Patrick Comerford
In recent weeks, in my Friday evening postings, I have looked at the sites of the mediaeval Jewry and the mediaeval synagogues in Cambridge (19 July 2024), and of the locations of the early modern synagogues in Cambridge (26 July 2024). In a separate posting, I also asked once again (24 July 2024) whether Portugal Place in Cambridge was so named because Sephardic Jews from the Iberian Peninsula who found a welcome in Cromwell’s England had first settled in that part of Cambridge from the mid-17th century on.
Indeed, Portugal Place is close to the Cambridge Synagogue on Thompson’s Lane, although the synagogue dates from 1937, over a century after Clement’s Lane was renamed Portugal Place.
By late 1912, the Jewish community in Cambridge had moved into premises behind a bicycle shop opposite the entrance to Sidney Sussex College, possibly in premises on the site that is now part of Sainsbury’s.
A new, purpose-built synagogue was built in 1937 in Ellis Court in Thomson’s Lane, off Bridge Street and parallel to Portugal Place. It was built for the Cambridge Hebrew Congregation, a continuity of the earlier ‘Lyon’s Synagogue’. It now houses both the Cambridge Synagogue and the Cambridge Jewish Student Centre.
The synagogue is close to Saint Clement’s Church and stands on the site of a house that was known as Church House (1886) and the Vicarage (1928). Ellis Lane took its name from Robert Ellis, the parish clerk of Saint Clement’s, who once lived in the earlier house.
Although that house was described in early leases as a house rather than houses, it had two basement kitchens and two staircases, and until the end of the 19th century there were invariably two families living there.
The building included the Church House Mission Room and School in 1881. An appeal on behalf of the Church House was issued in 1884 in the name of the Revd Edmund Gough de Salis Wood (1841-1932). He was the curate of Saint Clement’s in 1865-1885, and then the Vicar in 1885-1931. By 1887, the name of the house had been changed to Edmund House, but by 1891 it was known as the Vicarage and Canon Edmund Wood was living there on his own.
Wood died in 1931, and when the Vicarage was put on sale in October 1931 it was sold to trustees acting on behalf of the Cambridge Jewish community.
A new purpose-built synagogue was designed by architects Cecil Jacob Eprile (1897-1982) and RJ Hersh. Cecil Eprile (later Epril) also designed synagogues in New Cross, East Ham, Cricklewood, Hackney, Willesden Green and Southend.
The foundation stone of the synagogue in Cambridge was laid on 25 April 1937 by Sir Robert Waley-Cohen (1877-1952), a Cambridge graduate and leading industrialist who was president of the United Synagogue and vice-chairman of University College London. The new synagogue was built within six weeks and was consecrated by the Chief Rabbi, Rabbi Dr Joseph Herman Hertz, on 21 October 1937.
At the time, there were about 50 active Jewish students In Cambridge. A number of organisations, including the Schechter Society, the Oxford Zionist Society and the Oxford branch of the Anglo-Jewish Association, came together to form the Cambridge University Jewish Society (CUJS).
The Cambridge Traditional Jewish Congregation (CTRC) was established around 1979 as an independent orthodox community, sharing the synagogue building with the students. During term-time, the CUJS runs shabbat services and the CTJC organises the High Holy Day services and the other services.
Weekday services are agreed on a Shabbat morning or by special arrangement. There is usually a kiddush on Shabbat morning. During term, weekday shacharit is at 7:45 am and Sunday shacharit at 8:30 am.
Today, the original building designed by Hersch and Eprile in 1937 is hidden behind a front extension.
The trustees of the Cambridge University Jewish Society had applied to redevelop the existing synagogue and community facility in Thompsons Lane. They described the current building as ‘inadequate’ and no longer ‘fit for purpose’, and said the new building would make a ‘positive contribution to Thompson’s Lane’.
A project to renew the synagogue has been worked for about 14 years and it has been the subject of three pre-applications with the city council in 2011, 2015 and 2018, and two public consultations in 2018 and 2019.
The proposed new building would wrap around the rear of the Cambridge School of Visual and Performing Arts (CSVPA) on a similar footprint to the existing synagogue, but would be enlarged and extended forward.
However, Cambridge city councillors last year rejected plans to demolish and rebuild the synagogue following concerns from neighbours on Portugal Place.
Some neighbours who objected to the plans raised concerns about the impact of the new larger building on their gardens, particularly the sunlight reaching homes in Portugal Place.
Council planning officers had recommended the approval of the plans, but recognised that the impact the proposed changes would have on householders. In a report, they said the harm to neighbours would need to be balanced against the wider community benefits the new building would bring.
Some councillors questioned how the plans related to the neighbouring houses, and one councillor said the proposed building ‘turns its back on Portugal Place’ rather than ‘smile’ on it.
Earlier this year, a planning inspector upheld Cambridge City Council’s refusal of the application to build a new synagogue in Thompson’s Lane. The inspector said the proposed new synagogue would have an ‘intrusive’ impact on neighbouring homes and would ‘unduly harm’ the living conditions of two neighbours at 25 and 26 Portugal Place. However, the inspector found that ‘the living conditions of the occupiers of numbers 27, 28 and 29 would not be unduly harmed’.
The planning inspector disagreed with the city council’s concerns about the design of the proposed new building, saying it would be ‘compatible with the relatively diverse surrounding’ buildings and that it would make a ‘positive contribution to the street scene’.
The inspector also said there were ‘significant’ public benefits of the redevelopment and that the current building is ‘not fit for purpose’ and ‘too small.’ However, the inspector said these benefits were not enough to outweigh the harm it could cause.
In addition, there is a Chabad House at 37a Castle Street, Cambridge. It is run by Rabbi Dr Reuven Leigh and his wife Rochel. He studied at yeshivot in Manchester and Montreal and received semicha (rabbinic ordination) in 2001 from the Central Lubavitch Yeshiva.
The couple moved to Cambridge in 2003 and established Chabad of Cambridge, and they remain its rabbinic couple and directors. He has also served as a Jewish chaplain at the university and became rabbi to Cambridge Traditional Jewish Congregation in 2009.
Rabbi Reuven Leigh received his PhD in Cambridge in 2020. Rochel Leigh, who has taught Jewish Studies in Florida, California, Texas and New York, received her MEd in Cambridge in 2018.
The Chabad House has a mikvah that is available for Jewish women in a Jewish marriage.
Today, there are two other active Jewish congregations in Cambridge. The Beth Shalom congregation, founded in 1981, developed from the Cambridge Reform Jewish Community which was established in October 1976. Professor Nicholas Lange is chaplain to a Progressive Jewish Community in Cambridge.
The Cambridge and Suffolk Jewish Community, also known as Hama’ayan, was formed about 2005, and had its own nursery and mikvah. But it does not seems to have been active after 2007.
Shabbat Shalom, שבת שלום
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