This first major study dealing exclusively with the history of the Jews of Cornwall shows there were flourishing Jewish communities in Falmouth and Penzance -- and to a lesser extent in Truro and elsewhere -- in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It tells the story of the growth and decline of these communities.
There are chapters on Jews in Cornish folklore and place-names: Jews and Cornish tin-mining; the Jewish communities in Falmouth, Penzance and Truro and other settlements; occupations and trades; Cornish-Jewish families, and the rabbis and synagogues. There is a complete survey of Falmouth and Penzance Jewish cemeteries, with headstone transcriptions and biographical details.