Lord Mayor apologises for antisemitic ‘blood libel’ and historic wrongs
By: Communications
The Sainsbury Centre on UEA campus played host to a significant event in the history of Norwich as, before other civic leaders and representatives of the Jewish community, the Lord Mayor of the city apologised in his civic role for the city’s part in creating a near-thousand-year-old myth that has provoked anti-Jewish violence across Europe.
The apology took place in April at a Civic Passover Seder, the ritual meal of the Jewish festival of freedom, commemorating the Exodus from slavery in Egypt.
A Jewish community was established in Norwich after the Norman conquest. The city has been associated with a medieval school of religious scholarship. Jurnet’s House in King Street is both the oldest domestic building in the city and the oldest known Jewish residence in England. In Meir ben Eliahu, or Meir of Norwich, who lived in Norwich in the 13th century, the city was home to the country’s foremost medieval Hebrew poet.
Yet the city is notorious for its contribution to the most pernicious of all antisemitic myths. The false accusations in 1144 against the city’s Jews of the ritual murder of a local child (‘William of Norwich’) represent the earliest known instance of what has come to be called the ‘blood libel’. As the malicious story spread, so did new accusations, often with the specific claim that Jews used Christian blood in their rituals, and regularly accompanied by brutal violence against Jews.
Some of the most infamous medieval blood libels include those in Lincoln and in Trento, Italy; while, in central and eastern Europe, blood libels continued to be cited as pretexts for massacres during the Cossack uprisings of the 17th century and even into the 20th century and the Tsarist pogroms, anti-Jewish riots that occurred in the Russian empire.
Norwich itself was home to a massacre in 1190, of which 17 bodies were unearthed during the Chapelfield development. In 1290, all Jews were expelled from England on the order of King Edward I. This would have included Meir, whose most profound poetry was written in exile.
Acknowledging this legacy, Cllr Dr Kevin Maguire, Lord Mayor of Norwich at the time, desired to make an apology in his capacity as Lord Mayor of the city, for its history of anti-Jewish persecution and specifically for the blood libel. With its civic commitments, its partnership in the Norwich Jewish Heritage Group, and its new strategic commitment to Jewish heritage and culture, UEA hosted the occasion, and the Seder was supported by CivicUEA and the Faculty of Arts and Humanities.
Oren Margolis, Lecturer in Renaissance Studies in UEA’s School of History and Strategic Innovation Lead for Jewish Heritage and Culture, organised the event and led the Seder.
He said: “Norwich brands itself as a city of ‘strangers’. But one of the aims of the Norwich Jewish Heritage Group, and now of the UEA Committee for Jewish Heritage and Culture, is to insist that Jews are not strangers in Norwich. Jewish history is and always has been part of Norwich history.
“12 April 2023 was a highly significant and deeply moving day in Norwich’s history: an acknowledgement of the city’s antisemitic past, a sign of its new commitments to its Jewish population, and a resolution for how the city moves forward. This was an authentic Seder and members of the Jewish community felt proud to express openly what they are.”
The decision to have this apology at a Passover Seder was taken because, as a ceremonial meal that traditionally unfolds around the table and features the blessing and consuming of unleavened bread (matzah) and four cups of wine, it was often the specific target of the poisonous accusation that Jews killed Christian children to use their blood in their rituals.
Guests, Jewish and non-Jewish, took part in the rituals and readings contained within the Passover Haggadah, a text fundamentally the same as that which Meir knew. The Lord Mayor asked the Four Questions, the task generally given to the youngest attendee. His apology came after dinner in the place of the afikoman, half of a matzah broken ceremonially early in the Seder, and later shared as a symbol of the absent Passover sacrifice in the absent Temple, and therefore of the hope of full redemption.
Mindful of the city’s legacy, the Lord Mayor’s apology was to all Jews who still live under threat of antisemitism and antisemitic conspiracy theories and included a resolution to tackle antisemitism and all other forms of discrimination in Norwich going forward.
Dave Rich, Director of Policy at the Community Security Trust, said: “The history of anti-Jewish prejudice and discrimination goes back centuries, and the work of tackling antisemitism in Britain today ought to involve facing up to this history which still influences anti-Jewish hatred up to the present day.
“In this context, the Lord Mayor’s apology for the anti-Jewish persecutions in medieval Norwich is welcome, not just for itself but because it comes as part of a wider commitment to combat antisemitism today.”
In partnership with UEA, Norwich Synagogue is actively raising money to promote and present the history and heritage of Norwich Jewry to the wider public. Donations can be made via their website.
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