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A new walking tour in York is giving visitors the chance to visit some of the city’s historic Jewish sites including the infamous Clifford’s Tower. The tour was set up by University of York students Avi Rubinstein and Izzie Solomon and offers a chronological voyage of discovery of the medieval city’s Jewish presence. The first spot on the tour is the city’s most well-known site to be affiliated with Jews, Clifford’s Tower, where in 1190, all 150 of York’s Jews were massacred. Faced by an oncoming mob, they took refuge in the tower, where many opted to commit suicide instead of converting to Christianity under duress. Those who did not commit suicide were killed. The tour then takes a lighter turn, to the medieval synagogue on Coney Street, which played a large part in the revitalisation of York’s Jewish community in the 13th century. The plaque on the medieval synagogue in York (Photo: JCR-UK)[Missing Credit] From there, the tour stops at several more locations, each one chartering a different stage of York’s Jewish history from the expulsion of English Jews in 1290 to their eventual return in the 1600s. The tour also runs along the city’s ancient walls, to the old Jewish cemetery and to other historical hotspots. Rubinstein and Solomon told the JC that before they began to research and plan the tour, neither were aware of York’s extensive Jewish history “beyond a vague knowledge of the Clifford's Tower Massacre of 1190. [But] as the tour’s [length increased], and our own community [and network] expanded, we became increasingly intrigued about this history.” They added: “Neither of us are reading history at university, but we have always had an affinity for the subject. “We have both spent plenty of time on Jewish walking tours across Europe, and upon the realisation that York had just as much, if not more rich Jewish history, we started questioning why there was not already a flourishing tour business.” The tour is also free as the pair want everybody to have the opportunity to discover the city’s astonishing Jewish past.
