Today, 736 years ago, on July 18, 1290, a date that symbolically fell on Tisha B’Av that year, King Edward I of England sent decrees to every town in the kingdom ordering that all Jews leave the country by the first day of November 1290. The decrees further stated that any Jew remaining in England after that date would be executed.
Following the king’s order, thousands of England’s Jews were expelled that year. Although the Jews, who emigrated primarily to the nearby Netherlands, France, and Spain, were permitted to take their movable property with them, their homes, together with all assets and possessions they were unable to carry, became property of the Crown by royal decree.
