Yarmouth

Seaport of Norfolk, England. Jews must have resided in this town at an early date. In the Lansdowne MS. under date of 1280 mention is made of a certain Ysaac de Gernemutha, and in "Hebrew Deeds" ("Sheṭarot"), edited by M. D. Davis, there is an allusion to one Isaac of Yarmouth who resided at Norwich. Row 42 has been known traditionally as Jews' or Synagogue Row, and in 1847 a synagogue which had been erected there was consecrated by Rev. M. B. Levy of the Brighton congregation, the building taking the place of an older one which had become dilapidated. In 1877 the synagogue was closed in consequence of the decrease in the Jewish population, and it is at present used as a parish mission-room. For some time after its closing, services were held at the house of Michael Mitchell. The first minister was probably Rabbi I. Cohen; the second was Levi Levenberg, who died in 1870.

A plot of land for a cemetery was granted by the town council on April 7, 1801, on the petition of Simon Hart, a silversmith, who had resided in Yarmouth for forty years and who was the first to be interred there, in the following year. The cemetery is in the Alma road and contains sixteen tombstones and one headstone, all bearing inscriptions in Hebrew or English.

Among other relics of former days existing in the parish church are an illuminated Hebrew scroll ofEsther, said to date back to the end of the fifteenth century; a copy of the Yosippon in pointed characters and printed at Basel in 1541; and a Hebrew and Latin Bible printed at Antwerp in 1584.

J. V. E.