The earliest date at which Jews arrived in Scotland is not known. It is possible that some arrived, or at least visited, as a result of the Roman Empire's conquest of southern Great Britain, but there is no direct evidence for this. What the Romans referred to as "Caledonia" was never integrated into the Empire, although there was a short-lived occupation of southern Scotland (and Roman influence and trade continued after the withdrawal of their troops). Most histories of Jews in Scotland deal with the subject matter from a British perspective, and the Scottish aspect tends to be marginalised.
The vast majority of Scottish Jews are Ashkenazi.
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While England during the Middle Ages had state persecution of the Jews, culminating in the Edict of Expulsion of 1290 (Jews may have arrived in Scotland after this date[1]) there was never a corresponding expulsion from Scotland. Indeed the eminent Jewish-Scottish scholar David Daiches states in his autobiographical Two Worlds: An Edinburgh Jewish Childhood that there are grounds for saying that Scotland is the only European country which has no history of state persecution of Jews. Evidence of Jews in medieval Scotland is fairly scanty, but in 1190, the Bishop of Glasgow forbade churchmen to "ledge their benefices for money borrowed from Jews".[2] This was around the time of the Anti-Jewish riots in England so it is possible Jewish refugees lived in Scotland for a brief time, or it may refer to English Jews' interests in Scotland. Aberdeen and Dundee had close links to Baltic ports such as in Poland and Lithuania known as Scottish merchant trade routes. It is possible that Jewish people may have come to Scotland to trade with their Scottish counterparts[3]
Like many Christian nations, medieval Scots believed themselves to have a Biblical connection. The Declaration of Arbroath (6 April 1320), which was sent as an appeal to Pope John XXII, confirmed Scotland's status as an independent, sovereign state and asserted its right to use military action when considered unjustly attacked. It was sealed by fifty-one magnates and nobles. It is still periodically referenced by British Israelitists. The text asserts that in the eyes of God:
The first recorded Jew in Edinburgh was one David Brown in 1691, shortly before the Act of Union 1707,[4] who made an application to reside and trade in the city.[5]
The majority of Jewish immigration appears to have occurred post-industrialisation, and post-1707, meaning that Jews in Scotland were subject to various anti-Jewish British laws. Oliver Cromwell readmitted Jews to the Commonwealth of England during The Protectorate in 1656, and would have had influence over the Scottish situation. Scotland was under the jurisdiction of the Jew Bill, enacted in 1753, but repealed the next year.
The first graduate from the University of Glasgow who was openly known to be Jewish was Levi Myers, in 1787. Unlike their English contemporaries, Scottish students were not required to take a religious oath.
In 1795, Herman Lyon, originally of German nationality, and a dentist and chiropodist, bought a burial plot in Edinburgh. He had moved to Scotland in 1788. There is no trace of the burial plot on Calton Hill today, but it is marked on the Ordnance Survey map of 1852 as "Jew's Burial vault".[5]
The first Jewish congregation in Edinburgh was founded in 1816, and in Glasgow in 1823.[6] That of Aberdeen was founded in 1893. The Jewish cemetery in Dundee indicates that there has been a Jewish congregation in that city since the 19th century.
Glasgow-born Asher Asher (1837–1889) was the first Scottish Jew to enter the medical profession. The only book he published was The Jewish Rite of Circumcision (1873).
By 1878, Jews became attached to the Scottish aristocracy when Hannah de Rothschild, born in England, married Archibald Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery. She died at Dalmeny. Her son, Harry, would become Secretary of State for Scotland in 1945 for a year.
In order to avoid persecution in the Russian Empire, Jews settled in the larger cities of the UK, including Scotland, most notably in Glasgow (especially the Gorbals), although there were smaller populations in Edinburgh and to a lesser extent, Dundee, Aberdeen, Greenock and Ayr. The Russian Jews tended to come from the west of the empire, especially the Baltic countries, and in particular Lithuania.
Immigration continued into the 20th century, with over 8,000 Jews in 1905.[7] Refugees from Nazism and the Second World War further augmented the Scottish Jewish community, which has been estimated to have reached 80,000 in the mid-20th century.[8] It is important to remember that the Jewish population in the United Kingdom peaked at 500,000 but has declined to almost half that number today.[9]
Some elements of the British Union of Fascists were anti-Jewish and one of its main ideologues Alexander Raven Thomson was a Scot. Oswald Mosley did visit Scotland, but his group was physically attacked in Edinburgh by communists and Scottish nationalists, as well as by "Protestant Action", which believed his group to be an Italian (i.e. Roman Catholic) intrusion.[10] In fact, William Kenefick of Dundee University has claimed that bigotry was diverted away from Jews by anti-Catholicism, particularly in Glasgow where the main ethnic chauvinist agitation was against Irish Catholics.[11] Archibald Maule Ramsay, a Scots politician claimed that World War II was a "Jewish war" and was the only MP in the UK interned under Defence Regulation 18B. In the Gorbals at least, both Louise Sless and Woolf Silver, recall no anti-Semitic sentiment.[12]
According to the 2001 census, approximately 6,400 Jews live in Scotland, most of whom are in Edinburgh (about 1,000), Glasgow (about 5,000) and to a lesser extent Dundee. Scotland's Jewish population continues to be predominantly urban. The SSPCA came into conflict with the Aberdeen congregation over slaughtering methods at the turn of the 20th century. As with Christianity, the practising Jewish population continues to fall, as many younger Jews either become secular, or intermarry with other faiths. Scottish Jews have also emigrated in large numbers to the USA, England and the Commonwealth for economic reasons, as other Scots have done.
In March 2008 the Jewish tartan was designed by Brian Wilton[13] for Chabad rabbi Mendel Jacobs of Glasgow and certified by the Scottish Tartans Authority.[14] The tartan's colors are blue, white, silver, red and gold. According to Jacobs: "The blue and white represent the colours of the Scottish and Israeli flags, with the central gold line representing the gold from the Biblical Tabernacle, the Ark of the Covenant and the many ceremonial vessels ... the silver is from the decorations that adorn the Scroll of Law and the red represents the traditional red Kiddush wine."[15]
Scots Yiddish is the name given to a Jewish hybrid vernacular between Lowland Scots and Yiddish which had a brief currency in the Lowlands of Scotland in the first half of the 20th century. The Scottish literary historian David Daiches describes it in his autobiographical account of his Edinburgh Jewish childhood, Two Worlds.[16]
Daiches explores the social stratification of Edinburgh Jewish society in the interwar period, noting what is effectively a class divide between two parts of the community, on the one hand a highly educated and well-integrated group who sought a synthesis of Orthodox Rabbinical and Modern Secular thinking, on the other a Yiddish-speaking group most comfortable maintaining the lifestyle of the Eastern European ghetto. The Yiddish population grew up in Scotland in the 19th century, but by the late 20th century had mostly switched to using English. The creolisation of Yiddish with Scots was therefore a phenomenon of the middle part of this period.
The Glaswegian Jewish poet A. C. Jacobs also refers to his language as Scots-Yiddish.[17] There was even a case of a Jewish immigrant who settled in the Highlands who spoke no English and was only able to speak Gaelic and Yiddish.[18]
Today, all Jewish communities in Scotland are represented by the Scottish Council of Jewish Communities (SCoJeC)
Scottish people of some Jewish background, or Jewish people with a Scottish background:
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