- Cardiff United Synagogue
The Cardiff United Synagogue is the Jewish congregation of
Cardiff , the capital city ofWales .History
A Jewish community existed in Cardiff by 1841, when the Marquis of Bute donated land at Highfield for a Jewish Cemetery.
The congregation, which is the result of the merger of several historic congregations, traces its roots to the Old Hebrew Congregation, which erected a synagogue building on Trinity Street in 1853, and to the Bute Street synagogue of 1858. [ [http://www.glamro.gov.uk/check/Building%20of%20a%20Capital%202/A_Worship.html] ] Bute Street was the center of the Jewish community in the nineteenth century. [Modern British Jewry, By Geoffrey Alderman, Oxford University Press, 1998, p. 26]
Former buildings and ancestral congregations include:Original Old Hebrew Congregation):1853 - 1858 Trinity Street, Cardiff1858 - 1897 East Terrace, Bute Street, Cardiff (redeveloped 1888)1897 - 1989 Cathedral Road, Cardiff
New orthodox Congregation:1889 - 1900 Edwards Place, Cardiff1900 - ???? Merches Place, Cardiff
Windsor Place congregation:1918 - 1955 Windsor Place, Cardiff
Penylan congregation (synagogue consecrated 9 January 1955):1955 - 2003 Peylan Ty Gwyn Road, Cardiff [http://www.jewishgen.org/jcr-uk/Community/card/index.htm]
The most architecturally distinguished of the several historic synagogue buildings was the Classical/eclectic synagogue that was in Windsor Place, 1918 - 1955.
One of the congregation's former buildings was purchased in 1979 and converted into a Hindu temple. [An Introduction to Swaminarayan Hinduism, By Raymond Brady Williams, Published by Cambridge University Press, 2001, p. 222]
With the diminution of the Cardiff Jewish community and a drift away from the older neighborhoods, these congregations consolidated in the present, modern building in Cyncoed Gardens dedicated by Chief Rabbi
Jonathan Sachs in 2003. [ [http://www.somethingjewish.co.uk/articles/717_chief_visits_bristol.htm] ]Choir
The congregation has a notable choir. [ [http://www.cardiffshul.org/Choir.htm] ]
Outside links
* http://www.cardiffshul.org
References
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