South Manchester Jewry

(Author: David Ariel Sher, Vol. 73, No. 3, Chanukah 2018)          

“I would like to live in Manchester, England,” Mark Twain once declared, “The transition between Manchester and death would be unnoticeable.” Walking through the Manchester Art Gallery on Mosley St., viewing magnificently funereal Mancunian scenes like Adolph Valette’s sepulchral York Street leading to Charles Street, or the enigmatic, mist-filled Under Windsor Bridge on the Irwell, one can (northern braggadocio notwithstanding) begin to appreciate Twain’s sentiment.

Yet on splendidly sunny days, walking along Hale Barns’ Broadway, with light scintillatingly scattered amidst the tree-lined boulevards, one begins to appreciate what our Island’s most famous bard meant when he described “this sceptered isle…this other Eden, demi-paradise…This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England” (Richard II). Evidently, Twain had not strode through the undulating vales of what is now south Manchester. For our South African readers, it may be helpful to note that some Jewish enclaves in north Manchester are considered to have an almost shtetl-like character, whilst south Manchester boasts several affluent neighborhoods loosely akin to Johannesburg’s Houghton or Sandton.

“Do you like south Manchester?” I once inquired politely from a guest over a Shabbat lunch. “I do indeed” responded my visitor “I feel in fact that one must almost obtain a passport to travel between north and south Manchester.” I include this preamble to this brief sketch of south Manchester Jewry’s history as it was sentiment like this that undoubtedly enticed our brethren southwards from the eventually less genteel north. Yet their journey is not generally appreciated and I shall attempt to provide a brief background of their movement.

Manchester Jewry before the southward migration

The oldest gravestone extant in the earliest Jewish graveyard in Manchester registers the death of one ‘Rabbi Isaac the son of Yekusiel’, who was laid to rest on Sunday 9 October 1795 at the Brindle Heath cemetery in Pendleton. Jews had been encouraged to settle in the town several decades earlier (a passage titled ‘Synagogue Alley’, running off Manchester’s main thoroughfare, Deansgate, appeared in 1741). Many German Jews (including Nathan Mayer Rothschild) arrived, encouraged by the emergence of a veritable ‘cottonopolis’, and by the 1830s they had prospered sufficiently to open emporia at such prestigious central Manchester addresses as St Ann’s Square and Market Street. A kosher restaurant existed in Manchester as early as 1819. Although at this stage Jews had already commenced the exodus from the by now unsanitary city centre, moving to the then desirable Cheetham Hill, others had moved their residences southwards, to areas including Victoria Park, All Saints and Chorlton-on-Medlock.

The community’s house of worship, initially situated in warehouse spare rooms, was in 1806 transferred from Garden Street to a refurbished warehouse at Ainsworth’s Court. Thereafter, in 1824, it moved to a respectable, custom-designed structure, which included a community school, in Halliwell Street. A short-lived secession from the congregation ended in reunion when the Hungarian Dr. Solomon Schiller-Szinessy was appointed as minister in 1851. However, matters came to a head as Manchester’s Town Council announced the construction of a major artery to the city centre (Corporation Street) which would involve the unavoidable sale and demolition of the Halliwell Street Synagogue. A schism in the synagogue between those who favoured reforms to Judaism (these included SchillerSzinessy) and those who wished to maintain the Oral Law in all its authenticity resulted in the money from the shul’s sale being divided. The reformists opened a shrine in Park Place, Cheetham, in 1858 (it was later destroyed in the Blitz) and the Orthodox opened an imposing structure, designed by Thomas Bird in the neo-Classical, Italianate style in the same year (this Grade II synagogue was scandalously demolished in 1981). The services inside this ornate sanctum (which the immigrants titled the ‘Englisher Shul’) were marked by decorum and choral and cantorial excellence (especially notable was Cantor Harris Newman). Its exterior featured a flight of stairs 40 feet long which met a covered loggia with Corinthian columns and a Tuscan balustrade with cupolas surmounting both of the frontage’s extremities. The interior featured a magnificent pulpit and Ark doors carved of Spanish mahogany and gilt chandeliers.

Meanwhile, amongst the Sephardim, worship had been conducted at the former Jews’ School. On 6 May 1874 they moved into a new structure, called the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue, designed in the Moorish style on Cheetham Hill Road. The new synagogue followed the rite adopted at London’s Bevis Marks and adhered to guidelines set by the Sephardi Haham in the capital.

South Manchester Synagogue

Those Jews not desirous of remaining in Cheetham Hill also moved into All Saints, a residential area adjacent to Oxford Road that was intended to be a northern equivalent of such affluent locales as London’s Mayfair. Allegedly, this caused inconvenience as worship in the Great Synagogue involved a 30-minute walk and so it was that in 1872 the middle-class Anglo-Jewish residents of this suburb – which included some Sephardim – convened a Jewish New Year service at the Chorlton Town Hall. It has been said that encouraging the move southwards were the growing numbers of Eastern European Jews who had moved into Cheetham Hill and Red Bank after arriving at Victoria Station via the Transpennine Railway. A three-floor former orphanage and billiard hall on Sidney Street was converted into a galleried synagogue with pew-space for 100 men and 60 women. Despite protest by the parent congregation, Chief Rabbi N M Adler consecrated the new synagogue on 17 September 1873 and a banquet followed at the Hulme Town Hall. Bill Williams judged it to be “a synagogue based on snobbery” and this no doubt was the view of the Great Synagogue’s wardens, who complained of Jews passing the front of the Great Synagogue on Saturdays on their way to the ‘more conveniently situated’ synagogue in south Manchester.

In 1907, an effort commenced to build a more capacious synagogue on a more fitting site. One forceful proponent of this move was Dr. J P Dreyfus, who presented Chaim Weizmann to Lord Arthur Balfour, and in whose Clayton Aniline Company Weizmann’s research proved indispensable to the British war-effort. (The son of the shul’s rabbi was also a great supporter of Weizmann.) A location in Rusholme, close to members residing in Victoria Park was considered but the congregation decided in favour of the alternative site on Wilbraham Road in Fallowfield; this was to be the abode for the congregation for the next 90 years. The architect Joseph Sunlight (formerly Schimschlavitch) undertook the construction of this stately building using innovative technology including reinforced concrete. The Byzantine-style synagogue, which seated 300 men and 100 women in the ladies’ gallery, featured a dome and a 65ft minaret (based on that of Westminster Cathedral) and was modelled upon the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul. It was later designated with Grade II status by English Heritage. Stained-glass windows lit the interior and donations for these were received from as far as Grahamstown, South Africa. The synagogue’s foundation stone was laid in 1913 in a sea of top-hat clad gentlemen and was consecrated by Chief Rabbi Joseph Herman Hertz on 20 October of that year. The synagogue rite accorded with that of London’s United Synagogues and the wardens wore morning dress, whilst the clergy wore canonicals. The shul was also liberal for its time, introducing women to the synagogue executive in 1921 and formally celebrating a bat mitzvah in 1929. With growing numbers of refugees, the synagogue underwent an extension to the ladies’ gallery. However, by the late 1980s, the slow attrition of declining membership meant that the congregation struggled with the upkeep of the building, which in November 2001 was transformed by the munificence of a public-spirited benefactor into the George Elias Jewish Students Centre. A new modern, if less imposing synagogue was constructed and was opened by HRH, Charles, Prince of Wales on 28 April 2003; it is the only synagogue to have been opened by a member of the British Royal family.

Sephardim in South Manchester

The Sephardi community also established a permanent place on the south Manchester cottonocracy scene and purchased mansions along Palatine Road (nicknamed ‘Palestine Road’) at the end of the 19th Century. They converted Mosley Lodge on Mauldeth Road, Withington, into a synagogue (Sha’are Rahamim) in 1904. This was known as the Withington Congregation of Spanish and Portuguese Jews. A second Sephardic synagogue known as the West Didsbury New Synagogue was established at 119 Palatine Road in 1917. In 1927 both congregations amalgamated and moved to magnificent new premises on Queenston Road. These were designed by London’s Delissa Joseph in the classical monumental style, with a red-brick and Portland stone facade. The interior features unrestrained use of white marble and colossal Ionic columns on red Wilton carpet, with the columns reminiscent of that at Amsterdam’s Esnoga. Meanwhile, in 1925, those Sephardim who originated from Iraq and Syria formed their own synagogue, Sha’are Sedek, on Old Lansdowne Road. The two congregations amalgamated in 1997 to form Sha’are Hayim Sephardi Congregation of South Manchester, under Rabbi Shlomo Ellituv. Both the South Manchester Synagogue and the Sha’are Sedek used a section of the Southern Cemetery on Barlow Moor Rd in Didsbury, with its Gothic ohel and chequered floors. The earlier Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue used the Urmston Jewish Cemetery (shared with the New Synagogue) which has highly unusual memorials including a Taj Mahal mausoleum for one Haym M. Levy. After the sale of Sha’are Sedek, a new Sephardi synagogue was constructed on Wicker Lane in Hale Barns. It was opened by Rabbi Joseph Dweck and Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis on 29 January 2017. The ornamental gates, stained-glass windows, candelabras and other appurtenances from Sha’are Sedek were installed in the new synagogue.

The birth of the Hale & District Hebrew Congregation occurred in 1976 when a group of Jews decided to open a Jewish house of worship in their salubrious semi-rural suburb. Services commenced on 6 November of that year in a flat on Delahays Road, with a Scroll of Law lent to the fledgling community by the Stenecourt Great, New and Central Synagogue. From these humble beginnings, the shul moved to the Bowdon Jubilee Rooms until a site was purchased on Shay Lane in Hale Barns in April 1978. Rabbi E S Rabinowitz served as a part-time minister until Reverend Leonard Tann became full-time minister in 1981. In 1987 Rabbi Joel Neal Portnoy headed the ministry at the synagogue and oversaw a building scheme. In 2003, this culminated in the opening of the new synagogue whose mizrach (eastern) wall featured some 7 ½ tons of Jerusalem stone and whose foyer features a Jerusalem scene constructed from Venetian glass. The PJ Davis community centre, a mikvah, bet midrash and hall are also located on the complex. The synagogue’s cemetery and funeral chapel is located in Dunham.

From 1921, Delamere, Cheshire, was also the home for the Delamere Forest School, originally created for young Jewish TB sufferers from the slums of Red Bank. It closed in 2011 after functioning for 90 years. The Yeshurun Hebrew Congregation in Cheadle started life in 1963 when, after initial worship at the Friends Meeting House, a home on Gatley Road was secured. In 1966 it amalgamated with the Stockport Jewish community and two years later the new synagogue, designed by Barry Fineberg, was constructed, with classrooms for education for the young. Fineberg also designed the synagogue which opened in May 1966 on Hesketh Road, Sale, for the well over 100 Jewish families then living in Altrincham, Sale and Urmston. Natan Fagleman took over as minister from Aaron Lipsey in 2011 after serving as guest cantor at Birmingham, Harrogate and Southport.

Population and Education

Whilst Hale and Bowdon are deemed two of the five wealthiest villages in Britain, the number of Jews in south Manchester is not especially high; the 2011 National Census revealed that of Greater Manchester’s 10 boroughs, Bury had the largest Jewish population, with 10 302 souls. This was followed by Salford, with 7687. Both boroughs are to the north of Manchester’s city centre and boast many Jewish schools, synagogues and communal institutions. Comparatively, the Jewish population of Jews residing in Trafford, which incorporates Hale, stood at only 2413. A recent attempt to establish an Eruv in Hale was rendered abortive due to alleged antisemitic sentiment amongst the local populace combined with resistance from unaffiliated Jews protesting against their perception of a process towards a ‘ghettoisation’ of Hale.

Whilst there is one Jewish primary school in south Manchester (North Cheshire Jewish Primary School) and a nursery at the Hale Synagogue, there is no Jewish secondary school in south Manchester. Children are therefore educated at local, non-Jewish secondary schools, several of them considered of the best in the country. These include Withington Girls’ School and Altrincham Grammar School for Girls (where inspectors found the percentage of pupils achieving A/A* in their GCSEs was four times the national average) and Manchester Grammar School for Boys, founded in 1515 and rated outstanding in all areas by inspectors. In the absence of formal statistics, a Minister at one of the south Manchester synagogues estimated that around 85% of children were attending these non-Jewish secondary schools. Nonetheless, many parents are devoted to a formal Jewish education and a bus service is in operation to shuttle students from south Manchester to Jewish primary and high schools in north Manchester, in journeys that can often take an hour and a half.

Despite this unsatisfactory state of educational affairs, overall, it appears that there is a promising future for the Jews of south Manchester. Indeed, the fact that south Manchester saw the opening of three synagogues since the new millennium suggests that in the coming decades, North Manchester’s hitherto unchallenged status as the epicenter of the city’s Judaism may no longer be as secure as in years gone by.

Rabbi David A. Sher, a regular contributor to Jewish Affairs, has a First Class BSc (Hons) in Psychology and is completing a Masters degree in Jerusalem where he is also currently studying for his third rabbinic ordination.