Jews and Judaism in North East England
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Jewish presence in northeast England is focused on a number of important towns.
Contents |
[edit] Gateshead
Gateshead is the home to a small community of Haredi Jews, acclaimed for its higher educational institutions. Talmudic students from many countries come to Gateshead to attend its yeshivas and kollels. Young Jewish women Jewish come to study at the Teacher Training College.
Based in the Bensham area, the community is comprised of a few hundred families.
The community was established at the end of the 19th century when Eastern European Jewish refugees chose to leave the Newcastle upon Tyne congregation, whom they viewed as too lenient in religious matters, and crossed the river to set up a new synagogue. Following the destruction of the Holocaust, Gateshead became home to the largest Orthodox Jewish education complex in postwar Europe, and the most significant outside of the United States and Israel. This can partly be attributed to the arrival of Orthodox Jewish refugee businessmen who were fleeing the European mainland during the Nazi era. As a result, Gateshead became an important centre of Torah Judaism.
[edit] Newcastle
No records exist of Jews being resident in Newcastle upon Tyne before 1830 although there is a tradition that the community dates from 1775. It is thought, however, that over 500 years prior to this Jews resided in Silver Street (formerly known as Jew Gate). On October 8, 1832, the congregation was formally established. The cathedral bells were rung when the first synagogue, in Temple Street, was officially opened on July 13, 1838. The Newcastle Courant published a headline in Hebrew.
By 1845 the congregation had grown to 33 adults and 33 children. Through the course of time nearly all the original founders either died or had left the city, but the influx of Polish and Russian immigrants had more than replaced this loss.
An imposing stone building was erected in Leazes Park Road in 1880 and consecrated by the Chief Rabbi. At that time the number of Jews in Newcastle was about 750. The congregation was in being until 1978
Sir Israel Brodie, the first Chief Rabbi to be knighted, was born in Newcastle in 1895.
There were many more developments and synagogues in Newcastle during the 20th century: Corporation Street Synagogue (1904–1924), Jesmond Synagogue (1914–1986), Ravensworth Terrace Synagogue (1925–1969), and Gosforth and Kenton Hebrew Congregation (1947–1984)
With the drift of population from the West End of Newcastle, Jesmond synagogue was consecrated in 1914 leaving the oldest, the Leazes Park Road Synagogue in the centre of the city. A third synagogue was built in Gosforth, the Gosforth and Kenton Hebrew congregation. Eventually the running of the three Orthodox Congregations was considered as being uneconomical and with a declining population in other parts of the town a new purpose built Community Centre and Synagogue was built in Gosforth at Culzean Park in an area in which the majority of Jews resided. A new Reform movement Synagogue was built in 1986 nearby and continues to flourish.
[edit] Sunderland
The first Jewish settlement in Sunderland was in 1755 and the first congregation was established in about 1768. The Sunderland Congregation was the first regional community to be represented on the Board of Deputies of British Jews.
At the 2001 census, 114 people of Jewish faith were recorded as living in Sunderland, a vanishingly small percentage. There was no Jewish community before 1750, though subsequently a number of Jewish merchants from across the UK and Europe settled in Sunderland, A Rabbi from Holland was established in the city in 1790. The synagogue on Ryhope Road (opened in 1928) closed at the end of March 2006.
[edit] Middlesbrough
The jews in the Boro like to eat a lot of Parmo's mate - you get me
