28 November 2006
Queen Elizabeth II and her husband, the Duke of Edinburgh, are to mark the 350th anniversary of the re-establishment of Jews in Britain. More than 700 people will gather at St James's Palace in central London to mark the occasion. Among the guests will be the British chief rabbi, Sir Jonathan Sacks. The reception celebrates the 350 years since the resettlement of Jews in the UK, following their expulsion by King Edward I in 1290. In 1655, Manasseh ben Israel, rabbi of the Amsterdam community and one of the leading scholars and intellectuals of Europe, arrived in London to petition the ruler Oliver Cromwell to re-admit the Jews to the country. In 1656, Cromwell was advised by his judges that there was no legal reason why Jews could not live in England.
