History

The JMI came into being as a result of the vision and drive of Founding Director, Geraldine Auerbach who committed almost 30 years of her life to creating and building the work of the Jewish Music Institute. Geraldine was awarded an MBE and an Honorary Fellowship of SOAS for her services to Jewish music and the Jewish community.

Jennifer Jankel served as Chair and CEO of the Jewish Music Institute from 2011 to 2024, championing Jewish music and culture across the UK. A former fashion executive, she was UK Managing Director and Vice-President of the French shoe brand Charles Jourdan before founding her own label, Luc Berjen – now featured in the V&A Museum. Daughter of famed bandleader Joe Loss, Jennifer brought a lifelong passion for music to her leadership at JMI. She is also President of North West Surrey Synagogue and continues to be a vibrant advocate for Jewish arts and community life.

The Jewish Music Institute (JMI) traces its roots back to the first B’nai B’rith Jewish Music Festival in London, 1984.

What began as a celebration of Jewish musical heritage soon inspired the creation of a dedicated Trust – laying the foundation for what would become JMI. Since then, JMI has grown into the UK’s leading organisation for Jewish music, championing its past, present, and future.

Jewish Music Heritage Recordings was established in 1985 as a distinctive catalogue of Jewish music on CD and cassette, featuring both original recordings and historic reissues. Notable releases included Bloch Performs Bloch, with Ernest Bloch conducting his own works; Live at the South Bank by Gregori Schechter’s Klezmer Festival Band; Viennese Synagogue Music in the Age of Schubert, highlighting Salomon Sulzer, the “father of modern synagogue music”; and Shostakovich: From Jewish Folk Poetry, a restored Yiddish song cycle. These recordings preserved and celebrated the richness of Jewish musical heritage.

The Bn’ai B’rith Jewish Music Festival organised biennial month-long events at some of London’s most prestigious venues for many years. It then turned into the Jewish Music Heritage Trust (1989) which finally transformed into the Jewish Music Institute (1999), whereby the organisation continued to programme world class events. In 2000 JMI was fortunate to win £240k from the Millennium Commission to give away in grants to enable individuals to achieve their dream projects in Jewish music.

The position of the first full-time Jewish music lecturer in a mainstream university anywhere in the world was taken by esteemed Bloch specialist Dr. Alexander Knapp. In 2006 renowned Yiddish music scholar Dr Abigail Wood took over the position. Dr Ilana Webster-Kogen – who specialises in Ethiopian and Israeli music – is the most recent incumbent and has held the position since 2014, recently having been promoted to Reader in 2024.

In 1999 the JMI International Centre for Suppressed Music (ICSM) was also convened at SOAS. This brought together a group of academics, producers and journalists whose work focuses on the negative impact that Nazism and the banning, exile and murder of Jewish composers had on the development of music in the 20th century. The team of experts of the ICSM – now under the leadership of Michael Haas at the exil.arte centre in Vienna – continue to be dedicated to pursuing and promoting any initiatives that keep this music alive – from recordings and broadcasts to exhibitions, publications and performances.

In 2003, a Jewish Music Institute library, comprising printed books, was established at SOAS, with the financial support of Doris and Bertie Black.