The International Institute for Jewish Genealogy (IIJG) has been engaged for three years in an exhaustive demographic study of the Scottish Jewish community from the founding of the community to the present. The IIJG is pleased to announce that Michael Tobias, the Project’s Principal Investigator, is on the verge of completing the project’s central data and records-retrieval phase, and that a fascinating picture of the history of Scottish Jewry is beginning to emerge. The raw data, from which the following summary was compiled, will be refined and analyzed over the coming year, with the ultimate objective being the development of a Family Tree of Scottish Jewry, the first such tree ever attempted for an entire community of Jews at a national level. The project is sponsored by the Scottish Council of Jewish Communities and the Glasgow Jewish Representative Council, and funded in large part from the Rothschild Foundation and the Scottish Heritage Lottery Fund.
Jewish Soldiers at Edinburgh’s Graham Street Synagogue Pesah 1917 (published with the kind persmission of the Scottish Jewish Archives Centre, Glasgow)
[Author’s Note: What follows is an adaptation of an article by Neville Lamdan and Michael Tobias, originally published in AVOTAYNU. xxviii, 1 (Spring 2012), pp. 21-23. Some of the material below requires considerable updating and refining in the light of the latest data and information compiled by the “200 Years of Scottish Jewry” project.]
Based on the work thus far, we are pleased to present some overall conclusions about the history of the Jews of Scotland that will be of interest to genealogists and others interested in Scottish Jewish family history:
1. When were the earliest Congregations formally established in Scotland?
The generally accepted dates of the formal founding of Jewish congregations in Edinburgh and Glasgow are 1816 and 1823 respectively. The 1816 date for Edinburgh is based on an article in the Edinburgh Evening Express on 29 March 1883. The 1823 date for Glasgow is based on a statement in the New Statistical Account of Scotland (1845) that a synagogue was founded there in September 1823. 9 It is instructive, however, to examine the reports relating to religious worship produced by the Scottish Commissioners of Religious Instruction. Their data was gathered by surveying all Churches and religious denominations in Scotland over the 1835-1837 period. The information on the Jewish Community in Edinburgh was provided by its minister, Rev. Moses Joel, and by a Mr. J. Lyon, who was in the part-employ of the Community. They stated that the congregation was established in 1817 and the building then in use was converted into a synagogue in 1833.
The information for Glasgow was provided by Woolf Levy on 11 May 1836, who declared that the congregation was established in 1821. These are first-hand, not second or third-hand, accounts of information. In the circumstances, therefore, the dates for establishment of the two main congregations in Scotland should perhaps be modified somewhat – from 1816 to 1817 for Edinburgh and from 1823 to 1821 for Glasgow.
2. Where was the first Synagogue in Edinburgh located?
The first Jewish house of prayer in Edinburgh was in a lane off Nicolson Street in 1816. Later sites for the prayer-house are unknown. The first reference to a synagogue as such appears in the 1821 edition of the Edinburgh Almanack, published in December 1820, where the existence of the Synagogue at Richmond Court is recorded. In 1929, Alfred Henry Rushbrook took over 100 photographs in the St. Leonards District on behalf of the City of Edinburgh Improvement Trust, prior to slum clearance operations. Two of the photographs were of old tenements in Richmond Court. The synagogue was housed in the taller building in the photograph below, numbered 5 & 6 Richmond Court.
3. How did Jewish immigrants reach Scotland?
In the 20-year period from 1877 to 1897, over 90,000 people, mostly Jewish, travelled from Hamburg to Leith. The vast majority of them proceeded to Glasgow for onward migration to the USA, Canada and elsewhere. The following chart shows the number of passengers and ships that arrived in Leith from Hamburg over the period.
The huge increase in numbers in the 1880s, reflecting the deteriorating situation of Jews in the Pale of Settlement following the anti-Jewish legislation of May 1882, can clearly be seen. However, there was a near shutdown in traffic after 1892 due to a cholera outbreak in Hamburg in August/September of that year, followed by stricter border controls in Germany. Subsequently, large-scale Jewish immigration to Scotland did not arrive via Hamburg. After 1896, new Jewish immigrants to Scotland or again, Jews transiting the country in larger numbers, sailed mainly from the port of Libau in Latvia (closer to the Pale), to Hull, Grimsby and West Hartlepool on the east coast of England. Additionally, numbers of Jews, previously settled in the United Kingdom, travelled back and forth between England and Scotland in search of a livelihood and a place to put down roots.
4. From where did the Scottish Jewish immigrants originate?
Scottish Birth Certificates indicate the dates and places of parents’ marriage. For marriages held outside the UK, a place of marriage was recorded and/or legible in 627 of the records studied. The specific locations were identifiable in only 543 of these cases, referring to 158 different towns in all. The vast majority of the towns were within the “Pale of Settlement” (the area in the Russian Empire where Jews were permitted, indeed required, to reside). Prior to the 1880s, the vast majority of the towns were in modern Poland and Lithuania. There are a very few references to towns in present day Belarus and Ukraine before the 1880s and then only a handful in the 1880s, while the numbers increase significantly in the 1890s. Interestingly, some towns “beyond the Pale” were also mentioned, including Saint Petersburg and Moscow, which certain families left after the central government’s attempts at expulsions from these cities in 1891. In brief, the bulk of Jews in Scotland in the 19th century hailed from a wide area forming a rough arc, stretching from central and eastern Poland, through western Belarus and the length of Lithuania to the Baltic Sea. The following map plots the towns of marriage identified.
5. What did Scottish Jewish immigrants do for a living?
This table shows the top three categories of occupation found in the censuses. In the table, we have highlighted the most common occupation group n in red, the second most common in orange and the third most common in yellow. These three largest occupational groups account for 70% – 80% of the Jewish population, except for the censuses in 1851 and 1861 when the occupations were distributed more widely.
The range of occupations in the period 1841-1861 is more variable, again pointing to the small numbers of Jews, a high turnover and low persistency rate among the population – with the result that almost discrete populations were enumerated in the first three censuses. The high percentage of merchants in 1841 reduced significantly by 1851, being replaced by a population made up of more tailors, furriers and jewellers. This trend was reversed by 1861, with a distinct shift towards merchants and watchmakers. By 1871, the numbers of merchants, tailors and especially glaziers continued to grow. From 1881 to 1901, tailoring became the dominant occupation, while trades associated with picture frames grew in 1881 and 1891. That element dropped away by 1901 along with general merchants, to be replaced by the increased involvement in the tobacco trade.
6. How prevalent were religious marriages among Scottish Jewish immigrants?
A Marriage Authorisation Form was required from the Office of the Chief Rabbi (CRO) in London before an orthodox Jewish religious marriage could take place in a synagogue affiliated to the umbrella “United Synagogue” framework. Between 1880 and 1901 (with some gaps in the records), 419 Authorization Forms were located for Jewish Marriages in Scotland but in the corresponding periods 558 Scottish Statutory Marriage records were extracted claiming to be the product of a Jewish marriage ceremony, It follows that 139, or 1 in 4 Scottish Jewish religious marriages were conducted without prior authorization (causing no small disquiet in the Chief Rabbi’s Office)! [Editor’s Note: An index to UK Authorisation Certificates for the years 1880-1901 is available at http://www.theus.org.uk/category/find-marriage-record]
7. Where did the Jewish immigrants settle in Scotland?
Since the first synagogue opened in Glasgow in 1816 or 1817, that City as well as Edinburgh have been home to the vast majority of Scottish Jews. Edinburgh surpassed Glasgow in Jewish population in 1851. A half century later, in 1901, there were four times more Jews in Edinburgh (6,813) than lived in Glasgow (1,623). According to preliminary findings, Edinburgh’s Jewish population grew by 1951 to five or six times the size of the Edinburgh.
Roughly 17% of Scottish Jews lived outside the two main population centers by 1851, a number that dropped to 6% by 1901. These remaining scattered but stable Jewish populations were found in Aberdeen, Dundee, Dunfermline, Falkirk, Greenock and Ayr.
Areas of Settlement An analysis of the geographical distribution of the Jewish populations in each census from 1841 to 1901 is shown in the following Table.
8. Where did Jews live within Glasgow?
Jews in Glasgow resided almost exclusively within the city’s centre. The table below shows their distribution over the period 1841 to 1901. In each census, the district with highest Jewish population concentration is highlighted in red, the second highest in orange and the third in yellow.
Note: Within Glasgow, the concentrations of Jews shifted markedly over time. The Gorbals area, the hub of the Jewish community from the 1880’s and decades thereafter, was almost empty of Jews in 1861. The early population concentration north of the River Clyde started to gravitate to the “South-Side” during the 1870s, at the time when Glasgow became home to more than half of Scotland’s Jews. This shift coincided with the building of the grand Garnethill Synagogue in the north-west of town, which did not foresee the waves of poor immigrants about to arrive and head for the lower rent east and south “suburbs”. By 1901, some parts of the Gorbals had a Jewish residency of more than 20%. The highest single concentration was located in part of Hutchesontown in Govan Parish, Enumeration District 34, where almost one-third of the over 1000 residents was Jewish. This area encompassed a small stretch of Rutherglen Road, where in 2 particular addresses, numbers 139 and 149, 75% (81 people out of 108) were Jewish.
The following map shows the distribution of Jews in central Glasgow in 1901. (Jews residing in the “off-centre” districts of Camlachie, Dennistoun, Bridgeton or Kinning Park were not plotted, since only marginal groups, some 1-2% of the total Jewish population, lived there).
- Legend
9. What was the overall number of Jews living in Scotland during the last two centuries?
From roughly 100 Jews in Scotland in 1821, the community grew slowly over fifty years to total 825 individuals in 1871. With the surge in Jewish emigration from the Russian Empire, it doubled in each of the next two decades, and then tripled during the 1890’s, reaching 9,000 by 1901. It thereafter increased by approximately 3,000 during each decade from 1911 to 1951. After peaking at approximately 24,000 mid-20th century, it declined by 3,000 per decade from 1971 on.
By 2011, Scottish Jewry had returned to its population of a century earlier.
The table below summarizes the Census data on Jews extracted, shows
- the numbers of Jews from 1841-1901;
- their “persistency” or stability as a group, i.e. how many Jews remained in Scotland from one census to the next
- the numbers / percentages of Scots-born Jews within the overall Jewish population; and
- the accuracy of the census statements regarding birth in Scotland, indicating that over 90% of those claiming Scottish birth were verified by locating their Birth Certificates.
Note: Very few pre-1855 births appeared in the later censuses, suggesting that the Jews who lived in Scotland in the early part of the 19th century had largely moved on with their families or died out – to be replaced almost entirely by the new influxes of central/eastern European immigrants.
It is possible many of these Jews moved to Jamaica and settled in the parish of St. Elizabeth. Many of the people in that area were Scott with Jewish surnames. I am anxiously awaiting the list.
trying to trace my Great grandfather he lived in Edinburgh attended school there and was a Doctor, last name Richey. Is there any lists of names available to coincide with this study.
Thank you
BH
i need help tracing my family!
My grandfather was born in Leith in or around 1887 At this point the family surname was Davies but I have recently established with reasonable probability that the original family surname was Gambitzski and his father first name was Daves hence presumably the origin of Davies.His father appears to have married in Maqnchester. I cannot find any further information. Any suggestions please
Thanks
Martin Davies
The first paragraph in Section 7 appears to have a number of errors, mixing up Glasgow and Edinburgh.
Lists of Scottish Jews will be made available when the project is completed at the end of 2016. They will not be published but they will be available through databases deposited at the Scottish Jewish Archives Centre (subject to the limitations of UK Privacy Laws).
Neville Lamdan
My father was born to Samuel Isaac Hirsch Benjamin in 1914. His wife was Emily Benjamin nee Cohen.
Isaac was one of the founder members of Queenpark Glasgow Synagogue which was closed in 2003 I am seeking any info about this. His parents whose name I believe were Albert Lizor (Known as Lazarus) and Hannah (known as Annie) Benjamin they came from Slalbothi a suburb of Kovono in Russia in about1876. Can you help with me with any info on these relatives being my Grand and Great Grandparents. Many thanks Faye Green Sydney Aust
HAVE GIVEN YOU THE INCORRECT EMAIL ADDRESS THIS IS THE CORRECT ONE
FAYE GREEN
We have noticed which occured during the last census (was it in 2008?) where about 800 people stated they were Jewish (statement of religion was optional), about another 40% could be added as this is the % of the population which declined to state religion) So we have around 1200 Jewish people in Edinburgh but alas the numbers attending synagogue appear to be constantly reducing. What will the next 10-20 years show?
Hello Faye,
Our surname is also “Lizor” and our grandfathers lived in Artvin (turkey) closed to Georgia.But no body knows old periods.Where they come from.Is there any possibility link between this case?I wonder.
Thanks,
Looking for information about my Father – Kenneth Lewis DOB October 20/21 October, 1914, Gorbals, Scotland. Fathers, name – Lazarus (Harry) Lewis, Mothers Name – Rachel Lewis nee Most
Harry Lazarus LEWIS and Rachel MOST had 3 sons:
Kenneth 20 Oct 1914
Maurice 29 Oct 1916
Joseph Nathan 25 Sept 1924
Harry and Rachel had married in Glasgow on 25 Dec 1913. Harry was a shoe factory foreman, 26 years old, the son of Jacob LEWIS a slipper maker and Fanny SMITH. He was from Leeds (residence 32 Darley Street Leeds). Rachel was a tobacconist’s assistant aged 27, the daughter of Lewis MOST and Fanny ZIEV.
You will need to research in Leeds for more information on the LEWIS family.
Lewis MOST and Fanny ZIEV/SIEV were married at Baffa, Cyprus on 7 Apr 1885. Lewis was a German/Russian Subject born around 1863 and Fanny was a Russian Subject born around 1865. They moved to England shortly after their marriage and Rachel was their eldest child, born there in Whitechapel, London in 1886. They had a total of 9 children:
Rachel 1886 Whitechapel,London,England married 25 Dec 1913 to Harry Lazarus LEWIS
Elias 10 Nov 1887 Glasgow married 30 Aug 1908 Glasgow to Rachel CHACKMAN/CHAPMAN and remarried 26 Aug 1919 Glasgow to Annie GOODMAN
Sarah/Sadie 6 Jul 1889 Glasgow married 7 Aug 1911 to Jack SUNDERLAND
Isidore 1892 Whitechapel,London,England married 3 Sep 1917 Glasgow to May HARRIS
Abraham 1894 Whitechapel,London,England
Esther 1895 Whitechapel,London,England
Martha 21 Apr 1897 Glasgow married 27 Mar 1921 to Lazarus VINITZKER
Eva 14 Sep 1899 Glasgow
Ethel 10 Aug 1902 Glasgow married 29 Mar 1925 to Wolf GOLOMBOK
The family were in Whitechapel London in the 1891 census. In 1901 they were in Glasgow. Living with them in 1901 was Fanny’s mother Anna, a wig-maker, born around 1841 in ‘Poland, Russia’.
Fanny MOST died 28 Dec 1917. Her parents were Morris SIEVE, Jewish Minister, and Sarah RESNICK (this does not agree with her mother ‘Anna’ listed on the 1901 census).
Lewis MOST died 23 Apr 1930. His parents were Abraham MOST, teacher of hebrew, and Ethel RODENSKY.
Several of the MOST children married and had families in Glasgow (and I grew up knowing one of the families). If you would like more information please contact me privately at michael@tobias.org.uk
I was looking for some information on my great grandparents, Woolf Cannofsky and Rachael Dvorsky . Specifically how and when they reached Scotland and settled in Glasgow. What route are they likely to have taken? Would Glasgow be their likely destination? Would they have arrived elsewhere in the uk first? I do know they were married in Minsk and I know they lived in the Gorbals area around 1900. I also have a furniture receipt (1925) from W. Connofskey, Cabinetmaker of 77 Norfolk st. Many thanks if you can help or advise where I can seek additional information on my family.
Michael,
Are we related?
My maternal grandfather was David Tobias (born Glasgow 1890-died Poole 1972) son of Harris (Arye) Tobias-wife Rebecca.
I’m trying to trace the family history for my daughter.
Harris (Arye) originated from Poland-his eldest child, Abrham (Avrom-Shimon) appears to have been born on September 15th 1857 in Ostrolenka, Poland.
My mother, born Hilda Tobias, passed away 25th October 2009 so there’s noone around to shed any light on the family history other than the internet.
I know that there was a family forge and that the family was all orthodox.
Can you help or point me in the direction of any source material?
Thanks and kindest regards,
Selwyn Remington
Michael Tobias, you contacted me about Isaac LAZARUS/ John LIZARS with respect to my Lazarus optical family of Devon. Did you find out any more about him? I have continued research that was triggered by your query and think I may know who his family was.
Also, you gave me some information about a DAVIS family, including a DAVIS who married an Elizabeth LAZARUS “of Birmingham” and I have tried to follow that. In fact there seem to have been two David DAVISes who married women named Elizabeth LAZARUS and I’d appreciate help sorting them out.
Are you interested in maintaining contact and exchanging information?
Michael, did you get my reply to your message? Sent last week. Sorry to post here, but suspect my emails to you end up in your spam box or something.
I recently discovered that part of my husband’s Scottish family were actually German Jews. I have data as to where they settled. Is there a place to export this info to your study. If so, please email me the link. They moved to SCT bet. 1856-1861. Hubby’s DNA is currently being processed.
So pleased you are doing this work ! My great grandparents, Herman and Polly Cohen, emigrated from Lithuania with their cousins the Guttmans. They lived in the Gorbals. Both families moved to Cupar, Saskatchewan, where thy farmed for a decade before moving to Winnipeg, except for their oldest son, Goodman, who married my grandmother Helen Rae, and eventually took her name. They also emigrated to Canada. My father, Saul, like Neville Landau ,served as ambassador to UN in Geneva ,and later New York.
I’m searching for members of the Granite/Granet/Grannet/etc. family. They would have arrived in Scotland likely circa 1891 from Odessa or Uman. Some may still remain there.
My mom was adopted by the dr. Granite family in 1930 and live with them until she left for the USA in 1945. The had a house in Ayre named Arglye that still stands that we visited in 2003. Much of the family moved to the USA after ww2. “Aunt jean” Zweig of forest hills was one of the sisters
I am searching for more information on my Great grandparents who lived in Glasgow. They were called Wolffe and Yetta Solanskey and owned several furrier shops on Eglington and Hospital street. Their birth place was Russia but have information maybe they came from Skudas? They married at Garnett Synagogue in Glasgow but looking for more information where they resided from and how and why they came to Scotland and more about their shops as I have limited information.
I am a member of the Granet family, my grandparents Sonia and Aaron came from Odessa circa 1910. Not sure if this is the same family. My grandfather was the son of Schlomo Granet and Henia Granet. He had brothers Chayim Zalman and Samuel.
Sorry just saw this.
Wolfe SOLANSKY / SHULANSKY and Yetta EZEKIEL were married in Glasgow on 24 September 1889. Wolfe was living at 33 Castle Street, Dundee at the time.
Up to the census in 1911 they had had 9 kids but only 7 were still alive:
Sophia 1890
Fanny 1892
Leah 1895
Harry 1898
Mary 1902
Sarah 1908
Isiah 1911
those who died young were:
Olga 1896
Julius 1901
Wolfe’s parents were Barnett SHULANSKI, cattle dealer and Rebecca NARRICK (?) who were both already dead by 1889.
Please contact me at michael@tobias.org.uk
That is correct. There are a great deal of Andersen’s who are Scottish Jews, living and now born in Jamaica. My grandmother was one.
Hi Michael,
Im interested in finding more information out about my great grand parents any help is much appreciated..
My great grandparents i was told came from georgia , early 1900’s to Scotland and lived in the Gorbals.
Grandmother – Rebecca Weinstein
Grandfather unsure of christian name
They then gave birth to my grandfather in 1907 maybe Oct : Louis ( who at some point there was a surname change to Lee?? not sure when this happened or who did it , maybe on entry to Scotland really not sure.
I know it’s vague but just working out how i could start this process off. Im really keen to also visit Georgia next year for a charity mountain climb and would love to know more about my ancestry.
many thanks
This is a long shot because the information I have is so poor.
I’m looking for anything on David Hart born c1866, married to Mary Hyme? maiden surname Koneyishkie (if I read the handwriting correctly) who may have been previously married to David Stern.
Both David’s appear to have been jewellers in Edinburgh.
I recently sent a reply thanking you for helping my eldest daughter on her research of my ancestor Wolf Shulanski. His father was a cattle dealer so I presumed it must have been mid 1800 in Scotland. When I offer this information to the search engine it came back there is a large dealership in America so I put forward this request if there was a connection, still waiting for a reply. Perhaps you might have more information Tobias
Yours Sincerely
Mr S Campbell
Yours Sincerely
Mr S Campbell
Thank so much for your research and sharing the information!
I think you have the cities transposed in section 7? The charts shows that Glasgow had many more Jewish residents after 1851….
“Since the first synagogue opened in Glasgow in 1816 or 1817, that City as well as Edinburgh have been home to the vast majority of Scottish Jews. Edinburgh surpassed Glasgow in Jewish population in 1851. A half century later, in 1901, there were four times more Jews in Edinburgh (6,813) than lived in Glasgow (1,623). According to preliminary findings, Edinburgh’s Jewish population grew by 1951 to five or six times the size of the Edinburgh.”
Dear Eve, In your research Davis family was there a Bernhard Davis,born Glasgow 1900, would be grateful if any information, thanks B.Smith
I am not aware of Jewish families from Scotland called ANDERSEN. Please contact me with more information.
Yes that error has already been pointed out.
regards
Michael Tobias
Looking for any family history, great grandfather Leon Philemon, grandfather Robert brownlie Philemon of the Gorbals