WHEN THE CONGREGANTS HAVE LEFT Sharman KadiSh evaluates
the alternatives for the UK’s redundant synagogues
The shrinking number of Jews in Britain since the 1950s has led to the closure of many synagogues all over the country. The rate of closure has accelerated in the past twenty years, affecting not only small provincial communities, but also city centre synagogues and those in inner city suburbs. Even synagogues dating from the 1950s and 1960s are now shutting their doors. Jews are notoriously ‘wandering’ and future settlement patterns are hard to predict. Young Jews are returning to areas that their grandparents were glad to leave, especially the East End of London. driven by rising property prices in the now fashionable Jewish suburbs, some are returning to the inner city, to regentrified neighbourhoods, such as hackney, Willesden and islington, which once boasted smart synagogues. Surviving Victorian synagogues in other big cities, such as Liverpool’s Princes road in Toxteth and Birmingham’s Singers hill, today find themselves in the midst of regeneration projects. new synagogues are being built, but for the most part are concentrated in expensive suburbs in north-west London and north-west manchester.
What has happened to synagogues that have gone out of use? Some have succumbed to abandonment, vandalism and demolition. Shocking cases include ireland’s ‘cathedral synagogue’ at adelaide road in dublin and Clapton Federation Synagogue, Lea Bridge road, that was rapidly knocked down by Jewish developers in 2006 when they heard that it might become Listed. What lessons can we learn for other synagogues that are threatened with ‘redundancy’? above all, is there a future for our historic synagogues?
LOndOn The new Synagogue Stamford hill (above) This synagogue has survived by adaptation of its interior to accommodate new users within the Jewish community. Descendant of the historic New Synagogue of 1838 in Bishopsgate, ‘Egerton Road’was modelled on it and contains original features, notably the antiqueArk. Sold by the United Synagogue in stages to the Bobover Hasidismin the late 1980s, the Grade II Listed building languished on the English Heritage Listed BuildingsAt Risk Register for a decade. Restored with the help of an English Heritage grant, it is now the largest chasidic synagogue in the country.
Remaining as a Jewish place of worship, albeit of another denomination, is the best use for ‘redundant’ historic synagogues.
manChESTEr manchester Jewish museum(right) The former north manchester Spanish & Portuguese Synagogue is now a highly successful resource for the city and the whole of the north-West. Opened in 1984, themuseumis housed in the former Grade II* Listed Spanish& Portuguese Synagogue of 1874 in Cheetham,Manchester’s equivalent of the East End of London. Built inMoorish style, the architect was Edward Salomons who was of GermanAshkenazi background. The privately runmuseumattractsmore than 20,000 visitors a year, local schools, church groups and civic societies. It was the ‘neutral’ communal venue selected for the Queen’s visit toManchester Jewry during the Commonwealth Games in 2002.
Conversion into a museum is an ideal alternative use, but is sustainable only in places that are major tourist destinations
LEEDS northern School of Contemporary dance (bottom of page) The former Leeds New Synagogue was transformed into a theatre and dance studios in the 1990s. In the shape of a Turkish mosque complete with dome and ‘minaret’, the New Synagogue was opened in 1932 in Chapeltown, then a fashionable Jewish suburb. Designed by J. StanleyWright who had served inMandatory Palestine, the centrally planned space with sweeping galleries lent itself well to reinvention as a theatre in a project carried out by Leeds City Council with the help of the Heritage Lottery Fund. It reopened in 1998.
Galleried synagogues can successfully be adapted for cultural use such as concert halls, lecture theatres, schools and other public spaces.
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