Helen Weinstein had an excellent experience making a radio feature with BBC Radio's Jonathan Cowap, to be broadcast on Holocaust Memorial day, 27th January. The English Heritage staff were really helpful and took this great picture of our recording inside the huge stone walls, which despite having no roof, protected us and the recording mic from the fierce wind on this freezing cold January day! 

The Historyworks team has created an app and podcast version of the York Jewish History Trail, available here:historyworks.tv/projects/apps/york_jewish_history_trail/

The BBC feature is about the long story of settlement of the Jewish Community in York from the 1170s up to the present.

We made one package about the massacre at Clifford's Tower in 1190, when an estimated 150 Jews died, meaning that the majority of the then Jewish community in York were murdered at this site, entire families including men, women, children. The stone structure here replaced the original wooden castle which was destroyed by fire on the day of the massacre.  Now a commemorative plaque marks the massacre of 16th March, 1190, and special six-petal daffodils, (representing the Star of David), were planted in 1990 and were designed to bloom in early March and every year you can now see the mound of the Tower with daffodils in flower then.

We made the second package about the site of the twentieth-century synagogue at number 3 Aldwark, which was above a carpentry shop from 1886 up to 1975. Within living memory the family who ran the joinery business were well known for their vans seen  daily around York, which had the logo of an archer on the side to represent their surname, BOWMAN.  

The listeners to the programme helped with furnishing more information.  Interestingly, we now have several memories about the Bowman family owning a property just beyond Monk Bar on Jewbury just a few yards down the road from the site of the 12th century Jewish Cemetry.  So far, we have been told that this was a furniture warehouse and sometimes used for auctions.  Please do contact us with any memories about the family and the business, and we are also having fruitful conversations with the elders in the Jewish community who were members of this synagogue between the 1930s and 1970s, with a view to commencing a project to record their oral histories.  The Jewish community in York today mostly worship in Leeds and Harrogate.

BBC Radio York - York Jewish Trail 2 - Aldwalk Synagogue

It's easy to assume that given what happened to the #Jews of #York at Cliffords Tower in 1190 that ever since Jews have avoided the city - Not true.
Professor Helen Weinstein of the Institute for the Public Understanding of the Past with History Works has helped York Museums Trust create a unique walking tour of York's Jewish history - On Holocaust Memorial Day she explained more to #BBC Radio York's Jonathan Cowap from the site ofYork's most recent synagogue on Aldwalk...