• Introduction
• History
• Key Dates
• Disability and Access

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AFTER THE EXPULSION

Although records from 1194 indicate that Jews were no longer resident in Bury, the community wasn’t completely eradicated. According to the terms of the expulsion, they were actually allowed to spend two days a week in the town on business. Any person looking after them any longer than that ran the risk of excommunication.

This pattern of settlement was by no means uncommon in the area. There are a number of well-documented examples of small Jewish settlements in the countryside that were inhabited on weekdays, with the residents retuning to their main base in a town or city for the Sabbath.

Furthermore, there is evidence indicating that some Jews did resettle in Bury St Edmunds in the years that followed the expulsion. During the 13th century, there are documents describing individual Jews as being "of Bury". And between 1280 and 1308, there were some residents of the House of Converts in London, recorded as being from Bury St Edmunds.

By and large, however, there were to be no sustained Jewish life in the town for more than 400 years.