JEWISH LIVES, SCOTTISH SPACES: JEWISH MIGRATION TO SCOTLAND,1880-1950

The University of Edinburgh and the University of Glasgow, together with the Scottish Jewish Archives Centre), have announced an exciting new project which will look at Jewish migration to Scotland.

The University of Edinburgh and the University of Glasgow, together with the Scottish Jewish Archives Centre), have announced an exciting new project which will look at Jewish migration to Scotland, funded by the Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC), which  has awarded a grant in excess of £495,000 for a three year research project, beginning in September 2015.

The holdings of the Archives Centre will form the basis of this project and many documents and photographs will be digitised.  The project will also appoint a post-doctoral researcher and run an extensive programme of public activities.

The project will be led by Dr Hannah Holtschneider , Senior Lecturer in Jewish Studies at the University of Edinburgh and Dr Mia Spiro. Lecturer in Jewish Studies (Theology and Religious Studies) at the School of Critical Studies, University of Glasgow.

Researchers will examine the documents and objects which the immigrant Jews created, used and saved in order to reveal how Jews self-identified as they negotiated issues such as antisemitism, assimilation, cultural loss, memory and the Holocaust, nationalism and belonging. By mapping and examining SJAC’s extensive collection of memoirs, biographies, and recorded oral histories of survivors and refugees, the project will uncover the impact of World War II and the Holocaust on Scottish-Jewish collective identity, and how Jewish refugees yet again transformed the Scottish landscape in the post-war period.

The Archives Centre looks forward to working with this exciting new project. Our wide-ranging collections, brought together over the last 30 years, constitute a unique national resource, unparalleled in any other immigrant group in Scotland.  We are pleased that our collections will underpin this AHRC-funded project and being utilised to interpret Jewish history in Scotland.