Newcastle

prepared by L. Olsover

(For a brief outline of the Community's early history, see "Newcastle" in Cecil Roth's "The Rise of Provincial Jewry", 1950)

The first recorded meeting of a Jewish congregation took place on 18 September 1831. At this date there were nine Jewish families when a certain Martin Valentine of Poland delivered a discourse at a meeting held at the house of D. Cohen of Westgate Road. In his address he stated that 'The Jews here do not often meet here having no proper place of worship and have had to be brought here in and around Newcastle for the purpose of this meeting.' At about this time a burial ground was acquired in Temple Street off Westgate Road. The community was steadily growing, so that in 1838 there was laid the foundation stone of the first synagogue in Newcastle. This building did service for the community for 42 years and was later pulled down, but the tiny cemetery is still in existence.

Over the years there was a steady inflation of settlers from the Continent and. from London. Many of these London arrivals, themselves originally from the Continent, were persuaded to spread themselves into the provinces so as not to be a burden on the London communities. Many of those who came directly from Eastern Europe tended to set up small Chevras for worship, and these small units came together into one Chevra in a building in Charlotte Square. The building in Temple Street was becoming too small to hold all the new congregants, but there would have been the grave danger of a split in the community had the new community been allowed to grow. It was an intervention by the Delegate Chief Rabbi and various other ministers which persuaded the two congregations to come together and form the Leazes Park Road [Synagogue]. The building cost £5,180, with seating capacity for 400 men and 300, women; there were also schoolrooms and committee rooms. The appeal, which attracted gifts from many outside Newcastle (Rothschilds gave 200 guineas), left a balance owing of £1,300. The day after the building was dedicated Dr. Adler presided at a conference to regulate the administration of the congregation, and pointed out the necessity for securing a properly trained minister who could speak English and above all the need for a qualified headmaster.

The tide of immigration from Eastern Europe swelled after 1880. Many of the new arrivals were uncomfortable in the surroundings of Leazes Park Synagogue; the services were too formal and too anglicised for their tastes. On the other side they were frowned upon and regarded as intruders by the older settlers of the community. The newer immigrants, preferring the intimacy and warmth of their customary places of worship, set up in 1895 a new place of worship. The congregation was known as the Beth Hamedrash, and was established at 12 Villa Place, a humble building consisting of a main room with a central table and wooden benches.

The number of charitable institutions increased rapidly at this period. They were the Board of Guardians (annual expenditure £180), Hebrew Philanthropic Society (annual income £65), Ladies Maternity Benefit Society (income £46), Chevra Kadisha (Burial) Society (income £50), Society for providing meals to strangers, 1891, Aid to London Jewish Hospital Society (income £46), and a Zionist Society, founded in 1895. Of these societies four were concerned with local charities; neithor social nor cultural societies existed other than the synagogues and the Hebrew classes. By 1900 a long-felt need was remedied by the formation of a Jewish Workmen's Social Club with 400 members, 250 men and 150 women.

The type of immigrant that was now arriving were artisans and workmen. Others were credit drapers and wholesalers mainly of textiles or haberdashery. These were attractive ways of livelihood for orthodox Jews, because they did not call for work on Sabbaths. Money-lending fell into the same category. Wholesalers, who often had originally peddled goods themselves, were established mainly in the Westmoreland area.

Within the next few years the congregation expanded even more rapidly, not merely in numbers but in its institutions. A Literary Society, another synagogue, a Naturalisation Society, and a Social Institute, as well as a Jewish Travellers' Institute, a trade protection society.

As a footnote to the history of the Jews of the Newcastle area, the North Eastern Reformatory (later called the Netherton Training School) was situated near Morpeth, and for many years during the period 1880-1910 the school housed between 25 and.30 Jewish boys. These boys came from all parts of the country, and some of them were Bar Mitzvah in the Leazes Park Road Synagogue.