A 50,000 Pounds Sterling appeal is to be launched shortly to preserve Manchester’s oldest functioning synagogue–the Spanish and Portuguese on Cheetham Hill Road–as a museum. A specially formed committee wants to save the 104-year-old building from the fate of other historic synagogues in the district which have either been turned into factories or fallen into ruin. They include the Great Synagogue, founded in 1858, once called the “Cathedral of Manchester” and immortalized in Israel Zangwill’s “Dreamers of the Ghetto.”
Bill Williams, a non-Jew who has written the definitive history of Manchester Jewry, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that half the money would be spent on purchasing the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue and the other half on turning it into a museum of Manchester Jewish life and a resource center for schools.
Dr. Solomon Gaon, head of Britain’s Sephardic community, is to be one of the sponsors of the appeal. The synagogue was designed by the distinguished Victorian architect, Edward Solomon, a Manchester Jew.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
