Book Description

The exploring and defining of identities and societal cultures is a tenuous task at best. With that in mind, this book explores the development of the Jewish community of Leeds, England, and investigates the sense of community developed by its members. The Jewish community of Leeds offers itself as a valuable tool in assessing identity change, both real and perceived. Their varied experiences are not the sole focus of the book, as it also explores their retention of common Judaism and what became of a rich culture when confronted by alien ideas and attitudes. The period spanning the 1880s through to World War I was an era that brought thousands of Jews to Leeds, where most settled in the area known as the Leylands. In exploring their experiences in education, work, uniformed movements, worship and during the war, this book reveals a side of Jewishness in Leeds not fully understood. It develops and extends existing histories of the Leeds Jewish community. Hosting the nation’s third largest Jewish population, the city stands out in many ways, particularly with regards to the paucity of published research on this community. The existing literature reflects divisions. Ernest Krausz, Anne Kershen, Joseph Buckman, Laura Vaughn, Rosalind O’Brien and Ernest Sterne have all approached various different elements of Leeds Jewry. There is a lack of a focused yet broad picture of this key era in which the community fully blossomed. Most of the limited work on Leeds highlights and focuses on specific areas such as tailoring, disharmony or how the community contrasted to Manchester. What is needed is an effort to bring these issues and others together to better discern Britishness and Jewishness as seen by the people of Leeds (both Jew and Gentile). In discerning the unique nature of Leeds Jewry, this book provides a greater understanding of the relationships between majority and minority communities, and the impact of external and internal pressures on their interpretation of culture, belonging and acceptance.