In 1656, the Jewish community, who had been expelled from England in 1290 by King Edward I, made a quiet return under Oliver Cromwell's Commonwealth. We can take a closer look at this remarkable turn of events.
While Jews suffered unimaginably under the Nazis between 1933 and 1945, this was by no means the first time that they had been persecuted.The history of their suffering at the hands of Europeans (Bristol is not untainted) goes back to medieval times.
Today's community is centred around the Hebrew Congregation's place of worship in Park Row, and the Bristol and West Progressive Jewish Congregation's synagogue in Easton. But this community only dates back to the 19th century - a time when Jews fled here from Russian persecution. Until a wave of anti-semitism at the end of the 13th century led to their expulsion, Bristol's Jews had their own synagogue and living quarter, the Old Jewry.
According to Jews In Bristol by Judith Samuel, this little community, banned from practising any other trades by the all- powerful guilds, turned to money-lending.
They settled, she says, around the quayside between St John's arch and St Giles arch, between Broad Street and Small Street, outside the city walls.
These Jews, living huddled together in about 20 narrow, wooden houses, had an interesting arrangement, some would say unique, with their Christian neighbours.
'Local tradition,' she says, 'relates that the Jews' synagogue was in a room (probably a vault) beneath St. Giles' Church (annexed by the adjoining church of St Laurence, it's long since been demolished).
'The main entrance to the church was inside the wall, while the entrance to the vaults and the synagogue was outside the wall (you can see the same arrangement at St John's at the bottom of Broad Street today).
'Thus, the two faiths could share the same building without ever coming into contact with one another.'
Bristol's Jews may have stayed happily here had it not been for King Henry III. Although his initial intentions towards Jews were honourable, his attitude hardened when he found himself short of money. He asked for higher taxes from them and with this demand came evictions, fines, torture and even executions.
This wasn't the first time that this had happened. There is a story about a rich Jew called Abraham, who, refusing to pay a ransom demanded by King John, was taken to Bristol Castle where one of his teeth was violently extracted every day until he relented and paid up. After seven days, its reported, he did, although the money he was expected to find was said to be the combined wealth of the whole Jewish community.
Towards the end of the 13th century, as attitudes to moneylenders hardened, so anti- semitism reached a peak. Stories were even put about that Jews were not fully human. It was said that they 'had no more religion than dogs' and were only fit company for ' Turks, brute beasts or filthy villains'.
Worse was to come. The Jews were accused of kidnapping and murdering children and then using their blood to bake Passover bread. They were also accused of mocking the Christian Mass. After a nine-year-old lad from Lincoln was found at the bottom of a well with his throat cut, the Jews - always a useful scapegoat - were blamed. Nearly 100 were rounded up and 19 executed.
In 1275, the Bristol Jewry was pillaged and set on fire by 22 men and two women led by William Maleden and William Giffard. It's said that the latter owed money to the Jews and was determined to destroy their records. Maleden fled the city but, despite an inquiry, all involved seem to have escaped punishment.
It was King Edward I - known as Longshanks - who finally, in July 1290, signed the order banishing Jews from England. He wasn't joking - any discovered in the country after November would, he proclaimed, be put to death. A handful of Portugese and Spanish Jews, it's said, came to live in Bristol in Tudor times. But it's been suggested these may have been Marrano coverts, Sephardic Jews who attended the Christian Mass but secretly kept to their own faith.
Jacob's Wells has left us a unique piece of Jewish history. Twenty years ago a medieval Mikveh, a bath fed by a spring, was discovered in a building at the bottom of Constitution Hill. Historians think that this Mikveh - used to ritually cleanse bodies before burial - could date from before 1170 and may be the oldest of its kind in Europe.
The west side of Brandon Hill, where QEH is today, was used by the community as a place of burial. When, centuries later, the Jews returned to Bristol, they set up their synagogue in the hall of the Weavers' Guild, near Victoria Street.
Dedicated in 1786, this served the community for nearly 60 years. Then, in 1842, they lavishly re-decorated a former Quakers' meeting house in Temple Street, but this was demolished in the early 1870s to make way for Victoria Street.
It was then that a site in Park Row, formerly occupied by a convent of nuns, became available. No history of Bristol's Jews is complete with mention of the walled graveyard in Barton Road, St Philip's. Established in the early 18th century, it was leased by the community before its eventual purchase in 1859.
Rescued from neglect 16 years ago, it's now maintained by Chevra Kadisha, the burial society of the Bristol Hebrew Congregation. Temple Street was once used as a synagogue throughout Victorian times.
