Newspaper clipping about the sale of the Merthyr Tydfil Synagogue, 12 March 1982

Disgrifiad

This newspaper clipping from The Jewish Chronicle reports that the Merthyr Tydfil Hebrew Congregation has sold its Synagogue to a Christian religious organisation. The 1872 building is thought to be the oldest surviving purpose-built synagogue in Wales.

The author notes that the Jewish community of Merthyr consisted of around 200 families in 1921. In 1982, the number was six.

Merthyr Tydfil was once home to one of the largest Jewish communities of the South Wales Valleys. The first Jews are believed to have arrived there in the 1820s and the first purpose-built synagogue was erected either in the late 1840s or the early 1850s. The thriving community soon outgrew the premises and a new synagogue opened on Church Street in 1877. From the 1920s to the mid-1930s, the Merthyr Tydfil Hebrew Congregation had up to 400 members, but with rapid changes in the economic conditions and the exodus that followed, the membership dropped to 175 by 1937. Services were held in Merthyr until the late 1970s.

Sources:
'The History of the Jewish Diaspora in Wales' by Cai Parry-Jones (http://e.bangor.ac.uk/4987);
JCR-UK/JewishGen (https://www.jewishgen.org/jcr-uk/Community/merth/index.htm).

Depository: Glamorgan Archives.

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