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Film maker Simon Glass explores the ‘lost world’ of the Jews in Yorkshire in the early 20th Century.

Hundreds of thousands of Jewish migrants and refugees travelled from the Baltic states of Russia to British ports between 1880-1920.

Many were fleeing poverty and persecution; some worked and settled in Leeds, where they lived in a notorious run-down area known as the Leylands.

They arrived with little money, but hoped and dreamed of a brighter future.

Many Jewish people, like Simon’s great grand-father, worked long hours in the booming tailoring industry.

Simon discovers stories of hardship, welfare among the community, anti-Semitism and the rise of Fascism and the Black Shirts.

But he also hears of success and progress as people moved out to the more affluent suburbs before the ‘slums’ of the Leylands were demolished.

Simon travels to Lithuania and Belarus to find out more about his family roots, and what happened to those who did not make the journey to Leeds.

Archive Images are courtesy of Leeds Library and Information Service, Ira Silverman and the Miller-Goldberg family.

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