History of the Jews in Kingston upon Hull

[17] As they were largely excluded from society in Britain as in Europe, the Jews of Hull were for a time mostly poor,[18] and their livelihoods were made via pawnbroking, dealing in valuables, jewelry, and later, silver and gold work, watch and clockmaking, as well as importing goods.

[5] Newcomers fleeing Russian oppression came via North Sea and Baltic ports, skilled as tailors, drapers, cobblers, cabinetmakers, market traders and travelers.

[5][19] Jewish life in Hull came to reflect the restrained Litvak observance and eastern Yiddish of the old Grand Duchy of Lithuania,[20][21] a culture wiped out by the Tsars, Nazis and Soviets.

Assimilation, relocation, and emigration have since taken their toll,[30] most leaving for London, Manchester, Leeds,[69][70][71][37] and Israel, with now 200 or less in the Hull area, mainly older people in recent years.

[81] Close by, the large wool-producer Meaux Abbey,[83][84][85][86] bought estates indebted to these Jews,[83][79][87] and borrowed from them for construction,[83] whilst also developing the Hull river-mouth as a major centre,[84][88][89] for wool-merchants from England and Europe.

[103][42] Thereafter, at a time of persecution in Europe,[104][105][106] it is documented that Jews came into Hull from Germany, Holland, Denmark, Sweden, Prussia, Poland and the Baltic, bound for large Northern towns or London, some claiming to be converts to Christianity.

[2] Traders settled around the Holy Trinity Church marketplace,[20] being in effect legally free in Hull to set up business;[110] Jews ran many stalls and shops there until the late 1960s.

[115] Moses Symons, bullion dealer and watchmaker, was a Navy Agent, and in 1810 a founder member of the Humber Lodge of Freemasons,[116] which later had synagogue president and silversmith Elias Hart as its Master mason.

[126][127] Simeon Mosely (1815–88), prominent dental surgeon, was synagogue president,[128] a Town Councillor, captain in the local volunteer brigade,[129] and 1864 founding Worshipful Master of the Kingston Lodge.

Victorian England's lack of restriction on refugees saw port arrivals increase, especially after the continental revolutionary unrest of 1848,[42][140][141][4] enabled by the transport revolution of steam-ships and trains.

[144][151][152] An expanding young population of Yiddish-speaking Ashkenazim was leaving Russia's Pale of Settlement,[153] due to work restrictions, special taxes, and the forced conscription and conversion of boys which was fueling emigration.

[163][148][143] Husbands or eldest sons left first, and completed an arduous cross-border journeys by foot, cart, and train, to Hamburg and Bremen, or Baltic ports like Libau and Riga.

[168][161][35] Carrying a little kosher food, such as herring with stale bread, migrants embarked onto cargo or cattle boats, for several cramped nights on straw pallets, wood boards or rolling decks, sometimes in befouled and unsafe conditions.

[169][170][165][143][171][172] One gale in 1845 claimed 26 ships off Holland,[173] whilst the crew of a Hull-bound cargo steamer, having survived overnight lashed to the rigging, realized the deaths of all 16 passengers.

[145][182][183][180] Built in 1871 by the North Eastern Railway, a kosher kitchen and washing rooms were later added;[56][177] now a listed building, it is currently (Hull City AFC the) Tigers Lair pub.

[186][152][42][187][188][189] Often, young men lodged temporarily with Jewish families in narrow lanes and terraced streets, borrowing money to work as ragged hawkers, later succeeding as jewelers and watch-dealers.

[233][234][97][45][235] In 1780, the year of the Gordon Riots, a mob sacked a Catholic chapel on Posterngate, which was nearly opposite Dagger Lane;[236] this was rebuilt and rented, as a "neat and convenient" synagogue for 25 to 30 worshippers.

[237] In 1809, a larger rival was founded at 7 Parade Row (later demolished for Prince's Dock),[16] by the respected and affluent Joseph Lyon (c.1765–1812) of Blackfriargate, pawnbroker, slopman (clothier) and silversmith.

[5][244][245][246][247] It was conflict with newcomers that led established families in 1902 to build the Western Synagogue for over 600, on Linnaeus Street along Anlaby Road; it was new-built in Byzantine style,[198] the architect BS Jacobs, son of Bethel.

George Alexander,[4] community leader and synagogue president, silversmith and coin dealer, and the Levy family then opened a Hessle Road site,[305] which was in use until 1858.

[386][387] Nevertheless, the first apparently Jewish Mayor of Hull,[18] was both a target of an acerbic political lampoon, which focused on his race, countenance, demeanour, intellect and loyalties,[388] and of more subtle taunting, about missionary conversion.

[428] Pte Max Kay (Chayet) of the Royal Army Medical Corps was born in Minsk, lived on Hessle Road, and died of wounds in Mesopotamia in 1916; he was mentioned in dispatches, and is remembered on the Basra Memorial.

[478][479][480][481] A map of bomb sites shows where areas were hit by the Luftwaffe,[482] with some Hull Jewish fatalities: auxiliary fireman Alexander Schooler,[483][484][485] air-raid warden Abraham Levy,[486] fire-watcher Louis Black,[487][488] Mark Goltman on Beverley Road,[489] and others in raids in Manchester,[489] and Coventry.

Captain (Capt) Isidore Newman MBE CdG MdeR (1916–44), in 1938 a teacher at Middleton Street Boys, was a radio operator for SOE; betrayed on his second mission in occupied France, he was murdered by SS at Mauthausen, Austria 1944.

Of the six Rossy Brothers (see Businesses), anti-aircraft Gunner Cyril Rosenthall and mechanic Aircraftsman Ronnie were both killed in 1941,[504][505] whilst Ernie returned from Dunkirk and Burma.

[518] Czech-born doctor Friedrick Schulz escaped a concentration camp, and joined the RAMC, but in 1949, at the age of 29, committed suicide, which was the same day his father was murdered in Mauthausen.

[520][521] From the Hull Northern clothing family, he founded and ran the High and Mighty outsize menswear UK and international retail chain; he died in 2022 age 96.

[42] Still-noted Victorian clockmakers are Bethel Jacobs and Isaac Lavine,[239] also Bush, Carlin, Friedman, Lewis, Maizels, Marks, Shibko, Solomon, Symons and Wacholder.

[542][543][544] Major Jewish egg importers included Max Minden & Co, and Fischoff;[545][546][547] as well as Saville Goldrein (father of Neville, see List of Jews from Kingston upon Hull),[548][549][550][551] Annis & Gordon,[552] and Cecil Krotowski.

Linked to Hull's prominence in importing and processing Baltic timber,[579] second to tailors in number were many small wood-workers and cabinet-makers, like Abraham Gutenberg of Osborne Street.