The Connecting Small Histories project is funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund to explore the connections between Jewish communities in the UK and between those communities and the other faiths and experiences they contribute to in so many ways.
The hard work of volunteer groups in Bradford, Sunderland, St Annes, Eastbourne, Cumbria and Somerset is being supported by Dr. Carter Speedy and Dr. Toni Griffiths at Swansea alongside Ed Horwich at JSCN. Prof. Patricia Skinner and Dr Sarah May, Senior Lecturer in Heritage at Swansea University provided further support in history and heritage research. The project began at the beginning of the pandemic and adapted to move from the face-to-face visits, roadshows and festivals we had planned, to virtual and remote methods. Our volunteers found that the connections they made through the project were an important part of how they dealt with the challenges of the pandemic. Where we had planned a schools roadshow, we produced a schools resource pack for KS2 anchored by our book ‘Heritage Detectives’.
Where we had planned a festival to be held in Manchester over a weekend, we held the festival online over the space of a month and had participants from around the world. Many of the presentations are online.
We were also able to produce unexpected outputs such as our book co-authored by the whole team.
Project lead: Ed Horwich (JSCN). Project members: Carter Speedy, Toni Griffiths, Patricia Skinner, Sarah May (Swansea)
Project duration: 2020-2021
Contact Sarah May: s.j.m.may@swansea.ac.uk
Follow the Project on Twitter: @jscnuk