The Trustees of the Licoricia of Winchester Appeal have decided to change the information board outside the statue of Licoricia as soon as practicable, removing the words “and Muslims” from the sentence “In the 13^th century Jews and Muslims were forced to wear identifying badges..”

As set out in the QR Code, the intention had been to show that the edict of the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215 applied to both Jews and Muslims across Christendom (Europe including England) in line with our purposes.  However, we accept that the sentence on the Information Board is not clear and is open to misinterpretation, as some people are applying it to England only, and have therefore decided to change it.

The statue of Licoricia in Winchester is popular and an inspiration to many.  It is fulfilling its original purposes which include educating people about our important but forgotten medieval Jewish Community; and promoting religious tolerance and the value of diversity in the community.

We hope that it will continue to do so.

The Jewish Square Mile project in London (www.jewishsquaremile.org) is holding a fascinating exhibition at St Giles Cripplegate between 5 and 19 September 2025 where you can discover the history of England’s first Jewish community through stories, rare artefacts and an immersive installation adjacent to the medieval Jewish cemetery at the Barbican, where many who knew Licoricia are buried. Licoricia’s maquette is included in the exhibition. Please see https://www.thejewishsquaremile.org/events

We are raising £15,000 to fund the creation of podcasts to be shown to children being taught our lessons. Of this we have raised £6,000 to date and so need a further £9,000. We hope that these podcasts will be delivered by Tracy-Ann Oberman, the well-known actor, and that they will make Licoricia and her messages for today more accessible. Do please support us.

Please do help us: further information is available at

We have completed our primary lessons which are now available for download from https://licoricia.org/schools/ and from https://history.hias.hants.gov.uk/course/view.php?id=103. An A4 book for teachers of the ‘Licoricia story’ which is integral to these lessons will soon be available free of charge.

We are very excited to report that Hampshire History Trust has produced two fascinating podcast interviews with Rebecca Abrams on Licoricia and her story. These are available on https://histbites.buzzsprout.com/1238459/episodes/15626719-licoricia-part-1https://histbites.buzzsprout.com/1238459/episodes/15664824-licoricia-part-2

Written in partnership with Hampshire County Council’s Inspectorate and Advisory Service (HIAS), these lessons introduce the middle ages to students completing primary school in a groundbreaking way. They can be downloaded from our website https://licoricia.org/schools/

We’d like to tell you about our next project which is to produce some short films about
Licoricia and her community, to help us inform and inspire the public and school children.
We have been advised that the best way nowadays to spread our messages is to invest in
Youtube-style videos, as people respond well to short visual clips.
To that end we are fundraising to create two short videos using Tracy-Ann Oberman, the
well-known Jewish actress from Coronation Street. Tracy-Ann was recently acclaimed for
her portrayal of Shylock in the Merchant of Venice.
The idea is that we create 6-8 minutes of short chunks of material that we can use for our
primary and secondary lessons, our website, as a link from our information board by the
statue, and for use by others such as Winchester’s Great Hall, Tourist Information Office, the
Holocaust Educational Trust or the University of Winchester.
Tracy-Ann will probably be dressed in period costume and the videos will either be filmed in
Winchester at an appropriate Norman venue such as the Great Hall, or in London. The
production company will help us produce scripts, which will be sensitively tailored to deal
with the subject.
We know that Tracy-Ann will be sensitive to the needs and nuances of our project, which she
supports, and will help us make this another work of art.

Please do help us in this exciting new venture.

Today is the Sabbath of Emor (Leviticus 21.1 to 24.23). Asher wrote on the wall of Winchester Castle today over 700 years ago that he was imprisoned on this Sabbath. He was later forced out of England with the rest of the Jewish community in 1290.

On Thursday 14 December, Cllr Stallard, Chairman of Hampshire County Council, and Marie Jeffery of Hampshire Library Service, joined our trustees for a ceremony to unveil the Information Board and mark the gift of the statue to Hampshire County Council.  The Board, dedicated to Andy Stoller and Suzanne Bartlet, ex-Chairman of Hampshire County Council, was unveiled by Tony Stoller and Cllr Stallard.

History topic of the month (pearson.com)https://www.pearson.com/en-gb/schools/subject-resources/humanities/diversity-inclusion/history/topic-of-the-month.html

Pearson already has a very good case study on Licoricia: https://qualifications.pearson.com/content/dam/pdf/GCSE/History/2016/Teaching-and-learning-materials/gcse-history-licoricia-of-winchester-case-study.pdf