JHSE Award Winners

Congratulations to the nine award winners, who successfully applied to the JHSE Award Committee for funding in support of excellent project proposals.

Nudrat Afza	Awarded financial support toward the costs of publishing an artistic, hardback book of social documentary photographs of two synagogues in Bradford, West Yorkshire. In 2018 Afza was successful in gaining an Arts Council (England) grant to complete this unique contemporary project. The photographs were taken with black and white negative film using vintage cameras. The collection has three sets of photographs: photographs of an empty orthodox synagogue which have a haunting and moving quality about them, photographs of a reform synagogue which shows the physical structure, worshippers and social dynamic of its members and friends, and Jewish burial space in the city’s cemetery with some other historical Jewish references. The proposed book promises to be an important future contribution to social history and a contribution towards encouraging greater tolerance and understanding between people of different cultures and faiths. The aim is to have the book ready for Bradford City of Culture 2025.
Anoushka Alexander-Rose	Proposed an exhibition on the historical, literary, musical and visual representations of the ‘Wandering Jew’ as a symbol of Jewish/Christian cultural coproduction and encounter. This legend, which grew out of an oral tradition in the Medieval period informed by Christian antisemitism, has since been reimagined by Jewish artists and writers, and as a positive symbol of Christian-Jewish encounter. The Wandering Jew is unique, attracting medieval, Romantic, Gothic, modern and contemporary depictions across the globe, lending itself to an exhibition of rich visual, literary and musical artefacts to be accompanied by historical commentary. This Legend is of specific interest to Anglo-Jewish history and culture, with depictions of Wandering Jew mapped from the 13th to 21st century in English literature. The plan is to launch this exhibition in Southampton, from which it can travel across the UK hosted by cultural institutions offering workshops and events for public audiences.
Anne Caldwell	Positioning itself within the growing field of environmental humanities, Jewish studies, and cultural history, this project aims to better understand the relationship between Jewish identity, Zionism, and agrarianism within the immigrant Anglo-Jewish community. More specifically, within the lives and art of Whitechapel Boys – Anglo-Jewish artists who were predominately either first or second generation. Several of these artists were commissioned by branches of the Zionist Organisation during the 1920s, producing work which drew upon the idea of a “return to the soil” central to Zionism, but in sharp contrast to the utopian ideal which was characteristic of their Bezalel School counterparts. To understand this relationship, the project will utilise an intersectional and decolonial approach to the way in which immigrant status, ethnicity, class, secularisation, politics, and even gender played a role in how these artists were viewed, how they viewed themselves, and how this intersected with ideas about the environment in Palestine. This award will fund a two-week research trip to London, digitization of materials from the Central Zionist Archive, and to cover publication charges for my journal article. This output is connected to an exhibition previously discussed with the University of Leeds Galleries, and potential public lecture.
Adam Geffen	Men’s tailoring in the UK was transformed in the 1850s with the growth of industrial production. Made-to-measure suits at affordable prices, aptly named ‘wholesale bespoke’, became extremely popular with working-class men. Leeds became a hub of men’s suit manufacturing. Immigrant Jewish tailors and entrepreneurs became the primary workforce in this burgeoning industry. The rag trade (“schmate business”) is synonymous with Jews. It was an essential part of Ashkenazi Jewish life in the diaspora. This is well documented in multiple studies, as well as the current Museum of London exhibition, Fashion City. With that said, little research has been done on whether shared language and culture contributed to the success of Jews in the UK, in this field. My research suggests that Yiddish, as a language and way of life, embedded itself into the entire process of designing, making, and selling. The project will utilise oral history, object and surface analysis, and the review of commercial and instructional materials, to tell the story of the Yiddish Suit.
Ruti Lachs	Archiving Cork’s Jewish Past – This project aims to digitise and archive my research of 6 years, which is a collection of about 50 interviews that I conducted, plus photos, newspaper articles, poems, private memoirs and artefacts relating to Cork’s Jewish history. The material will then be accessible in digital form at the Cork City and County Archive, and I will present some of the research at theWest Cork History Festival and at Ireland’s Heritage Week in August 2024.
Amalia Levi	Sought support for archival research towards the completion of a doctoral project entitled "Asymmetrical Dependencies in Bridgetown, Barbados (17-19th c.): Enslaved People in Sephardic Households." The doctoral project aims to unearth life stories of enslaved people in Sephardic Jewish households in Bridgetown, Barbados. By focusing on the experience of enslaved people in Jewish households, this project decenters the standard, homogeneous approach to studying how the enslaved experienced slavery in Barbados, and the Caribbean at large.
Marsha Parker	King’s Lynn Georgian Jewish Community 1745 and beyond - Between approximately 1745 to 1846, a Jewish community lived, worshiped and brought up children in King’s Lynn, Norfolk, a days journey from other Jewish communities. The only remains are a disused cemetery, original Foundation Document (1745), treasurers accounts book and meeting book from 1829 1846. This research paper intends to place the members of a pioneering Jewish community in the context of the town, economically, socially and demographically. Their rites, customs and integration within the town, will be explored. The children did not remain in the town. One son of Lynn went on to found the Cape Town Jewish Community, others moved on to links with Australia, Jamaica, America, yet another became a fashionable dentist denying his family roots. Secondly to what extent were the issues of the time, Corn laws, Napoleonic War, Enclosure Acts and Poor laws, an influence. The reasons for the decline of this community will be explored. It is also of interest to record the history of the Cemetery sited by a fetid river bank, becoming a public nuisance to town improvements, and today a well regarded site of town heritage.
Hannah Wilson	Within collective memory of the Holocaust in Britain, the role of the North East in providing refuge for Jews escaping the Nazi occupied territories during the second world war is still largely overlooked, as are the sites at which this occurred and, most importantly, the individual experiences of those who arrived in this region as a direct result of the events of the Holocaust. Although the Jewish presence in the northeast of England has never been exceptionally large, numbers grew following the rise of National Socialism in 1933. Indeed, as WWII progressed, it became common for local Jewish voluntary organisations to guarantee refugees adequate means of support, which occurred in this region. This proposed project, which will result in the publication of a monograph and an accompanying digital exhibition, seeks to fill this gap by investigating the history of Jewish refugees in Newcastle, Gateshead, and surrounding areas, with a focus on the familial narratives of those who were able to find safety in the region during this period, and the ways in which European Jews were able to assimilate into daily life in these places, even if they did not reside there long term. Similarly, I will outline the significant sites of memory associated with these movements, and their current heritage status.
James Winterbotham	The Historic Towns Trust (“HTT”) sought funding towards a new historical map of Ipswich. The layered map will chart Ipswich’s development in an accessible but academically rigorous manner; a gazetteer on the reverse will summarise its history and highlight sites of particular significance. Educational and community programmes will be planned around its publication. HTT is a charity that publishes atlases and maps of Britain’s towns highlighting and exploring their historic development to educate and inspire people to become more interested in why our towns and cities have evolved to the way they are now, and foster pride in the shared urban landscape and encourage better community relations. A Jewish cemetery has survived in Ipswich from the community that established itself here by at least 1750; a synagogue existed until demolished in 1877; and the cemetery contains tombstones dating from 1798 to 1850. Both the cemetery and the site of the synagogue will be recorded on the map. We anticipate that the arrival and experience of the Jewish community will be included in community projects based around its publication.

To make your own application, please visit: https://www.jhse.org/jhse-awards