Marian Prinsley
The Jewish Sheriff
Marian Prinsley | The Jewish Sheriff | 07.07.22
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- It’s a great, great pleasure to welcome an old friend who I have not seen I’d say 55 years, Marian. So Marian Schlapobersky grew up in the… No, actually I’m going to read your bio and then I’m going to jump back. So, Marian Prinsley nee Schlapobersky grew up on a remote farm in Swaziland, but has lived in the UK since the age of 14. And we, as a family, used to go to that remote farm for Pesach. So we would share the Jewish holiday together. So, with Marian and her three brothers. She’s an educational psychologist with nearly 40 years experience. 26 years ago, Marian and her husband, Peter, an ENT surgeon, moved to the mediaeval city of Norwich with their family. They became part of the small Jewish community in the city and have been members of the Norwich Hebrew Congregation ever since. Marian was President of Community from 2015 to 2018 and has become known for her interfaith work. She was elected Sheriff of Norwich in May 2019, serving until May 2021. Alongside her role as Sheriff, Marian was appointed Deputy Lieutenant of Norwich in 2020. The only Jewish person to hold this lifelong appointment. Marian has been instrumental in fundraising and renovating the outdated synagogue buildings in Norwich and establishing a Jewish heritage group in the city. This is a new and important collaboration between the Jewish community, the University of East Anglia, and the Norfolk Record Office. The community vision is to establish a Jewish heritage centre at the synagogue. Living in the shadow of mediaeval Jewish persecution, which includes the Blood Libel, the Jewish community of Norwich is keen to tell the story of its own history. So Marian, who would’ve thought that we would be sitting today on Lockdown University having this discussion and reuniting and reconnecting after all these years?
Completely…
So it’s a great… It is. So it’s a great, great privilege and honour for me to have you on. And for us, all of the listeners, to hear the Jewish Sheriff of Norwich sharing her story. Thank you very much, over to you.
Thank you very much, Wendy. And thank you so much for inviting me here. It’s the greatest of pleasures to be on Lockdown University. I’ve been a great fan of it pretty much since you started at the beginning of the pandemic. And it’s a real honour to join you today. As you said, we were close family friends in our early childhoods in Swaziland. Very unusual childhoods for both of us. We lived on a remote farm and I was terribly jealous of you because you lived in the city, which was a tiny town really. But you did live in a city with electric lights, which was much more than we had. I remember your parents very well, and your brother and your sister. And I would love you to give them all our very best wishes. So yes, here we are. I’m talking to you about being the Jewish Sheriff of Norwich. So something pretty amazing happened to me three years ago when I was appointed the Jewish Sheriff of Norwich. It was a weird thing, an exceptional thing really that happened to a pretty ordinary person. And I’m still kind of pinching myself to understand why that happened to me.
So it’s quite nice to have this opportunity to talk to you and understand a little bit about the journey myself. So before I start, I will just give you a couple of disclaimers. I’m not a historian, I’m not an academic, I’m an educational psychologist. I’ve spent my professional life working with children who have special needs, learning difficulties and behavioural problems. So I’m nothing to do with history really, but I’ve become passionate about the Jewish history of Norwich. So I’ll tell you a little bit more about that as we go on. So as you can see, I’m an educational psychologist turned Sheriff of Norwich, turned deputy Lieutenant of Norfolk. Oh! Oh my. So yes, I was going to talk to you a bit about having, how I became Sheriff, what a Sheriff is, and then move on to what I did as Sheriff. So what is a Sheriff? The Sheriff of Norwich is the, goes alongside the Lord Mayor. And you can see in that picture, I’m standing alongside the Lord Mayor of Norwich. And you’re appointed Sheriff and Lord Mayor in May. Elected by the city council. So I came to the notice of the city council, I think. Can you hear me still?
[Lauren] Yep, you’re all good.
I came to the notice of the city council. Oh my goodness, these pages are turning themselves. I’m going to go back to the first slide then I’ll know where I am. Okay, so what is a Sheriff? A Sheriff is the first or second citizen of the city and represents the city at all kinds of different events. I’m going to tell you a little bit about the history of the Sheriff because I think it’s really interesting. In mediaeval times, it was the responsibility of the Sheriff to look after the Jews in the city. That was one of their important jobs. The origin of the word is from the word Shire Reeve, with a Reeve being a person who is empowered to hold court in the city. Norwich has had a Sheriff, or two Sheriffs since 1404. And they were always responsible for the law and order in the city. But in 1974, the Letters patent took the responsibility for law and order away from the Sheriff, giving them purely ceremonial status. Not all cities have retained a Sheriff. There are 15, what are known as shrievalities in the country. A shrievality being the sort of area of operation of the Sheriff. So there are 15 of those, and there are 15 members of the National Association of City and Town Sheriffs of England and Wales. In the year that you’re Sheriff, you support a civic charity. And in our year it was a number of social justice charities, for which we raised funds. So that’s basically the history of the Sheriff.
Here are the City Arms. And this building in the very middle, is the Norwich Guildhall. You can see the front view. And can you see the checkerboard pattern on the front? That means that the Guildhall was part of the Exchequer, they were responsible for the money in the city. And here’s the side view. On the far right is the side view of the Guildhall. Norwich has the oldest Guildhall and the most perfect Guildhall outside of London, and the biggest, I think, outside of London. And here’s another view of the Guildhall. And this was my parlour inside the Guildhall. And there’s been a Sheriff’s Parlour in the Guildhall of Norwich since 1407. Not always in this particular room. This room was a Victorian addition, in actual fact, and is built on the remains of the ghastly mediaeval church where the last rights were given to prisoners who were held in the dungeons below and were going off to be executed. So how did I become Sheriff of Norwich? Very interesting question, which I’m still trying to work out. I did lots and lots of work while I was the President of the Hebrew congregation.
Together with our wonderful committee and the membership of the congregation, we did our very best during my three years. We’ve always done our best really, but during the three years we worked particularly hard to raise the profile of the Jewish community within the city. Which has always been a bit complicated because of the long history of persecution going back eight or 900 years. And the community’s always wanted to keep itself to itself really. But during my three years, we arranged quite a lot of new things. We organised for the first ever Jewish wreath to be laid by the Jewish community in memory of the Jewish servicemen during Remembrance Sunday. We arranged for a visit of the Chief Rabbi. We organised the first Hanukkah lighting publicly in the city that there’s ever been. I worked with diplomats and we had the, and politicians. We invited the ambassador of the state of Israel to meet with the Norwich City MP, together with the leader of the liberal community in the city. But I suppose the thing that got me most noticed was the very central picture there where you can see in the background, the Archbishop of Canterbury sitting in Norwich Cathedral.
And I was invited to address the packed cathedral about the Jewish history of Norwich in the presence of the Archbishop of Canterbury. Earlier in the day that he came on pilgrimage to Norwich, we had arranged for him to visit the synagogue. And we did, we had a fantastic small short service where he led some prayers, our wonderful minister, Daniel, led some prayers, and I was then invited later that day to talk to this packed cathedral. And I didn’t pull any punches, I guess, about the complicated Jewish history here. And I reckon that maybe got me noticed by the civic powers that be. I’m not sure. Some months after that, the phone call came through asking whether I would take the honour of being Sheriff and I actually thought they’d got the wrong person. I was convinced they were ringing my husband. But anyway, lo and behold I was invited to be Sheriff and I did accept. And you can see in this left-hand photograph, this is the event called Mayor Making where the Sheriff and the Lord mayor are taken into office. And that was an important day. And there I am surrounded by my family. And there’s my wonderful husband, Peter, known as my consort for my year. And in fact I did two years as Sheriff because obviously the pandemic intervened and we couldn’t change over so we had, I had an extra year.
I think that’s the only time a Sheriff has done two years. But actually this current Sheriff is also going to do two years. The picture on the right shows me with my Deputy Consort, my wonderful friend Poppy, who came around with me when Peter couldn’t come. And we’re there at a nursing home. And this gentleman I’m sitting next to is the wonderful Joe Stirling who came to England on the Kindertransport. And he became an honorary member of our community. And I can tell you many stories about Joe if we had more time, but I just haven’t got the time to do that now. In the bottom left, you can see my everyday chains. The chains I’m wearing in the main picture are considered too precious to be used as an everyday item so they’re kept in the city vaults. And here we are, the Sheriff, Sheriff’s Consort, the Lord Mayor and the Lady Mayoress, and the city clerk at an event. And that’s just was a… Some days we had three or four events, some weeks we had up to 12 in the week. It was really quite exhausting. Not to mention draining in terms of wardrobe. Here we are, I think that might be the Lord Mayor’s procession, which we’ll see again in the bottom picture here.
This was one of the things I did. I attended the Lord Mayor’s procession, leading the procession alongside these special guards. One of the fun things we did is we attended… On the top left-hand corner, you can see me in a big truck attending the Trucker’s Festival where the huge trucks from all over the county smarten themselves up, polished, spick-and-span, and they take, they line up in a huge car park and they take disabled children to the seaside. This is a tradition going back many decades and the Sheriff always opens that event. So you’re invited to inspect the trucks before the children board them. And that was great, it was terribly noisy. Middle picture on the top is me judging the sheep competition in the cattle market in Norwich. And here I am at a charity for very deprived and disadvantaged children. And that’s my son in the front of the picture who was escorting me that day. Bottom left hand, this is what’s known as the chain gang. So these are all the people who wear chains in the county. Mine is the least smart, but you can see some of them have beautiful chains. The lady standing next to me is the High Sheriff. So there’s a difference between the City Sheriff, which is what I was, and the High Sheriff.
The High Sheriff is in charge of the law and order in the county, whereas the City Sheriff is in charge in the city. And here we are again at the Lord Mayor’s procession. And these are the guards who looked after me when I was in procession. Wonderful guys, Wayne, David, and Robert. So, what else have we got here? This top left hand corner is at the Justice Service. One of the amazing things I did was to attend the Justice Service where there’s a procession of judges into the cathedral together with, in all their regalia. And the High Sheriff and I sort of host that. It was an amazing event. And you can see here in the Mediaeval Guildhall, I’m hosting meeting of the Jewish Lady Society, and we’re having a lecture about the Guildhall, I think. I’m going to come to that picture last. This is opening a school. Here we are at the Sheriff’s Conference. All the Sheriffs in the country have an annual conference when all the past Sheriffs and the current Sheriffs attend. And here I am at the Sheriff’s Conference in Oxford that year. And this is at a police event where we were giving awards to the police men and women as well as the police animals. And this is the police horse receiving an award for his bravery. I can’t quite remember what he did.
This picture at the top right is a picture of the occasion in which the Lord Mayor and I hosted a group of refugees to the city in the Lord Mayor’s parlour to hear their experiences of coming to Norwich as what are known in Norfolk as strangers. Norwich is said to have a very welcoming attitude to strangers. And when I said this to one of the refugees, they said, “No, not at all.” They didn’t have this experience. And I guess that led to me working hard to establish a Norfolk human rights and equality organisation that we’ve got going at the moment in the city. So I think we might have finished all the pictures of Sheriff. Yes, I wanted to talk a little bit about the challenges and opportunities for me as a Jewish Sheriff in particular. For me, the biggest challenge was always to do with attendance at church or cathedral. Obviously growing up as a child in Swaziland, I was used to going to Christian Sunday school, that didn’t phase me at all. But I really wasn’t used to going into a lot of churches. And I found it very uncomfortable to start with. And I found it particularly difficult to know what to do when they were singing hymns or carols or saying the Lord’s Prayer because I’m always standing at the very front of the cathedral, everybody’s eyes are on me and I have to be seen to be doing something.
I also always had to have a 10 pound note in my pocket because I was always handed the offerings bowl first and had to have something to put into it. So for me, the church attendance was the greatest challenge but I must say the Dean of Norwich Cathedral was completely wonderful. And she never did anything that made me feel I wasn’t welcome. I’ve had a problem since I was Sheriff and since that dean has left, in actual fact, when there was a slight almost an anti-Semitic comment made in the cathedral on one occasion when I attended as a Deputy Lieutenant. And I’ve had to deal with that and talk to the person concerned. So I wanted to go back in it. Being Sheriff allowed me to do a little bit of stuff proactively. A lot of it was reactive. You had invitations to attend things, but you could also ask for certain things to happen. And one of the things that Peter and I did, is we asked for the county archive to be opened for us so that we could see the Jewish artefacts in there. We knew that there was a lot of Jewish material in the county archive. Within our community, we have two wonderful amateur historians, Maureen and Barry Leviton.
And I also knew the community archivist, Sophie Cabot. As well, as a wonderful gentleman by the name of Frank Meers. And we asked for the Jewish material which was held in the archive to be opened for us. And I suppose that was really what started my, peaked my interest really in the history. So Peter and I visited the county archive in 2019, and on the left, you can see this fabulous gentleman by the name of Frank Meers, showing us deeds of sale of properties which were owned in Norwich by Jewish people. And it was just completely mind-blowing to see what material is held in the Norfolk record office, which relates to the Jewish people of Norwich between the time of about 1144 and the expulsion of the Jews in 1290. There is so much material there and we know that there is also a lot of other material in London, both at Westminster Abbey I think it is, as well as the British Library. There is a lot of material that relates to the Jewish population of Norwich because the Jews, as you know, one of their primary jobs was to be a money lender. And so very careful and scrupulous records were kept of their whereabouts as well as of what they owned. And these records have been kept since that time and it is quite incredible to see what’s there.
I’m going to talk a little bit more about that in a minute, but I wanted to just explain this picture here, which relates to an ancient Jewish house in Norwich named Jurnet’s House or the Music House. And this is said to be the oldest house of Jewish habitation in the country. I don’t know whether that’s true or that’s a claim to fame, but that’s what I’m told. It’s used as a pub at the moment, for a sort of adult education institute. But interestingly, we occasionally get coachloads of very orthodox Jews who come to celebrate in this particular room because it’s written about in various old documents by people known as theosophists. So one of the things that we saw in the county archive is this amazing document. So I showed you in the earlier slide these mediaeval leases on land. And a very, very hardworking curator or archivist in the 1950s took all of those mediaeval leases and made a plan of where they all were in the city of Norwich as it stood at that time. So using this information, he then drew up this map showing the Jewish bit of the city of Norwich.
Which for those, anybody who knows Norwich is in front of the market square. And you can see, I dunno whether you can actually read this on your computers, but you can see there’s a synagogue or and a school, there’s a vegetable garden. There was a very important lady landowner called Miriam of Norwich. And actually quite a lot of the land was owned by women, which was, is really quite interesting I think. So this is an amazing drawing. I mean this was drawn in the 1950s and it’s obviously completely schematic, but it’s based on actual documented evidence. As I explained, I was sitting in that room in Jurnet’s House and this is what Jurnet’s house is said to have looked like. And this is what it looks like from the outside now. Jurnet’s house was a house inhabited by Isaac Jurnet, who was one of the people who is said to have helped to finance the building of Norwich Cathedral. And that slide I showed you, which I will just zoom back to. These arches here, are exactly the same as some of the arches in the cathedral. And it shows that this was built at the similar time to the cathedral. We don’t think it was actually built for Isaac Jurnet, but it might have been.
One of the questions I’ve always wanted to know the answer to is, there’s an important family in Norwich called the Gurney family. And they were the people who I think, founded Barclays Bank. And I’m, I’ve always wondered whether Jurnet turned into Gurney. It’s a question and I dunno if anybody’s got an answer to that, but I’ve always wondered that. So this is Jurnet’s house. Now I wanted to talk to you next about this dreadful story about the Norwich Blood Libel. I think you’ve had a session on the Blood Libel, if I remember rightly from something somebody said to me. So sorry, I’m just getting my pages organised. The Norwich Blood Libel is an event which is said to have taken place in 1144. Many academics call this the original fake news because there is no evidence of any Blood Libel taking place at that time. But there is evidence of a man called Thomas of Monmouth writing about it some five years after this said event was supposed to have taken place. So the story is that a Christian boy by the name of William was murdered by the Jews in the lead up to Easter stroke Pesach in 1144. And the Jews were blamed for the murder partly because of the way the body was left lying. And they were also then said to have drunk or used the blood of William in the making of their flatbreads for the Passover.
There are many ghastly images of this event. I’m just showing one of them here. This picture, which is the root screen from Loddon, depicts the Jews drawing blood from William of Norwich. And this is not far from here. Loddon is a village or a small town some 10 miles from where I’m sitting right now. This image is still there in that church to this day. There are other images dotted around the city of this event. And what’s more, the book which was published about it by Thomas of Monmouth, which I think you can see but I can’t see, on the right of my screen. That book is still used by many Christians today and used as gospel. So for instance, I was invited, last year I think it was, by the Bishop of Norwich, to lead a group of Christian clergy on a pilgrimage to the place near the city centre called Mousehold Heath, where William is said to have been incarcerated after he was killed or I think he was found there. And the Bishop led this group of clergy and he wanted me to lead it with him. I wasn’t prepared to do that on my own because I, he told me that he was going to be using this book about the Blood Libel called, the book by Thomas of Monmouth.
So I invited my wonderful friend and archivist, called Sophie Cabot to join me. And he started talking and at some point the, he started talking about the events of 1144 as though they were fact. And Sophie simply turned around to him and said, “At which stage would you like us to start to be difficult?” Because she wanted to tackle him about the fact that this story is not a factual story. Some people believe it never even happened and that’s why it’s known as the fake news of 1144. I mean, the sad part about it is that it led, some people think it was the beginning of antisemitism in Western Europe. It certainly led to a huge rise in antisemitism. And William, his body was eventually taken to Norwich Cathedral and they attempted to have him made into a saint. And all of this was because some people say they wanted to get more through traffic to Norwich Cathedral, to make it more famous, and to bring an income to the cathedral in the late 1100s. I don’t know what the truth is. There is rather a good book about it, which I can show you… Oh, I don’t think you can see it if I show it to you now. There’s a book by E.M. Rose, which is rather a good story. I’ll show this later because I don’t think you’ll see it with my screen thing on. So yes, there’s a lot about the story, which is pretty, pretty grim. And until today, you still get people referring to it as if it was a factual event.
Now, I wanted to talk to you about another story. This is quite an incredible story. About 20 years ago, a new shopping centre was going to be built in Norwich and the archaeologists were on site. It was the site of the old factory that made things like chocolates, like Rolos. I can’t remember which name of the factory it was, but it was a chocolate factory that made Rolos. And the factory was demolished and the archaeologists were on site. And just, they finished assessing the site, there were no remains found and the go ahead was given for the diggers to move in and to clear the site ready for the new shopping centre to be built. As the entrance to the shopping centre was being broken through, the digger came across a well. And eventually the archaeologists came back and it was discovered that there were 17 bodies in the well. Bodies of adults and children. It was a dry well, which meant that the bones were very well preserved. And the whole building of the shopping centre was paused whilst the bodies in the well were brought out into the daylight after many centuries down there. And they were taken, as all archaeological finds are, to the Norwich castle.
Norwich Castle is a wonderful castle on the hill in Norwich. If you haven’t been to see it, you really should. It’s being renovated at the moment and the castle keep is being returned to how it was in Norman times. But the Norwich castle does house all of the bits and pieces that are found archaeologically in Norfolk. And these bones were laid in the castle, carefully itemised, until a cold case study was undertaken, I think by the BBC. Which did a basic DNA analysis on the bones and concluded, possibly a bit early, but concluded that they were likely to have been of Jewish origin. The reason being that the bodies had been thrown head first down the well. It is thought they were mostly alive when they were thrown down there. Anyway, to cut a very, very long story short, after the cold case investigation, one of our wonderful senior members decided to make it his mission to ensure that if these were indeed Jewish bones, then they should be given a Jewish funeral. And it took a long time to get agreement to release the bones. And eventually the bones were released for burial.
Here in Norwich, we do have a Jewish burial ground, consecrated ground. And the bones were released for burial. And a civic event took place with, a sort of interfaith event, with the minister for interfaith and our minister and lots of visitors. And the bones were brought in a hearse and buried in the way that a normal deceased person would be buried. And they were given, you know, all the Jewish trappings of a burial. Unfortunately they were buried in the wrong place, which was quite unbelievable. But anyway, that’s another whole story and I could talk to you for hours about that. But it did mean that they were buried in a pathway. Now, those of you who are orthodox in your understanding, you know that you can’t walk on the remains of the deceased. It’s disrespectful. And this pathway was right between two points on a journey and people were regularly walking past or walking on top of the bones. And consideration was given to whether or not these bones could or should be exhumed and reburied.
This caused an awful fuss within the religious communities because as you know, once bones are buried in very religious communities, they mustn’t be touched. But there was no way that the path could be deviated from where it was. So I had to stand out in the rain one day and make a video of people walking up and down this pathway to show at the Chief Rabbi’s office. The Beth Din considered the matter and they agreed that it would be better to move the bones and to let them rest in their final resting place in the Jewish cemetery. So cloak and dagger, early one morning, the cemetery was shut and the process of exhuming the bones began. It was very early morning. We’d also arranged for the original members of the team who’d done the DNA analysis in the, on the first exhumation to come again. And they wanted to have another look at the bones because they’re, in the intervening 12 or so years, the analysis of the DNA had improved significantly and they were now able to take the DNA from the temporal bone, which was apparently much more reliable DNA, and then to do a much more detailed analysis of it.
So the individuals from the Natural History Museum came up and we began the process of exhuming the bones. You can see here on the left of the picture, we’ve got our wonderful minister from small communities, Reverend Malcolm Weisman, Mr. Barry Leviton, a senior member, Mr. John Cadiwald and Mr. Adrian Posner, two honorary solicitors, myself, and my husband. And I think that was all that we were allowed to have at the exhumation because it was kept top secret. This was one of the archaeologists digging the bones up. And here are the cemetery people from the council watching on. The cemetery had to be sealed up in black tape before this took place. It was quite a profoundly moving experience, I would say. And it was particularly so I think, for my husband who is, as Wendy explained, an ENT surgeon. And he held one of these skulls in his hand and he was sure that the person had been, I don’t know, attacked and hit through the head with a knife or some weapon. But anyway, the DNA was duly drilled out of the temporal bones and the bones were then left to rest in their final resting place.
Which was, hang on a minute. Which was here. “Here lie the remains of six adults and 11 children discovered in a mediaeval well in 2004. 800 years after their violent deaths, may their souls rest in peace.” And here’s a photograph of the original burial. And this to the bottom left, is the plaque that is outside the shopping centre to this day in a rather awful position actually, we need to think about that, explaining about it. But if I go back to here, I explained that the new DNA was taken from the bones and that was in 2018. I think April of 2018. In May of this year we heard that the paper relating to this situation was ready for publication. It hasn’t been published yet, but it’s been submitted to various journals and we haven’t actually heard where we’ve got to with that. But if you just take a minute to read this, you will see that they, there is incredibly strong evidence now that these were genuinely Jewish individuals who were murdered. With new carbon dating, they were able to date their deaths to as close to 1190 as possible. And that is the date of the awful happenings in Norwich and around the country, around 1190.
So I mean, as they say in this abstract, “These findings provide new insights into a significant historical crime into Ashkenazi population history and into the origins of genetic diseases associated with modern Jewish populations.” It’s terribly important and we are really interested to see where we go next with this. So, I just wanted to mention this story of the bodies in the well, the story of the Blood Libel, and the story I’m going to tell you next, are really important aspects of the Jewish history of Norwich that we would like at the synagogue to be able to tell ourselves. And that’s one of the things I’m going to talk to you about in a minute, how we wish to tell this story. Before I do, I wanted to tell you about this amazing poetry. The poetry of a man called Meir of Norwich. It is thought that Meir of Norwich lived in Norwich as a small boy before 1290. 1290 is when the Jews were expelled from England. And the poetry was written in Europe somewhere, we think possibly in Holland or France. It’s written in Hebrew and it’s written about Norwich. And it describes the ghastly goings on in the city at the time of the expulsion.
Here is just one little verse from this fantastic book, which I’m sorry to say, is out of print now. This book is called “Into the Light the Mediaeval Hebrew Poetry of Meir of Norwich”. It was translated by members of the Norwich liberal Jewish community. And the person who wrote the introduction is Keiron Pim, who is not a member of our community, but his mom, his grandmother was a member of, was a Kindertransport survivor. And his mom is a member of the Association of Jewish Refugees regular group that we run at the synagogue. Anyway, this book is quite incredible because it translates the poetry in a sort of accessible, meaningful way. And if we just read this poem, it’s quite forceful. “Forced away from where we dwelt, we go like lambs to the slaughter. A slayer stands above us all. We burn and die.” Now how do we know that this was written about Norwich? I don’t know how many Hebrew scholars we’ve got here. I am certainly not a Hebrew scholar, I barely know any Hebrew.
But I have been given this. This is the most amazing bit of manuscript where the acrostic using the name Norwich is hidden in the text. So these are the word, the letters for Norwich. These ones underlined in red. In those days, Norwich was not called Norwich, it was called Norgitz. And these are the letters which make up the word Norgitz. It wasn’t safe to write the word in normal script, it had to be hidden. Now this amazing manuscript is held in the Vatican. And one of the things we’d like to do is to have a copy of it on show at the synagogue, but I don’t know how easy that will be. I’ve put the link to the manuscript in the Vatican above, if anybody wanted to have a look at it. It is really quite, again, I can only use the word spine tingling. Just looking at time. So that’s the poetry of Meir of Norwich. Now what next for the Jewish Sheriff of Norwich? I continue to work hard on the interfaith front. And I think interfaith is the most important thing we can do. Education of non-Jewish people about Judaism, showing that we’re not anything strange or peculiar, we’re just ordinary people like them.
This is an event I attended last week with my synagogue friend, June. It was an interfaith environment event and we were asked to talk about Judaism and the environment. Which was a bit of a long shot because these children are five years old, they live in the depths of South Norfolk, they have never heard of a Jew. And so that was where we started, “What is a Jew?” So that’s a really important part of what I continue to do. And this picture on the right is a photograph of a newly formed group, which we’ve started at the synagogue. The Norwich Jewish Heritage Group is being started in collaboration with the county archive and the university to start to document our archive in the synagogue and ultimately to work towards establishing the heritage centre that we so wish to have on-site. We don’t want the synagogue to be completely overtaken by the heritage centre, but the synagogue itself will remain a room of worship, a hall of worship. But we have a communal hall which could house a wonderful heritage display and that’s what we’re working towards now. I wanted to show you some pictures of our synagogue and also to thank anybody who might be online who has donated or contributed to our innovation.
So the picture on the left shows the original synagogue in the city that was bombed in 1942. It was built in the 1840s. And as I say, it was bombed in 1942, and a piece of land was leased to the Jewish community and a new synagogue and communal hall was built. This is, the picture second from the left, is what our synagogue entrance used to look like and this is what it now looks like with our newly refurbished communal hall and entrance. And as you can see, this is the synagogue picture that I’m sitting in front of now and our small garden at the back. We’ve managed a fantastic renovation project thanks to our incredibly generous donors, many of whom were city philanthropists. Many of whom have some idea of the past complicated history and were very keen to see the synagogue made fit for purpose for the next 50 to 100 years. And that’s what we’ve done now. So during my year as Sheriff, I was appointed Deputy Lieutenant of Norfolk. That’s a strange appointment again for a Jewish person, although there are other Jewish Deputy Lieutenants.
Again, there’s a large church element to it. But I’m trying to use my influence to be more interfaith. Last week or the week before, Peter and I attended the Hindu temple, the newly refurbished Hindu temple to present some awards. So just to explain the Lord Lieutenant, whose arms you can see on the left of the screen, is the Queen’s appointment in the county. So the Lord Lieutenant’s job is to represent the Queen at events and at the giving of honours and all of this sort of thing. But obviously the Lord Lieutenant can’t do all of that because it’s a huge county with, you know, large population. So the Lord Lieutenant appoints a number of deputies and I was amazingly honoured to be appointed to this role in 2020. And I’m trying really hard to use my influence to ensure that the Lieutenancy takes account of other religions, other races, other immigrant populations because traditionally it’s been centred around the Church of England and the city of Norwich at least. And the county increasingly has a much more diverse population and it’s really important that we celebrate and help with those communities.
So interfaith education continues to be important for me. I was going to share with you the story of the Good Samaritan. I’ve got time to do that. So this was an event where I was sitting as the Deputy Lieutenant in effectively the prime position in the cathedral, again packed, nobody else on the front row though, I was on my own. And the story of the Good Samaritan was read out. And the interpretation that was given following that was that it was the Jews who walked to the other side of the road and didn’t help the injured person. And I have used my influence to talk to the Lord Lieutenant about this and then to tackle that with the priest concerned. Not easy, but I think it’s a really important thing to do. And I’ve been supported in my community in doing such things. So ongoing civic issues for me as a Jewish, well now Deputy Lieutenant, where I showed you the picture of the synagogue standing in, and which was bombed in 1942, there’s no, there’s a new big development there on site and there’s nothing to show that the synagogue ever stood there.
There was a street named Synagogue Street and this sign was taken down when the development was, when the area was first developed. And it’s never been put back, in fact it’s got lost. So we’re trying to get a new street named Synagogue Street in that area. Other questions I have and maybe your listeners here might be able to help me. Oops! Right, hang on a minute. Where have we gone? Why have we moved so far forward? Might be able to help me with, is whether we should move to rename some of these places called St Williams Way or St William’s School, which you know, are to do with St William who was said to have been killed by the Jews. He wasn’t a saint and he wasn’t killed by the Jews. Should we move to do that? It was done at the cathedral. There was a St Williams Chapel, that’s now named the Chapel of the Holy Innocent.
So that’s a question that I have and our community have. I think it’s important that we continue to build bridges with all faith communities. Particularly if they continue to acknowledge their historical role. And as I’ve explained, we’re establishing a Jewish heritage centre so that we can fully educate locally, nationally, and internationally. Lastly, a few minutes to spare, just wanted to thank our wonderful Minister, Daniel, at the synagogue, the congregation of Norwich Hebrew Congregation and the committee, and Sophie Cabot of the Norfolk Record Office who’s helped with a lot of this. And of course my lovely husband, Peter Prinsley, for his enduring support. I think that’s all I have to say. And then if there are any questions, I’m happy to take them.
Marian, thank you. That was absolutely fascinating.. What a privilege and honour for you.
Unbelievable.
To have that position.
Unbelievable.
And what an experience, and I’m sure you met the most amazing, interesting people.
Well, the most interesting people I met were probably the more, the most down-to-heel people, the sort of binmen and you know, the people who actually keep the city working, keep things going. It was absolutely fantastic. But you know, it’s wonderful to be, to now have the opportunity of continuing this work. Particularly the interfaith work, which I think is crucial because there are very few Jews in Norfolk. And you know, we need to fly the flag for Judaism in these remote communities, it’s terribly important.
Absolutely, and what-
Not in any religious way, but as an ethnic group really.
Absolutely. And I was going to say what an honour and privilege it was for them and lucky for them to have you. So, what purpose. And those stories, and what a torrid history! I mean we know about it, but we don’t. Well, I let’s put it that way.
Yeah, yeah. But I suppose it was when we went to the archive and we actually held these documents in our hands that related to the individuals that lived here in 11, between 1140 and 1290. It was just, it was really spine tingling, especially ‘cause my name, my Hebrew name is Miriam. And there was one particular woman who was a very important landowner who was Miriam of Norwich. So I sort of thought, “Oh, who’s?” It’s very interesting.
Amazing, amazing. Alright let’s see, are there any questions? We’re going to hand you back to Lauren. Just on behalf of all of us, I just want to say, so fantastic to see you after all these years and thank you very, very, very much. It was fabulous.
Thank you. Thank you for inviting me. It was a great honour to be here.
And we’re going to invite you back. It’s beginning. Thank you.
[Marian] Thanks.
[Lauren] All right, Marian, we have a few questions.
Q&A and Comments
Q: Are there many Muslims in Norwich?
[Marian] Are there many?
[Lauren] Muslims in Norwich.
A: Muslims in Norwich. Not many, but there are some. Yeah, there’s two, if not three mosques. We tend to, we try to invite the Muslims. We have a regular civic service at the synagogue. Well we did have until such time as the pandemic, but we had the first one again since the pandemic a few weeks ago. And we welcomed one of the Muslim Chaplains to the synagogue. We try to have a relationship with them as far as we possibly can. They’ve been targeted by, you know, anti-Muslim stuff. Just, you know, we’ve been supportive when that’s happened.
[Lauren] Someone’s asking-
It’s not a huge Muslim community, no.
Q: [Lauren] Someone else is asking if you had a staff and budget to help you with hosting and travel arrangements while you were a Sheriff?
A: Yes. Yeah, you do. As Sheriff, you have a team of people behind you who operate out of the City Hall. Over the years I think that budget has been decreased and decreased. But there is still a small budget. And when we first became Sheriff and Lord Mayor, we had a civic car, a big sort of chauffeur-driven vehicle that took us from A to B with a chauffeur. And it was the chauffeur that helped us to get dressed. 'Cause when you first take over and you’re confronted with these amazing robes and chains and God knows what, it’s very difficult to know how to put them on. I mean, there are sort of frills that you wear at the front and gloves, and so the chauffeur was very, very helpful in the early months of our tenure as Sheriff and Sheriff’s Consort. And we had events that were not only in the city and then the chauffeur would take us to those as well.
One of the events was, several of the events actually, we had at RAF Marham, so at the big RAF base, which is in north, west Norfolk, where we went. Unfortunately the big fighter jets weren’t there, so we couldn’t see them. But you know, we were wined and dined and hosted and met all the pilots. It was quite amazing. But the chauffeur would take us to that. We went another time to Great Yarmouth Town Hall. We went all over the place with a chauffeur-driven car. But sadly my tenure came to an end, well that sort of stuff came to an end in March of 2020 when the pandemic began. And for the rest of that year, which was supposed to end in May of 2020, everything was on Zoom. And then I was asked to remain in office for another year. And during that year, much of that year was also on Zoom but then we did start doing a few events again. And then we handed over to the new Sheriff in May of 2021. The new Sheriff and Lord Mayor took over in May of 2021. But because the events were so few, it was also decided to keep them on for another year.
- [Lauren] Great.
Q: A lot of people are asking, how many Jews are in Norwich today?
A: How many Jews are in Norwich today is a difficult question to answer. So in the last census, I am led to believe that there were 1,000 people who ticked they were Jewish in the whole of Norfolk. There are two Jewish congregations in Norwich. The synagogue, which I’ve shown you pictures of, is the only synagogue in the whole county. So Norwich synagogue, there isn’t another synagogue in Norfolk and there isn’t even a synagogue in Suffolk. So if anybody wants to come to a synagogue, they have to come to ours. And the Hebrew congregation worships at that synagogue. But there is also a very active liberal community, which worship out of a church. And it’s been a long held ambition of mine and many others in our community, to try and share our newly refurbished premises with the liberal community. And we’re really working hard to that aim, but it’s not an easy task. And it’s not going to be a five minute job. So in answer to your question, our community is about, I dunno, 70 people strong and the liberal community is about 60 people strong or something in that rough region. They’re not huge communities, either of them. So you know, we really feel that we need to do as much as we can to publicise who we are. Partly because we are so small. We also have an issue with another community in the city called the Messianics. And that’s another story which I can bore you with at length on another occasion.
[Lauren] This next comment comes from the one and only Trudy Gold, who’s offering an explanation for a question you asked. She says, “One of the explanations is that this was during the first English Civil War. The barons were in debt to the Jews and no real central authority was there to protect them. Also, it was easy to whip up the mob at Easter and Pesach. Fascinating presentation.”
I’m sure that’s right. And there are so many books written on the subject now. I mean, I’m really excited that we’ve got the University of East Anglia history department on board through a professor who is a member of our congregation, an American professor or lecturer. And you know, we’re, it would be lovely if there was a student out there who wanted to update some of the outdated material. I’m going to come off, how do I do this? I’m going to come off my background so that you can see me properly and show you some of these books that I wanted to show you. Can you see me properly now?
Yes, all good.
Yeah, okay. So this is the book of “Into the Light”, which sadly is out of print, which is the poetry of Meir of Norwich. This is the book written about the Norwich Strangers. And this is all the different groups who came into Norfolk, you know, right across time, really. And this is a very interesting book by that lovely gentleman you saw a photograph of, Frank Meers. But this is the seminal text on the history of the Jews of Norwich. I think this was written in 1966, if I remember rightly. And it hasn’t been updated since. And there’s a lot of new material. So if anybody knew of an academic who was interested in a fascinating project, this is the one to go for. Because we would love to do more of this. We just haven’t got the personnel, the time, the funds, any of that, but we know how important it is.
[Lauren] Thank you. And I know we’ve run out of time, but I will leave you with one last comment from your brother who is writing from London to say, “Mazel tov on your wonderful presentation. We’re all very proud of you. The shul in Norwich that you speak from is one of the most beautiful in the country. Good wishes in building up the heritage site. Your dedication is inspiring and that you might want to let viewers know that you hold services in your shul on a regular basis.”
Well, yeah, we do. We’re an active functioning shul, so we do hold services and we have, we celebrate every Jewish festival. Yeah.
Wonderful. Well, thank you again Marian, for an extraordinary presentation and I look forward to having you back.
Thank you very much! It’s been a huge pleasure and an honour. And I really look forward to catching up with you all at another time, and especially to catching up with Wendy sometime in the future.
[Lauren] Great, have a good night.
Thank you, bye.
Bye.