NOTTINGHAM

NOTTINGHAM, industrial city in the E. Midlands, England. In the 13th century Nottingham was one of the 27 centers in which an archa was established for the registration of Jewish debts. An attack was made on the Nottingham Jews during the Barons' Revolt in 1264. From the resettlement until the 19th century only individual Jews settled in the city. By 1805 there was a small, organized community; a cemetery was acquired in 1822; and by 1880 there were about 50 Jewish residents, though a synagogue was not built until 1890. The Nottingham lace-curtain industry was founded by a Jewish immigrant from Germany, Lewis Heymann. By 1939, the community had increased to 180, but World War II brought an influx of new residents. In addition to an Orthodox synagogue there was a Progressive congregation; communal institutions included a Zionist Association and a University Jewish Society. In 1969 the community was estimated at 1,500 (out of a total population of 310,000), and in the mid-1990s it was estimated at about 1,050. The 2001 British census found 627 Jews by religion in Nottingham. There is a Nottingham Representative Council and an Orthodox and a Progressive synagogue. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: C. Roth, The Rise of Provincial Jewry (1950), 27–89; J. Spungin, A Short History of the Jews of Nottingham (1951). (Vivian David Lipman)