David M Lewis
Past Professor of Ancient History in the University of Oxford
Past President of Oxford Jewish Congregation & Oxford University Jewish Society
Published 1992 by The Alden press, Oxford
Jews started returning to Oxford in the time of Cromwell and, although the community has never been a major one among the provincial Jewish communities of England, the presence of the University has always been a distinguishing and interesting feature.
In this new history, written for the celebrations of the hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the modern Oxford Jewish Congregation, David Lewis collects the evidence for eighteenth century Jewish settlement in Oxford and describes the establishment of the nineteenth century community and its trading patterns. This community died out, and attention shifts to the Jewish undergraduates and the tensions between those who were trying to evolve an Anglo-Jewish identity and those who saw the only future for Jewish life in Zionism. In the Second World War the community was transformed by the arrival of German refugees and evacuation lrom London, and the problems of the expanded community under wartime strains get a frank and detailed treatment. Later chapters sketch the development of the remains of this wartime community into its present form of a mixed business and professional community, unique in the way in which it caters for all forms of Jewish religious observance.
Now scanned and each section uploadable to read; click on “Read More”
In 2016 Dr Harold Pollins another member of the OJCommunity completed a review and has produced a list of amendements and additional information, which can be downloaded.
ISBN 0 9519253 0 X
To view each chapter click on the title below:
- Preface including Map by Alun T Jones, Contents and Dedication
- Before the Congregation
- The Congregation established
- Town and Gown
- The New Synagogue
- The First World War
- Between the Wars
- The Second World War
- The community refashioned
- Towards a new building and The Jews of Oxford today (two Chapters)
- Appendix A. Oxford trades 1830-1900
- Appendix B. Jewish undergraduates in 1882
- Appendix C. The Trust and its Trustees
- Appendix D. Officials
- Appendix E. Sources
- Notes
- Glossary and Index
