Refuge for 'Jewish Protestants'
Item
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Name
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Refuge for 'Jewish Protestants'
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Dates
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[1689]
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Location
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Whitchurch
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Type
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Refuge
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Description
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In his History of Whitchurch, Roy Garnham Enmore recorded entries from a 1689 collections record.
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These records detailed the payees, and the amount they owed to Parliament. One entry reads ‘Collected on July ye 15th, 1689, for Jewish Protestants who fled here £4 11 6’.
‘Jewish Protestants’ likely referred to individuals with Jewish heritage who had converted to Protestantism. While some of these individuals were genuine converts, others publicy adopted Christian identities to avoid persecution, but practiced Judaism privately. Both Protestants and Jews were persecuted in parts of seventeenth-century Europe, particularly by Catholic nations, resulting in this group fleeing to Whitchurch for safety.
