24 January 2025

The Jewish community
returned to Colchester
in the 18th century and
has a diverse membership

Colchester synagogue, built in 1969 … the Jewish community in mediaeval Colchester was among the ten most important in England (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

The Jewish community in Colchester includes about 90 families. The synagogue was built in 1969, and the community dates from the years during World War II, when many Jewish families were evacuated from London.

In the Middle Ages, the Jewish community in mediaeval Colchester (see 17 January 2025) was among the ten most important in England, according to the Northampton Donum in 1194. There was a synagogue on Stockwell Street, and the importance of the community is reflected in the fact Colchester was one of the towns in England with an archa for the legal registration of Jewish transactions.

At the mass expulsion of the Jews from England in 1290, the Jewish community was expelled from Colchester too, and the synagogue and houses in the Jewry, centred on Stockwell Street, were confiscated.

Angel’s Courtyard between High Street and Stockwell Street … the name is a reminder of Angel Lane, where Synagogue Yard stood in the early 1790s (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

When Jews began to return to England in the 1650s, a small number returned to the Stockwell Street area, which had become the Dutch Quarter and there was a small number of Jews in Colchester by the late 18th century. Hyman Waag, a Jewish lapidary, was living in Colchester in 1763, and Levi Alexander traded in the town as a silversmith and watchmaker in 1775.

The town appears to have had a synagogue by the late 18th century. Although little is known about that synagogue, a report in the Ipswich Journal in June 1791 describes in some detail the marriage of Samuel Levi, late of Bury, to Kitty, daughter of Isaac Abrahams of Colchester in the Synagogue Yard, in Angel Lane, off West Stockwell Street.

A rabbi officiated at the wedding, there was a band and music and a canopy supported by four men. The form of solemnisation was read in Hebrew, and at the end, after the bride and groom each drank part of a glass of wine, and the groom then threw the glass to the ground. ‘A public feast followed.’

The Stockwell Street area was the heart of the Jewish community in Colchester in the Middle Ages and again in the 18th century (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

There is no record of a synagogue in Colchester after 1794, although the name of Angel’s Courtyard, behind both the High Street and West Stockwell Street, is a reminder of the name of Angel Lane, where Synagogue Yard stood in the early 1790s.

Two Colchester men were among the trustees for a Jewish graveyard in Ipswich in 1796, which seems to indicate that by then any Jews in Colchester Jews were worshipping in Ipswich.

Tradesmen with Jewish names living in Colchester in the mid-19th century, and by 1848 they included Michael Samuel, a pawnbroker and silversmith, and Moses and Simon Hyam, tailors. But there is no evidence for a synagogue or any worshipping Jewish community in the town, and at least one member of the Hyam family became a Christian.

‘With joy shall ye draw water’ (Isaiah 12: 3) … a Victorian fountain with a Biblical quotation set into a wall at East Hill in Colchester (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The present community in Colchester dates from World War II, when several Jewish families were evacuated from London to the Colchester area during World War II. They joined local families and Jewish service personnel to hold services in 1939-1943.

Communal sederim or Passover meals were held locally with service personnel from the UK, the Commonwealth and the US in 1943 and 1944. Colchester is the home of a major army garrison, and there was a designated synagogue in the Colchester garrison where Jewish military personnel held Friday evening services from 1945 to 1947.

The Colchester and District Jewish Association was formed in 1952. It met monthly and held services on the high holy days. However, a congregation was not formally established until the 1950s. The Colchester and District Jewish Association began in 1952, and was formally founded in 1957.

The Jewish community met from 1961 to 1969 in a hall in Northgate House on Saint Peter’s Street, not far from Stockwell Street. Meanwhile, the Colchester and District Jewish Community (CDJC) was registered as a charity in 1965. A new synagogue to serve north Essex was built in Fenning’s Close in 1969 on a site bought from the Spiritualist Church.

Colchester synagogue was built in 1969 on a site bought from the Spiritualist Church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The synagogue is a modern single-storey building near the centre of Colchester. It includes the synagogue hall, which doubles as a social function hall, a committee a room, fully equipped kosher kitchen and a car park.

The small synagogue became the focus of Jewish social, religious and educational activities in Colchester and this life was enriched by staff and students from Essex University.

Today, the congregation in Colchester is independent and unaffiliated but follows traditional Ashkenazi Orthodox ritual. It is affiliated to the United Synagogue for burial purposes only, and does not receive any direct financial assistance from the United Synagogue. The community acquired an area of Colchester Cemetery for Jewish burials, both Orthodox and non-Orthodox in 2011.

The members of Colchester and District Jewish Community come from diverse backgrounds. Membership has remained constant in recent years, with 90 or so families. Many families live in Colchester, but members live as far afield as Chelmsford, Coggeshall, Ipswich, Woodbridge, Clacton-on-Sea and Frinton-on-Sea. The community relies on lay members to lead and conduct its religious affairs and services.

The synagogue holds one of the many Torah scrolls from Jewish communities in the Czech Republic and Slovakia that were destroyed during the Holocaust. After World War II, the scrolls were found in a perilous condition in an abandoned synagogue in Prague. They were brought to England in 1963, and since then they have been administered by the Czech Memorial Scrolls Trust.

The Torah scroll in Colchester comes from one of two communities south of Prague, Pisek and Strakonice. The scroll was labelled as coming from Pisek-Strakonice, but the Scrolls Trust does not know why it is so labelled. The Jewish population of Pisek in 1930 was 254, and the Jewish population of Strakonice was 169.

Shabbat Shalom, שבת שלום‎

Inside Colchester synagogue … it holds one of the many Torah scrolls from Jewish communities in the former Czechoslovakia (Photograph: Colchester and District Jewish Community)

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