Migration

Although there have been Jews in Scotland for more than two centuries, the first large-scale immigration to the country was at the end of the nineteenth century. From 1880 - 1950, an estimated 3 million Russian and Eastern European Jews moved westwards to escape anti-Jewish riots, oppressive financial and legal restrictions, war and, finally, persecution by the Nazis. Close to 200,000 arrived in the UK, with a significant proportion settling in Scottish towns and cities. In Glasgow, the Gorbals district became the new centre of Scottish Jewish life, and by 1935 the city's Jewish population numbered around 15,000.