Ipswich's Jewish community

Having touched upon the subject of the Jewish community in Ipswich yesterday, and given that I've been studying the history of Ipswich at the Ipswich Institute for the past ten weeks or so, I thought that I ought to find out a bit more about the history of Judaism in the town, given the prominence of Ipswich as a trading hub in medieval times.

And sure enough, Ipswich has had a Jewish community at various points in the past, dating back to at least the twelfth century, during the reign of Henry II (1154-1189). But the initial community didn't last - there was a pogrom in Bury St Edmunds in 1190, with the survivors expelled - and was gone by 1290 as part of Edward I's expulsion of the entire Jewish population of England.

It was not until 1730 that a Jewish congregation was again to be found in Ipswich, and they met in a room in St Clement's until they were able to gather the funds to build a synagogue in Rope Walk, which opened for use in 1795. There must have been a decent-sized population, or at least the expectation of one, because it was designed to seat "no more than a hundred persons". There was a cemetery too, a little distance away off Fore Street, which is still there.

However, by the 1860s, the synagogue had fallen out of use, and was demolished in 1877, leaving no trace that I can ascertain, and I can't easily find an image of it anywhere. The Jewish community continued to fade away, with apparently only three Jewish residents of the town remained in 1895. But the cemetery remained, with its walls preserved, and when there wasn't a Jewish community left to look after it, it was maintained by the business which occupied the remainder of the site, R & W Pauls Ltd.

The cemetery is now maintained by the growing Jewish community in the area, and the walls are Grade II listed, which should help to protect the site for future generations.

For the time being, there isn't an Ipswich Jewish community as such, but there is the Suffolk Liberal Jewish Community, which describes itself as "a small collection of people living in Suffolk and surrounding areas, who have a shared interest in meeting other Jewish people and pursuing Jewish matters". Given that Ipswich now has a Hindu temple, a Sikh gurdwara and a mosque, perhaps there will be a place for Jews to gather once again before very long.

The first (of many) evenings about Ipswich

1780 map of Ipswich, credited to
http://www.ipswich-lettering.co.uk/map1780.html

When Ros suggested that we might join the Ipswich Institute, and take a course on the history of Ipswich, I was, I admit, slightly sceptical. But I was persuaded and, this evening, the first part of the course, on Saxon and early medieval Ipswich, took place, led by the former head of the County's Archaeology Unit, Keith Wade.

I'm not a historian, although I do have an interest in history, and I was somewhat surprised to be told that there wasn't much documentary evidence if Ipswich prior to the seventh century, but I presume that there wasn't much documentary evidence of many places where the Romans weren't until they became properly established.

But it is clear that Ipswich was an important place in the pre-Norman period, as both a point of entry for East Anglia and as a community. And, unusually, Ipswich is pretty much where it has always been, with a modern town plan heavily influenced by developments prior to the Norman Conquest.

As a relative latecomer to Suffolk, most of what I know about the county and its history is what I've picked up as I've gone along - the wool trade of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the fishing industry of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, for example - so there was clearly a lot to learn about our county town.

Keith took us through the development (or, in some cases, the regression) of the town through the Saxon and Norman periods, noting that Ipswich had suffered from Viking predations and then, after William the Conqueror came, from royal vengeance in 1075. He also told of how Ipswich's influence in the region declined as other centres (Norwich and Thetford) emerged as competitors.

And, now that we live in the heart of the town, the logic of the street layout makes perfect sense - why streets run as they do, why key thoroughfares are where they are. What did surprise me was that Ipswich developed on both banks of what was a very wide river, far wider than the current River Orwell, as that seems quite unusual based on my experiences of European geography. Keith suggested that the Orwell may have been bridged more than 1200 years ago which seems remarkable to me, albeit logical.

All in all, it was a fascinating two hours or so, and if the other ten weeks are as interesting, I'm going to be much better informed about the place I now call home. Next week, we look at churches, something that Suffolk is famous for...

Conservatives and their contradictions over free speech

Let’s be honest here, Conservatives don’t believe in free speech. They don’t even really believe in freedom of speech within the confines of what might generally be accepted as reasonable, i.e. restrictions on hate speech, or topics that would offend the overwhelming majority. In truth, most Conservatives tend to believe in freedom of speech to say things that they approve of.

They are, unsurprisingly, now attempting to intimidate academic institutions to express only those opinions which meet with their view of British history - for which one should almost certainly read “English history”, given that most teaching of British history tends to revolve around the English conquering by force or via politics the other three parts of the United Kingdom.

And, given that history tended to be written by the winners, there is a tendency to highlight British successes rather than challenge the perceived wisdom. So, for example, your perspective on World War II might differ if you were living in Bedfordshire or Bengal, where more than two million died as a result of what is widely regarded as a man-made famine under British control. You might look upon the Anglo-Zulu War as a great triumph against the odds - although highly disciplined troops, heavily armed, tend to have a significant advantage over tribesman armed with spears - yet not want to emphasise the invention of concentration camps when fighting the Boers twenty or so years later. After all, we’ve established that gathering populations in a confined space and allowing them to die through starvation and disease is a bad thing, right?

And history changes too. Take, for example, the English Civil War, where Conrad Russell was, apart from being an adornment to the Liberal Democrat benches in the Lords, a leader in re-evaluating how it came to pass, looking at source material in new ways. History moves on, as we collect more data, as researchers share their findings in ways not easily matched before the advent of the internet.

The Empire offers a number of significant challenges. Was it a summarily good thing, or are you merely measuring the outcomes in relation to the incredibly low bar that is the Belgian Congo? If the British Empire was such a boon to economic development, why was India’s share of the world economy estimated at 23% before invasion, and just 4% at independence? It might be fairer to say that, if you were a white colony, the Empire wasn’t so bad. If, on the other hand, you were one of Rhodes’s natives to be treated as a child and denied the franchise, it might reasonably be said that the Empire was a brutal oppressor.

Yes, building railways and other infrastructure was a useful inheritance when countries gained their independence, but as none of it was built with their interests at heart - it was built to enable military control and to extract the wealth - that smacks of post-event justification.

So, as a liberal and as someone of Indian descent, I oppose what is, effectively, the imposition of a repressive world view on the rights of academics, and anyone else for that matter, to express a variety of perspectives on events that have taken place, in order to create an idealised perspective on a divided country.

No people are perfect, no nation’s impact on the world around it is uniformly benevolent, and history is meant to inform and educate - we are supposed to learn from our history and the mistakes we make. But then, this Government doesn’t like to be reminded of its failures, and it refuses to learn from its mistakes.

Our job as liberals is to hold the Government of the day to account, to suggest means to improve the state of the nation and its people. That means allowing debate on events past and present, and encouraging diversity of thought, and so we need to shine a light on this Government’s desire to suppress views it doesn’t much like.

Because, if they get away with that, they’ll happily suppress political dissent and opposition by inches, as we see in their restrictions on political campaigning, their attempts to neuter the Electoral Commission and their move to change constituency boundaries based on registered voters rather than population.

History is written by the winners. Perhaps it would be nicer if more of us were able to be winners...

A gentle stroll, a cup of tea and a nice piece of cake...

The problem with being locked down for a while is that, eventually, you need a change. In the early days of the pandemic, we had the advantage of being in a small village, surrounded by a network of public footpaths. We were faithful to the rules, taking only one walk per day, but making it a decently long one. Indeed, we discovered some routes that, whilst we’d known they were there, we’d never walked before.

And, with a mild, dry Spring, we were able to get plenty of fresh air and exercise. Eventually, however, we’d exhausted many of the options and a change of scenery was required. Thankfully, that coincided with the reopening of some of the local National Trust properties on a limited basis.

We’ve not been members of the National Trust for very long - with our busy lives, we’d not really thought that we’d visit enough properties to make it worthwhile. We’re not even entirely bothered about the stately homes they preserve - they’re interesting, but not necessarily enthralling. However, the grounds are often rather lovely, and we do enjoy a walk in the countryside.

However, we’re not keen on crowds, especially in the current circumstances, so when the National Trust announced that admission would be strictly limited, and that pre-booking was required, our attention was instant. And now, our week has another punctuation mark, on a Friday when slots are released for the following week or so. Ros, being the early bird of the two of us, picks one of the properties and books two places so that we can have a nice stroll in relative peace.

We’ve been to Ickworth and Anglesey Abbey, Wicken Fen and Sutton Hoo, Blickling Hall and Oxburgh Hall, to name but a half dozen, and even if the weather isn’t brilliant, we’ve managed to take in some lovely scenery and burn some calories. The latter is useful because no National Trust visit is really complete without a nice cup of tea and a piece of cake, with perhaps a little browse in the gift shop afterwards.

Now I know what you’re thinking, that it’s a bit bourgeois and middle class. However, I’ve found that, as I’ve mellowed, that a chance to take a walk and let the mind wander a bit avoids my becoming mentally jaded. And our membership does go to support the preservation of some precious islands of calm in an increasingly crazy world.

Of course, the National Trust does have its critics. The recent “controversy” over slavery and the extent to which the profits of slavery allowed the building of many fine houses is merely resentment of the fact that, then as now, some people make their money by some rather suspect means. Buying and selling people was hardly morally upstanding, even by the standards of the day, but it was extremely lucrative. Ros and I take an interest in social history, and considering how someone made enough money to build such properties is, in itself, interesting. History is, after all, rather more than kings and queens, wars and famines.

As long as there’s a half-decent chance of a slice of lemon drizzle cake, I think we can probably cope with a little realism in our lives...

Adventures in Transnistria (part 2)...

I had rather forgotten to report back on the rest of my trip to Moldova, so let’s see if we can remedy that. If you haven’t read the earlier posts on my trip to Transnistria, you can find them here, and here.

Transnistria is not really oriented towards tourists - getting to it is not easy without an airport, or any trains from further west than Chisinau. The lack of knowledge that it even exists can’t help much either. What it does have, other than the KVINT distillery, is the fortress at Bender/Tighina, on the west bank of the Dnieper.

This has always been border country, between the Russians and the Ottomans, amongst others, and command of a major water artery was worth having. In other words, a big fortress was a must.

The number 19 trolleybus runs from the centre of Tiraspol across the Dnieper to Bender, and if you get off at the bus station there, you are tantalisingly close to the main castle. But no, arrive at what looks like the entrance to the fortress site, and a sign directs you around the western side of the fortress walls. It’s a long walk, the signpost suggesting that it’s nearly a mile. That doesn’t feel as though it’s true, because you then arrive at a rundown, of not actually derelict, industrial complex at the back of which is a nondescript building which is the ticket office.

A somewhat unfriendly woman sold me an admission ticket for 50 Transnistrian rubles (a little over £2) and I followed the signs past more post-industrial wasteland until there it was, a quite impressive castle. Yes, it does appear to have been restored somewhat, and a conservator would perhaps not be wildly impressed with how it has been done, but nonetheless, it looks good enough. You can fire crossbows, climb up to the battlements with caution, and there is a graphic display of medieval torture instruments with explanations (in English too) of how they worked.

I did have to get back to Chişinău though, so I made my way back through the post-industrial wasteland, caught the trolleybus back to Tiraspol, and set off for the station. On the way, I stopped at the KVINT store and picked up a half-litre souvenir.

At the station, having confirmed that the next train to Chişinău was in four days time, I went to catch a minibus. Slightly surprisingly, I was greeted in German and encouraged to buy a ticket quickly, as he was due to leave. He escorted me to the ticket office, I handed over most of my remaining Transnistria roubles, and we were off.

At the border, the same border guard approached the bus to collect my entry visa. And then, in fluent English, he rather surprised me by saying, “Actually, why don’t you keep it as a souvenir of your visit to Transnistria?”. I thanked him politely, and we rolled back into Moldova...

There is a corner of a Caribbean field that will be, forever... Latvian?

The history of colonialism is filled with the quirky and the unexpected, if you know where to look. And I am reminded, courtesy of Michael Palin's "New Europe", of one of the more unlikely attempts at establishing an overseas colony.

When you think of the Caribbean, you think of the English and the French, the Spanish and the Dutch, who, between them, stitched up a controlling interest in the various islands, growing sugar and attacking each other's shipping. And yes, the Danish had their little corner (now the US Virgin Islands), one which, obscurely, denied the Brandenburgers a Caribbean colony.

'Tis a pity about the design...
the Courland Monument in Plymouth, Tobago

Tobago was a particularly coveted island, which at various times in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries was contested by the English, French, Dutch, Spanish and even the Swedes. It changed hands thirty-three times.

But the first successful European settlers, who arrived in 1654, were there courtesy of an agreement with Oliver Cromwell, and they were Courlanders, from modern-day Latvia. In return for his support in the dispute between England and the Netherlands, Duke Jacob Kettler was given the right to attempt to set up a colony on Tobago, which probably would have gone fairly smoothly had it not been for the extremely unwelcoming Carib Indians and equally hostile Dutch, who set up a rival, and rather more successful, colony nearby.

Driven off by the Dutch in 1659, the island was returned to them by the Treaty of Oliwa in 1660 but, despite a number of attempts to re-establish themselves, the Courlanders sold Tobago in 1689. One can only wonder what might have happened had they been successful...

Putting a 50% tax rate into a little perspective...

I am not exactly young, a point that I am reminded about every morning when I wake. However, one of the advantages of age is that you do tend to gather experience, and if you are blessed, as I am, with a pretty good memory, some of it sticks.

Like tax rates, for example. When I started work, in the mid-eighties, my speciality was income tax and, because computers were only really beginning to come into use, a lot of the work was done manually, meaning that it was much easier if you knew things like tax rates, bands and allowances. But, for those of you in younger age brackets, it has become rather easier over the years. Most people get a basic personal allowance these days, altered for various allowances, true, but relatively simple, and, until recently, there were relatively few tax rates to play with.

So, having taken a stroll down memory lane, one is reminded that, in 1986/87, there were six tax rates, wives were still treated as though a chattel of their husbands, the basic rate was 29%, and the top rate a fairly penal 60%. And for those who revere Margaret Thatcher, remember that she was still Prime Minister, and at the top of her game then.

But those sort of tax rates were only paid by the rich, right? Not so, indeed the 60% rate kicked in at what would be the equivalent of about £114,000 per year for a married man, something that makes Ed Balls' proposed 50% rate look positively generous. And we all paid a lot more income tax, rich and poor alike, as a proportion of our income.

Since then, for a number of reasons, the burden of taxation has shifted. New transactional taxes have emerged, the rate of VAT has increased, and the system has become increasingly complicated. Taxation seems designed almost to extract money from us without our noticing.

So, if Ed Balls is serious about reintroducing a 50% tax rate, don't buy the hype about French-style levels of tax. Yes, there is a debate to be had about whether or not it actually increases revenue, and at what medium or long-term cost, but, in historic terms, it isn't all that penal.

A postcard from Ypres... lest we forget

I'm an amateur military historian, not so much of guns and bombs, but of political imperative, of the influence of nationalism and domestic politics, indeed why so many supposedly smart people sent so many young men to their death.

The 'In Flanders Fields' museum, in the reconstructed Lakenhalle (Cloth Hall), in the heart of Ypres, itself a focal point for much slaughter on both sides between 1914 and 1918, offers a fascinating insight into the personal tragedies of trench warfare, of citizens fleeing a war zone, and of the industrialisation of warfare. Equally powerfully, it provokes thought in those so minded to dwell on such things.

It is, I suppose, traditional that we remember the sacrifices of those that died to preserve our freedoms. So, once a year, we solemnly respect the minute's silence, even though we have no living relative who served, and only family folk memory of those that did.

And I find myself wondering, from time to time, why we remain, in some quarters, so keen to send our young men to some far away place, to die for, what was it exactly? Don't get me wrong, I'm not a pacifist, and I fully accept that military intervention is necessary, if unwanted.

It is, however, the case that we do spend an awful lot of defence, which very few people complain about, and Conservatives like, and relatively little on International Development, which has rather fewer friends. In fairness, the Coalition has continued our progress towards the 0.7% of GDP target for spending in this area, protecting it from cuts, something that we, as Liberal Democrats, should take some pride from.

Making friends does not come cheaply, whilst making enemies is rather more expensive, so we should be making the case in support of our aid program, as an investment in our future, as a means of promoting trade and goodwill, and we need to be smart about how we spend our available funds.

Bilateral programmes of education, or scientific research, infrastructure projects in developing countries, these are means of helping poorer nations to get on, thus creating markets for our exports and trading opportunities for those countries with their neighbours.

In this way, mutual interests develop, likely to make leaders hesitate before initiating conflict, or sponsoring terror elsewhere.

And best of all, there will be less young men and women dying in foreign fields for a political imperative...

Once is unfortunate, but three times?

The recent accusations that an American unit massacred a group of twenty-four innocent civilians in the Iraqi town of Haditha have come to the forefront due to the actions of US Congressman Jon Murtha from Pennsylvania. Murtha is a Democrat but, more importantly, he is a distinguished veteran and something of a hawk.

Normally, you would expect the Bush Administration to repeat its standard tactic of playing the man not the ball but in this instance, the evidence now appears overwhelming. A Pentagon official, commenting anonymously, confirmed that an initial investigation found evidence that Marines had killed the civilians and that forensic reports of bullet wounds contradict the troops' statement that fifteen of the dead were killed by an insurgent bomb.

Parallels with the infamous 1968 My Lai massacre in Vietnam are unavoidable and if there are any neutrals in America on the subject of the Iraq war, I imagine that many of them will be making their minds up now. Of course, I had a close up look at that a few days ago in Ho Chi Minh City and now I find that there is a third incident, one that took place in a small Korean town called No Gun Ri in 1951, which is still being denied by the United States despite growing evidence.

It is not denied that a number of Korean civilians were shot dead as they approached a part of the frontline defended by the 7th US Cavalry Division. The official explanation was that panicked soldiers opened fire for fear that the approaching civilians could conceal enemy troops. And yet, veterans of the 7th US Cavalry Division claim that they were simply following orders to fire on refugees.

The issue has rumbled on and in 2001, the Pentagon issued a report which concluded that the shooting of Korean refugees was "not a deliberate killing". Unfortunately, amongst the microfilms reviewed as part of the process of producing that report, there now emerges a copy of a letter from the then US Ambassador to South Korea, John J Murcio, to Assistant Secretary of State Dean Rusk, stating that "refugees will be shot" if they advance towards American soldiers. Murcio said that he was informing Rusk "in view of the possibility of repercussions in the United States" from the implementation of the policy. Clearly, he thought that the policy was wrong, even if others didn't.

So, a coverup? Shoddy research? A combination of the two? Maybe, but it doesn't show up the US military in a good light and this in a country which is one of the most loyal allies the United States has...

A really meaningful day out

When I'm on the road, I do like to catch a really good museum, especially one that challenges and informs. It was therefore a great pleasure to find that Cincinnati hosts the National Underground Railroad Museum, dedicated to recording the history of those who aided runaway slaves to find freedom in the North, and of slavery itself. It would be very easy to just airbrush this shameful episode in American history out of the picture but, in fairness, Cincinnati has made a real effort by building an excellent exhibition space and putting it in a prominent location, right on the riverfront between the new Paul Brown Stadium (Cincinnati Bengals football - gridiron for my British audience) and the new Great American Ballpark (Cincinnati Reds baseball).

The exhibit includes an actual slave pen, interactive exhibits, animated films on themes related to freedom and enough historical information to keep anyone with a conscience busy for hours. Most interesting of all, is the evidence that simply making it to a free state was not good enough. The 1850 Fugitive Slave Act allowed those hunting runaway slaves to enter the free states, recapture fugitives, and return them to the South in chains. It even led to the kidnapping of hitherto free citizens in places as far north as New York.

Another piece of information that I had not been previously aware of was that women had been given voting rights in some states after independence, and that this right was gradually taken away from them in the early years of the nineteenth century. All in all, a really good exhibit and, if you're ever in the Cincinnati area, I would strongly recommend a visit.

Next, to the Cincinnati Reds Hall of Fame. I spent a number of years watching the Reds play baseball, trying to catch a game most years and I discovered that the game I saw in 1999 in Denver against the Colorado Rockies was the game in which the Reds scored their highest number of runs on the road since 1900 (the game ended 24-12). And I was there... The Cincinnati Red Stockings were America's very first professional baseball team (1869) and have a key place in the history of the sport. Given my fondness for numbers, it won't surprise you to know that I find baseball statistics fascinating...

Finally, back to the Hofbrauhaus for more beer and schnitzel. The beer is brewed according to the German purity laws under licence and supervision of the Staatliches Hofbrauhaus in Munich. So, real beer, great schnitzel and men singing German drinking songs in German. Weird...