On Friday 12 June, we brought together an evening celebrating the heritage of Lincoln’s Jewish community, hosted at The Marquee, International Bomber Command Centre. Developed in close partnership with community members and delivered as part of our Reimagining Lincolnshire Community Engagement Programme, funded by The National Lottery Heritage Fund, the event gave space for stories, music and shared traditions that don’t often reach a wider audience.
It’s the kind of evening that stays with people. Guests left with a fuller understanding of a history that has shaped Lincoln for centuries, and a community whose stories were heard on their own terms.
Guests arrived to live music from Lincoln-based Klezmer band Simcha, setting a warm tone for the evening ahead. Tanya Akrofi, our Community Engagement Producer, then welcomed everyone and explained Reimagining Lincolnshire’s work uncovering the county’s hidden histories, this time through the lens of Lincoln’s Jewish community,
Dr Dan Ellin, archivist for the IBCC Digital Archive at the University of Lincoln, gave a talk titled ‘A greater incentive to fly than anyone else’, exploring the lives of Jewish men and women who served and flew from Lincolnshire’s RAF stations during the Second World War. Drawing on veteran interviews, letters, diaries and photographs from the archive, the talk offered a moving picture of service and sacrifice, followed by discussion and questions from guests.
After a short interval, Richard Dale spoke about the re-establishing of a place of worship for Lincoln’s Jewish community, before Stephen Griffiths and Rachael Phillips led a demonstration of Shabbat traditions. They explained the significance of the challah, candles and wine, and guests took part in the lighting of Friday night Shabbat candles together.
Dorothy Moss, guide for the free Lincoln Jewish Heritage walking tour, then shared some words celebrating the Jewish community.
The evening closed with food, music and conversation, as Simcha played on and guests continued to share stories long after the formal programme had ended. Evenings like this are what Reimagining Lincolnshire is built to deliver: history made public, communities given a platform, and Lincolnshire’s heritage understood a little more fully than it was before. We’re grateful to everyone who made it happen.
Thank you to Dr Dan Ellin, to Simcha, to Richard Dale, Stephen Griffiths and Rachael Phillips, to Dorothy Moss, and to Lincoln’s Jewish community for sharing their heritage with us.
