On 18 July 1290, Edward I issued a royal decree expelling the Jews from England.
The king’s edict was the culmination of a particularly turbulent time for English Jews: invited to settle in the country by the Normans, they were first tolerated as wealth makers, then increasingly outcast for political, religious and financial reasons.
This fascinating BBC programme, produced and aired in 1990, explores the events that led to the Jews’ banishment as well as England’s little-discussed contribution to the invention of antisemitism as we know it today: it is, after all, the place where Jews were first falsely accused of ritual killings of Christian boys, and from which they were eventually methodically deported.
This special screening, on the anniversary of the decree, has a distinctly profound meaning this year.
The film will be preceded by a screening of the short film, Omnam Kein.
On Friday 16th March, 1190, almost the entire population of Jewish people in the city of York was massacred at Clifford’s Tower. 150 Jewish people either burned to death, committed suicide, or were brutally murdered by the angry mob who had trapped them inside the building. At the time, the city’s rabbi was Yom Tov of Joigny. He died that day too, but he left behind a series of beautifully poetic prayers, one of which, Omnam Kein, is recited during the mystical Kol Nidrei service — the very start of Yom Kippur. In this film, Mosaic Voices perform a new musical setting of the prayer at the very site where the massacre took place.
A discussion and Q+A will follow each screening.
18 July: Hear from director and writer Archie Baron and Anna Sapir Abulafia, Professor of the Study of the Abrahamic Religions at Oxford University specialising in medieval Jewish-Christian relations.
12 August: Hear from director and writer Archie Baron and Rabbi Dr Jonathan Romain MBE.
