South Wales Echo extract titled 'Sweaty role for listed religious building', Merthyr Tydfil, 24 November 1989

Description

A South Wales Echo extract titled 'Sweaty role for listed religious building', dated 24 November 1989.

The article outlines the controversial plan to turn Merthyr's former synagogue into a gymnasium. Although the building was previously used as a Christian Centre, two applications were put forward for the former synagogue: the first to turn it into a gym and the second to transform it into a solicitor's office. It was initially recommended that both offers be put down, yet this suggestion was overturned in favour of the gymnasium plan. Along with being an 1872 listed building, controversies around the repurposing of the former synagogue were based around fears about parking in the area.

About Merthyr Jewish community.

Merthyr Tydfil was once home to one of the largest Jewish communities of the south Wales Valleys. First Jews are believed to have arrived there in the 1820s and the first synagogue was established at the rear of 28 Victoria Street, (Joseph Barnett's pawnbroker's shop), c. 1948. In 1852, work began on a larger, purpose-built synagogue at the back of the Temperance Hall in John Street, which opened in 1853. 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.

Source.

- JCR-UK: Jewish Communities & Records, The Merthyr Tydfil Hebrew Congregation & Jewish Community, Merthyr Tydfil, South Wales (2016) [accessed 23 September 2020]

Newspaper article courtesy of Media Wales.

Depository: Merthyr Tydfil Central Library.