1. INTRODUCTION

Over the next six months I will be a researcher in residence at Manchester Jewish Museum which from 1874 until 1981 was the former Synagogue of the Manchester Congregation of Spanish and Portuguese Jews and which, preserved and restored by a team of local enthusiasts led by Manchester University historian Bill Williams, opened as a Museum in 1984. I will be working through the 140 years worth of minute books and following the development and eventual decline of this unique community and its building and I will be posting here everything I find of interest in those records. I welcome any comments, particularly further information about the synagogue and its community.

THE 'SEPHARDIM'

The term 'Sephardi' strictly means someone who is descended from Jews who were expelled from Spain or forced to convert in 1492 when the 'Catholic monarchs' Ferdinand and Isabella issued the Alhambra decree  - or those subsequently expelled or forced to convert in Portugal in 1497. Many of these exiles spread throughout the Mediterranean finding refuge in the Arab lands to the south, (Morocco, Algeria and Tunis), and in the lands under the Ottoman Sultan (Greece, Istanbul, Syria and Egypt). In later years they were joined by others who had maintained a secret connection to Judaism in Spain and Portugal, many of whom, however, preferred to emigrate to more tolerant European countries and formed 'Spanish and Portuguese' communities in Amsterdam, London, South West France, and later in the Americas and Caribbean. These Spanish and Portuguese Jews developed their own variation of the synagogue liturgy based on the old liturgy of Spain but drawing on contemporary European musical forms. This beautiful liturgy can still be heard today at London Bevis Marks Synagogue, the oldest surviving synagogue built in England after the readmission of the Jews in the 1650s. Bevis Marks thus became the 'Mother Synagogue' of all Sephardi communities in England.

Entrance to Bevis Marks Synagogue, London

Because the Sephardim often took a leading role in the communities to which they emigrated it has become customary to call all Jews who do not originate in Germany or Eastern Europe (called Ashkenazim in Hebrew) 'Sephardim' even when the individual or community has not historical link to Spain and I will be following that usage in this blog - so please, no posts explaining to me what Sephardis really are! The term 'Spanish and Portuguese' I will use of those old families who were linked to Bevis and Marks and of the liturgical and other customs (minhag) that they followed and that were adopted in the main (and not necessarily whole-heartedly) by the Manchester community.

ABBREVIATIONS

MB - 'Minute Book': SPC - Spanish and Portuguese Congregation, OHC - Old Hebrew Congregation, SMC - South Manchester Congregation

JC - Jewish Chronicle    MG - Manchester Guardian

Alderman - (1998) Geoffrey Alderman, Modern British Jewry, Clarendon: Oxford.
Collins - (2006) Lydia Collins, The Sephardim of Manchester: Pedigrees and Pioneers, Shaare Hayim; Manchester.
Hist. 23 - (1923) Rev. B. Rodrigues-Perreira and R. J. Perreira-Mendoza, History of the Manchester Congregation of Spanish and Portuguese Jews, 1873-1923, Manchester.
Hist. 49 - (1949) anon., History of the Manchester Congregation of Spanish and Portuguese Jews, Supplement, Manchester.
Hyamson - (1951) Albert M. Hyamson, The sephardim of England, Methuen: London.
JHE - (2006) Sharman Kadish, Jewish Heritage in England: An Architectural Guide, English Heritage (in association with Jewish Heritage UK).
Kadish - (2011) Sharman Kadish, The Synagogues of Britain and Ireland, YUP: New Haven, London.
Lipman - (1990) V. D. Lipmam, A History of the Jews in Britain since 1858, Leicester UP: Leicester.
Williams - (1985) Bill Williams, The Making of Manchester Jewry 1740-1875, MUP: Manchester.