The Rise and Fall of the Jews of Medieval England

On the fast day of Tisha b’Av, which falls this year on August 13, many synagogues will read a medieval elegy for the martyrs of York, who were slaughtered en masse by a Christian mob in 1190. A little more than a century later, on July 18, 1295, the English monarchy expelled Jews completely; they did not return until the 17th century. But, as John Tolan explains in this conversation with Nachi Weinstein, medieval English Jews achieved remarkable economic success, helped finance the building of Oxford University, drank beer with their Gentile neighbors, and even celebrated weddings together—even as patterns of anti-Semitism emerged that would serve as a template for what befell Jews of continental Europe in the following centuries. (Audio, 51 minutes.)