Jews' Court is a

Jewish museum A Jewish museum is a museum which focuses upon Jews and may refer seek to explore and share the Jewish experience in a given area. Notable Jewish museums include: Albania * Solomon Museum, Berat Australia * Jewish Museum of Australia, Melbourn ...

and Liberal

Jewish Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...

congregation and

synagogue A synagogue, also called a shul or a temple, is a place of worship for Jews and Samaritans. It is a place for prayer (the main sanctuary and sometimes smaller chapels) where Jews attend religious services or special ceremonies such as wed ...

, located on Steep Hill in Lincoln,

Lincolnshire Lincolnshire (), abbreviated ''Lincs'', is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the East Midlands and Yorkshire and the Humber regions of England. It is bordered by the East Riding of Yorkshire across the Humber estuary to th ...

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

, in the United Kingdom. The building was listed as a Grade I building in 1953 and houses the headquarters of the

Society for Lincolnshire History and Archaeology The Society for Lincolnshire History and Archaeology or SLHA aims to create a greater awareness of the history of Lincolnshire, and works to discover and record its heritage. In its present form, the society came into being in 1974, but it has an ...

History

The Jews House Steep Street Lincoln - geograph

Jews' Court is located immediately above Jew's House on Steep Hill. The three-storeyed stone building dates from but was altered in the 18th century and the windows were replaced in the early-19th and 20th centuries. The Jews' Court may contain some late medieval stonework but a recent architectural survey has shown that there is very little medieval stonework above basement level in the existing building. Historian

Cecil Roth Cecil Roth (5 March 1899 – 21 June 1970) was an English historian. He was editor-in-chief of the ''Encyclopaedia Judaica''. Life Roth was born in Dalston, London, on 5 March 1899. His parents were Etty and Joseph Roth, and Cecil was the younge ...

believed it to be the site of a medieval

. Documentary evidence of 1290 when the Jewish community of Lincoln was expelled shows that the Jews' Court has always been divided into two houses, and a charter of 1316 mentions that a Jewish ''scola'' or synagogue had stood to the west in the tenement behind these two houses. In 1910, a

well A well is an excavation or structure created on the earth by digging, driving, or drilling to access liquid resources, usually water. The oldest and most common kind of well is a water well, to access groundwater in underground aquifers. The ...

was dug in the basement of the building; the owner subsequently claimed that this was where the body of

Little Saint Hugh of Lincoln Hugh of Lincoln (1246 – 27 August 1255) was an English boy whose death in Lincoln, England, Lincoln was blood libel, falsely attributed to Jews. He is sometimes known as Little Saint Hugh or Little Sir Hugh to distinguish him from the adu ...

had been found and charged people to see it. By the early-20th century the property had been sub-divided into cheap accommodation. It was bought by Lincoln City Council in 1924 and in 1928 it was proposed to be demolished under a

slum clearance Slum clearance, slum eviction or slum removal is an urban renewal strategy used to transform low-income settlements with poor reputation into another type of development or housing. This has long been a strategy for redeveloping urban communities; ...

order. Lincolnshire Architectural and Archaeological Society (a predecessor of the Society for Lincolnshire History and Archaeology) objected to the proposed demolition and were given the building by the city council on condition it was refurbished. In 1966 the property passed from Lincolnshire Architectural and Archaeological Society to form the Jews' Court and Bardney Abbey Trust, which in 2019 was merged with the Society for Lincolnshire History and Archaeology. The

has its headquarters at Jews' Court and the building includes a lecture room and bookshop.

Current synagogue

The Lincolnshire Jewish Community, which is affiliated with Liberal Judaism, in 1992 began holding Shabbat and High Holy Day services in the lecture room at Jews' Court; one of the services was filmed in the TV series '' The Story of the Jews'' by

Simon Schama Sir Simon Michael Schama ( ; born 13 February 1945) is an English historian and television presenter. He specialises in art history, Dutch history, Jewish history, and French history. He is a professor of history and art history at Columbia Uni ...

References

Sources

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External links

* {{Synagogues in the United Kingdom 12th-century synagogues Buildings and structures in Lincoln, England Grade I listed buildings in Lincolnshire History of Lincoln, England Medieval synagogues in England Norman architecture in England

History

Current synagogue

See also

References

Sources

External links