6 Millerfield Place: Sciennes Primary School

 Jewish History  No Responses »
Dec 182017
 

6 Millerfield Place, Edinburgh EH9 1LW6 Millerfield Place

6 Millerfield Place was the family home of Edinburgh’s most famous rabbi, Dr Salis Daiches, the father of literary scholar David Daiches. An immigrant himself, during his ministry from 1919 to 1945 he brought together recent arrivals and established residents, and built Salisbury Road Synagogue, which had room for approximately 2,000 worshippers. It remains home to the (now much smaller) Edinburgh Hebrew Congregation. At the end of this cul-de-sac is Sciennes Primary School. Until the founding of Calderwood Lodge Primary School in Glasgow in 1962 there was no Jewish school in Scotland. All Jewish children attended mainstream schools. From 1914 Hebrew classes were taking place in Sciennes School on weekday afternoons, the Education Board of the city offering the facilities of the school to the Jewish community free of charge.

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Bishops’ Close

 Jewish History  2 Responses »
Dec 182017
 

Bishop’s Close, 129 High Street, Edinburgh EH1 1SGBishop's Close

We begin here in the Old Town, the heart of the medieval city, at Bishop’s Close, off the High Street between the Mitre and Royal Mile Tavern. In the early 19th century the Old Town was overcrowded and insanitary. The New Town, north of Princes Street, was built with open spaces and large windows. The first synagogue was founded by 20 families in 1817. In the 1841 census we can identify 50 Jewish households in Edinburgh. Of those, only eight households lived in the fashionable New Town area. The others settled in the Old Town or in the St Leonards district to the south. In 1841 the Emmanuel Family, having moved from England, lived here in Bishop’s Close: Ezekiel, Rachel, and three sons. There is no trace of them in later records. From 1880 until 1914, as the economic and social conditions in Eastern Europe worsened, many others took their place.

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