where most services are held, with most events taking place in members’ homes. Jewish life in Bedford has seen a renaissance recently with regular monthly services under the auspices of the Bedfordshire Progressive Synagogue.
Shabbat Shalom, שבת שלום
