History of the Jews in Scotland who spoke no English and was only able to speak Gaelic and Yiddish. Today, all known Jewish communities in Scotland are represented by the Scottish Council of Jewish Communities. Approximately 25% of Scotland's Jewish population reside in the suburb of Newton Mearns to the south of Glasgow. History of the Jews in Scotland The earliest date at which Jews arrived in Scotland is not known. The earliest concrete historical references to Jews in Scotland are from the late 17th century. The vast majority of Scottish Jews today are Ashkenazi who mainly settled in Edinburgh, then in Glasgow in the mid
Scotland in the early modern period suggests that this probably expanded in the first half of the sixteenth century, levelling off after the famine of 1595, as prices were relatively stable in the early seventeenth century. Calculations based on Hearth Tax returns for 1691 indicate a population of 1,234,575. This level may have been seriously effected by the famines of the 1690s. The first reliable information available on national population is from the census conducted by the Reverend Alexander Webster in 1755, which showed the inhabitants of Scotland as 1,265,380 persons. Compared with the situation after the redistribution of population in the later clearances and the