The book provides a comprehensive history of one of the largest provincial Jewish communities of Victorian Britain and fills in a gap in both Jewish and local historiography. Starting with the puzzle of the first Jewish community of Rochester in the 12th and 13th centuries, it then proceeds to look at the aftermath of the Jewish expulsion from the country and the return of the Jewish community to England in the 17th century. The pioneering study concentrates on closely examining the inception and the development of the Jewish community within the religious, social and political landscapes of the Medway towns of Rochester and Chatham throughout the centuries, until the 1930s, just before the start of the Second World War. The book will be of interest for both, historians and general readers