Joe Hillaby is an Honorary Research Fellow of the University of Bristol. A Council Member of the Jewish Historical Society of England since 1995, he served as President 2006–8. An acknowledged authority on the English medieval Jewry, he has published detailed studies of the medieval Jewries of London, Hereford, Worcester, Gloucester and Bristol, the 12th-century Jewish colonisation of England, the English medieval synagogue,
mikva'ot and ritual-child-murder accusations. His wife Caroline has collaborated with him in these and other projects.