Patrick Comerford
During last month’s visit to Belfast, I visited the sites of the former synagogue on Annesley Street (1904-1964) and its predecessor on Great Victoria Street (1871-1904), and went in search of the site of the former Belfast New Synagogue at 2 Jackson Street and the former United Hebrew Congregation, which used the premises of the Jewish National School at 5 Regent Street.
On those few days, I also visited the restored Jaffé Memorial Fountain and was wrote about the influence of Sir Otto Jaffé on so many aspects of life in Belfast.
However, that visit last month was so short that I never had an opportunity to visit Belfast’s present synagogue, an architecturally-acclaimed and prize-winning building on Somerton Road that first opened 60 years ago today, on 25 October 1964.
The Jewish community in Belfast has been known as Belfast Jewish Community since 2004, and was previously known as Belfast Hebrew Congregation and Belfast Synagogue.
Much of my knowledge of the Jewish community in Belfast, its synagogues and its people has been gleaned from research by the Belfast-born Jewish historian Steven Jaffe.
The synagogue on Somerton Road was designed by the Slovak modernist architect Eugene Rosenberg, assisted by associate architect Karl Kapolka. The foundation stone was laid on 3 May 1964 and the synagogue was consecrated 25 October 1964.
Rosenberg’s award-winning design for the building was unusual and innovative. The synagogue is circular, not rectangular. There is no balcony for women, and instead there is a raised platform on either side, separated from the main part of the sanctuary by a railing. The roof is held up by concrete-covered beams that form the shape of a Star of David. The candelabrum and the Ner Tamid or eternal light, as well as the bronze and silver letters adorning the Ark doors, are by the Israeli sculptor Nehemia Azaz.
The synagogue has a plaque in memory of Jews killed during the Holocaust. The English part of the inscription reads, ‘In memory of the martyred millions of European Jewry 1933-1945.’
The architect Eugene (Evžen) Rosenberg (1907-1990) was born in Topoľčany, Slovakia, on 24 February 1907. He studied engineering in Bratislava, Brno and Prague in 1920-1928 and architecture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague in 1929-1932 as a pupil of Josef Gočár. In between his studies, he worked with Le Corbusier in Paris and with Josef Havlíček and Karel Honzík in Prague.
He set up his own practice in Prague in 1934 but left Czechoslovakia for Britain in 1939 to escape the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia and encouraged by his friendship with the architects Maxwell Fry and FRS Yorke. He was interned in 1940 and sent to Australia, but was able to return to London in 1942.
He established Yorke Rosenberg Mardall in 1944 with FRS Yorke and CS Mardall and they were responsible for a number of innovative architectural projects such as Gatwick Airport, the John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford, and the Manchester Magistrates Court. Altnagelvin Hospital (1959-1961) in Derry was the first post-war NHS Hospital in the United Kingdom.
When the new synagogue on Somerton Road opened in 1964, it was known as the Woolfson Centre. It has been described as ‘one of the most sophisticated small synagogues built in the United Kingdom.’
The synagogue was partitioned in two in the early 1990s to make way for an on-site social centre. It was designated a Listed Historic Building in 2015.
During the ‘Troubles’, the Belfast Jewish Institute was burnt down in 1981. Leonard Kaitcer was one of three Jews to be killed as a result of the ‘Troubles’. Leonard Steinberg, a local businessman, left Belfast for Manchester after a shooting attack and later expanded his business, Stanley Leisure, and was raised to the peerage as Lord Steinberg of Belfast. The last kosher butchers in Belfast and the Levy’s delicatessen and grocery shop, both on the Antrim Road, are long closed.
On the other hand, the synagogue complex became a neutral venue during the ‘Troubles’ and the community hosted efforts at reconciliation between communities in North Belfast. However, the community found it difficult to attract the services of a minister and for a number of years relied on clergy who visited during the festivals.
Although the community and the synagogue follow Ashkenazi traditions and liturgies, the synagogue in Belfast has been served by at least one Sephardi minister. Rabbi Moshe Perez was born in Casablanca in Morocco in 1958, and was educated at yeshivot in Morocco, New York, Manchester and Israel. He was a shochet and assistant minister with the Dublin Jewish Community when he was appointed minister to the Belfast Hebrew Congregation (1988-1990). He later served in Nottingham (1990-2018), and received semicha or rabbinical ordination in 1995.
The present rabbi in Belfast is Rabbi David Kale, who served Jewish congregations in Staines and Bournemouth, before being moving to Belfast in 2018. He obtained semicha in 2022 and was made an MBE in the New Year Honours List on 30 December 2022.
The Jewish community in Belfast is one of the oldest ethnic and religious minorities in Northern Ireland and has thrived over four or five generations. Although numbers have fallen in recent years, the Jewish community continues to play a significant role in the religious and cultural life of Northern Ireland.
The synagogue has about 80 members today, but the Belfast Jewish community continues to make a contribution to life that is out of proportion to its numbers in Northern Ireland, which is an increasingly diverse and multicultural society.
Steven Jaffe continues to lead occasional Jewish heritage walking tours in Belfast city centre.
Shabbat Shalom, שבת שלום
No comments:
Post a Comment