Somerset Jewish Social & Cultural Group

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congregations throughout the British Isles and Gibraltar, both past and present.
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Town of Taunton, Somerset

The county of Somerset in southwest England borders the Bristol Channel, the city of Bristol and the counties of Gloucestershire, Wiltshire, Dorset and Devon. Taunton, with a population of some 65,000, is the county town of Somerset.

Taunton was a municipal borough until 1974, when it merged with neighbouring districts to form the local government district of Taunton Deane, remaining within the county of Somerset and being granted borough status in 1975. In 2019, Taunton Deane merged with the adjoining local government district of West Somerset to form the local government district of Somerset West and Taunton, still within the county of Somerset. In 2023, there was yet another merger, when Somerset West and Taunton merged with the three other local government districts in central and southern Somerset to form the unitary authority of the Somerset Council (only the two northern distrcts of Somerset remaining outside the new authority).

Jewish Community

There was small Taunton Jewish Community which developed early in World War II, comprised largely of evacuees from heavily populated areas, but which appears to have become defunct sometime prior to the end of the War. In the early/mid 2020s a Jewish social and cultural group was formed in Somerset, centred in Taunton.

 
Jewish Congregations in Somerset

Jewish Communities of England homepage