The exhibition has been jointly curated by Zaki Cooper and Daniel Lightman. [MCC/Jed Leicester]

A NEW exhibition telling the story of the Jewish community’s relationship with cricket has opened at the MCC Museum at Lord’s in St John’s Wood.

Using cricket clothing and equipment, artwork, books, video and other materials, Cricket and the Jewish Community tells the story of how the Jewish community has contributed to the game, and considers the prevalence of anti-semitism in cricket and its impact on Jewish cricketers.

The exhibition will also feature the stories of well-known international and first-class cricketers from Australia, England, Ireland, South Africa and the West Indies, and addresses cricket at grassroots level in Israel and the Maccabiah.

The exhibition was curated jointly by Jewish MCC members Zaki Cooper and Daniel Lightman KC, the authors of the acclaimed book Cricket Grounds from the Air, together with the MCC Heritage & Collections Department.

Among the players featured is Norman Gordon (1911-2014, South Africa), the first openly Jewish Test cricketer and the first Test cricketer to live beyond 100, and Fred Trueman (1931-2006), the great Yorkshire and England fast bowler, who claimed to have discovered towards the end of his life that he was Jewish. The exhibition includes the ball “Fiery Fred” used when he became the first man to take 300 Test wickets.

The exhibition will be held in the new Community Gallery, formerly the Brian Johnston Film Theatre, until 2025.

Neil Robinson, head of heritage and collections at MCC, said: “The Community Gallery offers a ground-breaking opportunity for individual communities to tell their own stories of cricket in their own words, using the expertise and facilities of the MCC Museum.

“For MCC it is a unique chance to explore the connections between cricket and community identity at all levels of the game. That the first exhibition in the newly-dedicated gallery should focus on Jewish cricket and cricketers is highly appropriate since it was an approach from Zaki and Daniel that formed the genesis of this project.”