Transcription of a letter of correspondence from the Newport and St Woolos Burial Board to John Isaac, Newport, January 1859

Description

This document is a letter of correspondence from the Newport and St Woolos Burial Board to John Isaac, dated January 1859. The letter states that they are unable to fulfil the request for a separate walled Burial Ground. Additionally, the Board offers their support for the Jews application for adjoining ground to the cemetery for burial in the future.

Newport Monmouthshire Hebrew Congregation was founded in 1859 by orthodox Jews meeting at a temporary synagogue in Llanarth Street. A synagogue at Francis Street was opened in 1869 and consecrated by the Chief Rabbi Dr Herman Adler in 1871. In 1934 the congregation moved to the Nathan Harris Memorial Hall in Queen’s Hill which was converted to a synagogue. In 1997 this synagogue was closed, and the congregation moved to the Prayer House by the Jewish Burial Ground on Risca Road. Within 20 years the congregation had dwindled to a few members able to attend and this too had ceased to hold services.

Sources:
“History of our Shul. The First Hundred Years", published by Newport Congregation in 1959;
Oral history interviews with members of the Newport Mon Hebrew Congregation, recorded in 2018 by JHASW.

Depository: Gwent Archives.