JCR-UK

the former

Ebbw Vale Hebrew Congregation

and Jewish Community

Ebbw Vale, Blaneau Gwent, South Wales

 

 

   
 

 
Page created: 20 October 2015
Latest revision or update: 4 August 2016

Jews of Ebbw Vale and District

by Harold Pollins

(By hovering your mouse cursor over the superscript footnote numeral in the text,
the wording of the footnote will appear in a pop-up box.)


The organised Jewish community of Ebbw Vale lasted for no more than four decades.  It was one of a number of Jewish congregations which came into existence in the main period of emigration from eastern Europe, in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century. We know when it came to an end.  In July 1929 G. [Gustave] Abrahams wrote to the Board of Deputies of British Jews that ‘the Ebbw Vale Hebrew Congregation is now defunct’. He explained that, ‘At a meeting held yesterday the remnant of what remains of what once constituted the Ebbw Vale Hebrew Congregation, decided to finally break up the Congregation’.  This resulted from the ‘adverse economic conditions prevailing here for the last ten years [which] have had the effect of denuding this town of its Jewish inhabitants.’ There were six Jewish families left and the synagogue ‘which is unfit for occupation has been closed for a considerable period’.(i) 

Seven years later, in 1936, the Jewish Chronicle (henceforth JC) belatedly announced that ‘Through the transference of the Jewish families to other parts of the country, the Ebbw Vale Jewish Community is now defunct.  The appurtenances have been transferred to the Old Hebrew Congregation, Cathedral Road, Cardiff.’(ii)  As though confirming the fact, soon afterwards at least two early Jewish residents died, having remained in Ebbw Vale all their adult lives.  They were Gustave Abrahams (died 1942 aged 66) and Jacob Wiselman (died 1943 aged 73).  Abrahams had been the congregation’s Secretary and Treasurer as well as its Marriage Secretary.  However, while we have a date for the ending of the congregation, as is so often the case, its origin is unclear. 

I

Early years

As was not uncommon among newly-established Jewish communities, at first, religious services were held in a private house, in this case that of Charles Goldblatt.  He had arrived in Ebbw Vale in the 1890s, and in the 1901 Census his address was 29 Commercial Street.  Ten years later it was 36 Church Street. One, or possibly both, of those houses might have housed the services.(iii)  In his 1913 obituary he was described as a founder of the congregation but there are other claimants for that honour.  The obituary in 1927 of Aaron D. Roskin stated that ‘He founded the Brynmawr, Tredegar and Ebbw Vale Synagogues…’.  He was certainly active in the Western Valleys but especially in Brynmawr.(iv)  And when Chaiah M. Joseph died in 1969, 4 months short of her 100th birthday, her obituary claimed that she and her husband ‘founded the Ebbw Vale congregation’.(v)  They arrived after the Goldblatts; a son was born in Russia in 1898 and their first child was born in Wales in 1903.  Perhaps they all had a hand in establishing the congregation, no doubt in the first decade of the century.

The first indication in print that organised Jewish life existed was in November 1906 when the ‘Ebbw Vale Synagogue’ was announced as the location of the bar mitzvah of Harry Wiselman.  The first printed use of the word ‘congregation’ was apparently in an advertisement in 1909, which was issued by the ‘Ebbw Vale Hebrew Congregation’ for a ‘Chazan, Shochet and Teacher’ at 23 shillings a week.  In the following year there was a brief controversy within the tiny 1910 community.  In March 1910 there was a report of a special meeting of the congregation, at which Mr H.[Haris, sic] Pech was elected President, and Mr J.[Jacob] Wiselman, Treasurer.  But the newspaper, the following week, printed a statement that Mr C.[Charles] Goldblatt was still President, an office he had held since the establishment of the congregation, and that his son had been Treasurer for the last three years.  At any rate, there was an organisation, complete with lay officers.

Development of the community

The community was always quite small, consisting of just a handful of families.  The community was based on Ebbw Vale, but a small number of Jews lived in nearby Waunlwyd and Cwm.  The main statistics are those from the Censuses, which are available only until 1911.  But later information about Jews resident in the district can be obtained from notices in the JC, from details of births, marriages, and deaths.

Table I

Population of Jews of Ebbw Vale and District

From the Census 1881 -1911

 

1881

1891

1901

1911

Ebbw Vale

6

17

35

64

Waunlwyd

 

 

 

10

Cwm

 

 

 

10

TOTAL

6

17

35

84

Note. The entry for Rosie Levin, wife of Simon Levin, of Cwm, a Tobacconist, has been crossed through in the 1911 Census. I have not included her in these figures. She was with her father’s family in Mile End Old Town, together with two daughters, one born in south Wales. Her father, Abraham Nathan, was a Rag Merchant.

Clearly, the main build up of the community was after 1901, but the figures need to be further explored.  The story begins with Marks Joseph Samuel Lyons, but, unlike pioneers in other communities established in the late 19th century  he was British-born, in Merthyr Tydfil, in 1856.  In fact he was born Mordecai Joseph Samuel, his father died soon afterwards and his mother, Sarah Samuel, married Lewis Lyons in 1858, a Polish-born pawnbroker.  Mordecai became part of the Lyons family, and a pawnbroker at first, before marrying at the age of 18, Rachel Isaacs, born in Canterbury.  By then he had changed his name from Mordecai to Marks and added Lyons as his surname.

He and his family were soon in Ebbw Vale and he remained there until his early death, at the age of 46, in 1902.  I take it that it was he who was the avid contributor of news items to the Jewish Chronicle, but they are not about other Jews in the district; they are mostly about him and his family.  He was associated with the Tredegar synagogue, where he was honorary secretary, and was president of a society formed in Tredegar to support the Jews’ Hospital and Orphan Asylum.  Otherwise he was active in the wider community. Among his offices were as a governor of the University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire (Cardiff), as Vice-President of the Chamber of Trade, and Chairman of the Urban District Council.  As a Justice of the Peace the JC announced that he was the first Jew to be so honoured in Wales, but a correspondent pointed out that since Monmouthshire was not in Wales, that distinction should go to Simon Goldberg of Swansea.  Lyons was also the Worshipful Master of a local lodge, and news of his two daughters’ successes in the pianoforte and the violin examinations were also advertised.

At the 1881 Census his occupation was pawnbroker but at the next Census, in 1891, he was now a clothier.  In the 1880s there was a transient family, headed by Russian-born David Harris, who had three children in Ebbw Vale before settling in Abertillery.  The slight increase of population between 1881 and 1891, from six to seventeen, was due to four Census entries, but in fact they referred to only two families.  That of M. J. S. Lyons was for some reason divided; the father, 3 children, and two employed assistants were at one address, and his wife, Rachel (also a clothier), a daughter and an employee, at another.  The second family was of Moses Simons, a general dealer.  A fourth household consisted of two single men, cousins, both general dealers.

The Goldblatts arrived soon afterwards.  Chlavna [Harry] Goldblatt was married in the district in the December quarter of 1891.  To allow for a period of courtship, this might mean that he arrived perhaps in 1890 or early 1891; but I can find no record of him in the 1891 Census.  In 1894, in Ebbw Vale, his wife had a stillborn child, who was buried in Merthyr Tydfil’s Jewish cemetery.(vi)  When Charles Goldblatt’s shop was wrecked during the Tredegar riots, it was stated that he had been in Ebbw Vale for 25 years, ie since 1886.(vii)  This is possible, as the first reference to him in print in Ebbw Vale is in 1900 and a daughter of his, Fanny, was married in the district in 1894, but again, there is no sign of his family in the 1891 Census.(viii) 

By the next Census, 1901, the Lyons family were reunited, and were joined by five new families (Simons and the two single men having left).  Abraham Green, an outfitter, had previously lived in London for some 20 years, and three of the other families were the Goldblatts.  Charles, already mentioned, born about 1847, was a draper, and his three sons.  Harry, an outfitter, and Lewis whose brother William was in his household.  Both were drapers.  They did not arrive in Britain together. Harry, as noted, was there in 1891, and Lewis arrived after a son was born in Russia in 1897.  The fifth household was that of Benjamin Harris.  He was a Dutch-born watchmaker whose wife, Priscilla, was born in Jerusalem where their first child, Marks, was born.  They then moved to London where a daughter was born, followed by two children born in Tonypandy, in the Rhondda valley, and then to Ebbw Vale for a short time.

One needs also to include other temporary sojourners in Ebbw Vale.  In the 1880s three children were born to the wife of David Harris, in 1881, 1886, and 1887, before the family left for Abertillery.  The wife of Mendle Simons, a furniture dealer, had a son in 1894 and a daughter in 1897 in Ebbw Vale, before moving to Merthyr Tydfil by 1901 and Abraham Pallatt, a commercial traveller, had a daughter in the town in 1898 and then had a son in Cardiff in March 1901.  Samuel Joseph had a son in Ebbw Vale in 1902 before moving to Brynmawr.

Some of these, and possibly others, were among a ‘large number’ of Jews from Brynmawr, Blaina, Abertillery, Ebbw Vale and Blaenavon who were addressed by the Chief Rabbi in 1894, when he visited Brynmawr.  But how many were from Ebbw Vale is not given. (ix) 

The main build up was after 1901 and it is interesting to observe that the traditional story of the origin of provincial Jewish communities in Britain, that they began with a few pedlars who eventually settled down as shop-keepers, did not apply to Ebbw Vale.  Up to, and including 1901, there was only one hawker in the Jewish households.  He was a jewellery hawker, named Joseph Dombcheck, a cousin of Lewis Goldblatt, living in the latter’s household, who then moves away.  Admittedly there were five pedlars in 1911, under various names –‘traveller’, ‘canvasser and collector’, ‘collector and assistant’, but the great majority were shop-keepers.  Of course, these occupations in the census were self-ascribed and it is possible that some upgrading was undertaken; but there is no way of knowing that.

The main news of Ebbw Vale Jews, in the Welsh newspapers, in the first decade of the century centred on the Goldblatts and their appearances in court.  In October 1903, Isaac Amiel, ‘a Jewish pedlar’ claimed damages from Lewis Goldblatt, ‘of the same persuasion’ by taking from him by force a pack of drapery goods.  Amiel, who had arrived from Russia in 1903, had been employed by Goldblatt but had left his employment owing 20s. to go into business on his own account.  Goldblatt had knocked him down and held him by the throat, taking the pack.  Judgement for the assault was a fine of £2 plus costs. (x) 

A case which occupied the newspapers in 1903 and 1904 concerned, at first, Charles and his son Louis[sic], (‘of the Jewish persuasion’, according to the Cardiff Times, 16 January 1904, p. 5) then joined by another son, William, who were charged with conspiring to defraud two non-Jewish suppliers of a large quantity of goods between September and November 1903.  A man named Moses Glass, a relative, lived with Louis Goldblatt and had a shop in Tredegar.  Various complicated deals took place, and Moses Glass disappeared, said to have gone back to Poland.  The case was dismissed for lack of evidence.  The newspaper report mentioned that Louis Goldblatt had a stall in the Ebbw Vale Market, presumably in addition to his drapery shop.(xi)

Otherwise the local newspapers seemed to pay little attention to the Jews of Ebbw Vale.  In 1907 there was a fire at the premises of ‘Mr Goldbratt[sic], draper &c’ of Bethcar Street.  Two years later Joseph Wiselman, furniture dealer, was plaintiff in a case about a claim for £5 commission from Charles Goldblatt who had asked Wiselman to sell a shop for him. Judgement for the plaintiff with costs.  And there were three insolvencies, one I906 (Joseph Dantzig, trading as D. Joseph) Clothier & Boot Dealer of Cwm, and two in 1910: Louis Goldblatt, and Harris Levin, a furnisher, of Cwm.(xii)

To continue the story of the build-up of the community.  At the 1911 census there were 17 families, and three single men.  Perhaps because of his bankruptcy the previous year, Louis Goldblatt was recorded at Abertysswg in a Jewish household which included three Jewish coal-miners.  Only one family had left, that of Abraham Green, and there were 11 new families and three single men.  The largest family was that of Jacob Wiselman, a wholesale furniture dealer, who had arrived from Abertillery about 1905 when a child was born in Ebbw Vale.  The family in 1911 totalled ten including eight children and the household also included a boarder who worked in the shop, a domestic servant, a ‘nurse-girl’, and a sick nurse.  The fourteen in the household lived in a large house, of seven rooms.  Several of the other families had lived in other parts of Britain before coming to Ebbw Vale – one can tell this from the birthplaces of their children.  Gustave Abrahams was in Rhymney until at least 1908 when a child was born there.  Leah Luck had three children in Brynmawr but was in Ebbw Vale in 1909 when she had a stillborn child.  She was a widow and married one of her boarders, Asher Bloom, in 1912.

The next Table gives places of birth, as provided by the Census.

Table II Birthplaces

Place

1881

1891

1901

1911

Abroad

 

  Russia/Poland

 

 

19

41

  Austria

 

6

 

9

  Germany

 

2

 

 

  Holland

 

 

 1

 

  Palestine

 

 

 2

 

TOTAL ABROAD

 

8

22

50

Wales

 

Ebbw Vale and District

 

  Ebbw Vale

2

4

5

11

  Cwm

 

 

 

7

Total EV and District

2

4

5

18

Other Wales

 

  Abertillery

 

 

 

5

  Crickhowell

 

 

 

3

  Merthyr Tydfil

1

1

1

 

  Rhymney

 

 

 

2

  Tonypandy

 

 

 2

 

Total Other Wales

1

1

3

10

TOTAL WALES

1

5

8

28

England

 

  Birmingham

 

1

 

1

  Canterbury

3

1

1

1

  Hereford

 

 

 

1

  Liverpool

 

1

 

 

  London

 

1

3

3

TOTAL ENGLAND

 

4

 4

6

TOTAL UK

6

9

12

34

No Address

 

 

1

 

GRAND TOTALS

6

17

35

84

 

Quite clearly, the newcomers were mainly from Eastern Europe (even though some may have settled first in other parts of Britain).  The next largest group were Welsh-born, most of them being children of the families in the town.

II

I have, so far, referred to their economic activities.  Here I give the total figures from the Censuses.  I should say that the occupations are those given by the respondents and one has to take them at face value; there is always the possibility of some upgrading, and the titles may not provide an adequate description of actual performance.  A shopkeeper might also be a landlord of house properties, and one has to look elsewhere than in the Census for evidence of bankruptcy or of partnerships in business.

Table III

Occupations 1881-1911

Occupation

1881

1891

1901

1911

Shops – Clothing

 

Clothier

 

2

1

 

Clothiers’ Asst

 

3

 

 

Draper

 

 

3

7

Draper’s Asst

 

 

4

4

Draper & Outfitter

 

 

1

1

Draper & Outfitter Asst

 

 

 

2

Draper & Clothier

 

 

 

1

Draper & Clothier Asst

 

 

 

1

Outfitter

 

 

3

 

Tailor’s Cutter

 

 

1

 

Boot & General Dealer

 

 

 

1

Boot & General Dealers’ Asst

 

 

 

1

Dressmaker

 

 

 

1

Other Shops

 

Chemist’s Asst

 

 

 

1

Fruiterer

 

 

 

1

Furnisher

 

 

 

1

Furnisher’s Asst

 

 

 

3

Ironmonger

 

 

 

1

Jeweller

 

 

 

1

Tobacconist

 

 

 

1

Tobacconist & Confectioner

 

 

 

1

Watchmaker

 

 

1

1

Miscellaneous

 

Hawkers/Travellers

 

 

1

5

General Dealer

 

4

 

 

Glazier

 

 

 

1

Pawnbroker

3

 

 

1

Pawnbroker’s Asst

 

 

1

1

TOTALS

3

9

16

38

 

Several points are noteworthy.  First, there are a number of doublings – Draper and Outfitter for example – which, while in associated trades, may suggest a lack of specialisation.  Second, is the dominance of clothing.  Third, is the paucity of pawnbroking, a trade which is reputed to have been a Jewish speciality in south Wales.(xiii)  Third, there is an absence or shortage of some of the characteristic Jewish immigrant trades – glazing, picture framing, tailoring, cabinet-making.  However, unusually, there is someone working in a chemist’s shop. I should also say that a number of the assistants were children of the relevant trader.


III

Two events in 1911 – one short-lived, the other more long-lasting – marked a watershed in the community’s history.  The first was Ebbw Vale’s experience of the ‘Tredegar riots’; the second was the opening of the synagogue.  In May Rev Dayan Hyamson had visited the community, had inspected the synagogue under construction, and examined the children, but at the end of August, the riots which had started in Tredegar spread quickly and reached Ebbw Vale.  The premises of three Jewish shopkeepers were ‘wrecked’ or ‘looted’: those of Charles Goldblatt, draper, 36 Church Street, of Mrs Rachel Lyons, fancy goods and miscellaneous, 9 Market Street, and of her next door neighbour, Gustave Abrahams, also a draper, 8 Market Street.  There are no reports of the premises of other Jewish tradesmen being attacked.  A letter in the JC (29 July 2011) from the granddaughter of Lena Bloom stated that the grandmother boasted that her shop in Market Street was untouched in the riots.

These events were reported in the JC, 25 August and 1 September but, surprisingly, the issue of 1 September also contained an announcement that the consecration of the synagogue would take place on 13 September.  If the notice had been placed during the week ending 1 September, it must be thought that Ebbw Vale was not a major casualty of the riots.  Indeed, two weeks later, on 15 September, the JC carried an advertisement, inserted by Haris[sic] Pech, of Bethcar Street, a draper, for a young man to be a canvasser and collector.  The community picked itself up and continued in existence.  It is possible that some people left because of the riots but, a number of families came to live in Ebbw Vale in subsequent years; and the synagogue was consecrated on 26 December 1911.(xiv) 

The synagogue was opened by Isidore Salmon, LCC., and the ceremony was conducted by Rev A. A. Green, of the Hampstead United Synagogue.  I take it that Green had stood in for the Chief Rabbi who would have consecrated a new synagogue, but Chief Rabbi Hermann Adler had died in July 1911 and his successor did not take office until 1913.  The Order of Service gave the names of three honorary officers – Harris Pech, President, a draper, J. Joseph, Treasurer, and Caple Pech. Honorary Secretary, a tobacconist (and son of Harris Pech).(xv) 

At the end of January 1912 there was a meeting of the congregation and among the officers elected was Gustave Abrahams, as Honorary Secretary.  Yet apparently the riots did affect the community.  Rev A. A. Green, who had officiated at the consecration, wrote to the JC in March 1912, appealing for funds to free the synagogue from debt.  This had arisen, he wrote, because the riots had deprived it of some promised contributions.  He explained that the synagogue had been converted from a chapel whose trustees had refused a better offer because they preferred that it should remain for religious worship.  Green stated that the Ebbw Vale congregation had repaid this generosity by subscribing 5 guineas in aid of non-Jews suffering because of the coal strike.

There were other signs of ‘normality’.  Mrs Caple Pech presented a silver pointer in June 1912, for use in the synagogue.  In September 1913 Harry Goldblatt unveiled a memorial to Charles Goldblatt (who had died in July), in gratitude for his services to the community and in February 1914, what was called ‘The First Annual Ball’, was held at the Drill Hall.  It was described as a great social and financial success, the funds going to the synagogue mortgage fund.(xvi) 

Moreover, the congregation began to employ a minister.  Small provincial congregations normally had difficulty in retaining their ministers, who normally occupied one or more of the roles of shochet, teacher, chazan, and any other function.  They seldom lasted long perhaps because the small community could not afford to pay them much.

The earliest advertisement for an official that I have found was in the JC. 19 September 1909, p. 2:

EBBW VALE
HEBREW CONGREGATION

WANTED, Chazan, Shochet and Teacher for above Congregation; married man preferred; must have sanction from Beth Din; salary 23s. per week and perquisites. Apply H. Goldblatt, Commercial Street, Ebbw Vale, Mon.

The post was probably filled by 50-year old Harris Lebowetz, who was living in Ebbw Vale at the 1911 Census, and described as ‘Rabbi’.  Three years later Rev I. Rabinowitz was one of the speakers at a ceremony in June 1914 when Mr and Mrs Harry Goldblatt presented a Sepher Torah, but the following month he left for Limerick.  In August there was an advertisement for a Baal Shacharit and Musaph for the coming High Festivals, at £3.  And in December 1915 there was a mention of Rev H. Olivestone (of Ebbw Vale) who officiated at the re-opening of the Montefiore Centenary Synagogue at Tredegar.  He assisted Rev Bloch, who was to be associated with Ebbw Vale.  The following month Olivestone left for Tredegar and his post was advertised at 35 shillings per week and perquisites.  It was re-advertised in December 1916 and I take it that it was Bloch who was elected.  The Chief Rabbi, in October 1917, wrote to the President of the Ebbw Vale congregation that Rev Getzel Bloch has satisfactorily passed the renewed Examination as Shochet [in Hebrew]. He is therefore authorised to perform, for members of your Congregation, the duties connected with such office, until the period when another examination will be necessary.  Provided that his religious and moral conduct continues to be such as to entitle him to my confidence.

He was mentioned in November 1917 in a list of contributors from Ebbw Vale to the Fund for the Relief of Jewish Victims of the War in Russia and in 1924 was presented with an illuminated address in recognition of his services to Ebbw Vale for 7 years.  He was to stay, on and off, sharing his duties with the Brynmawr congregation, until the middle of 1925 when he left for London to become a senior official of the London Board of Shechita. (xvii) 

IV

The years between the 1911 Census (the most recent one available) and the statement in 1929 that the Ebbw Vale congregation was defunct are a little short of the comprehensive details that a census would provide.  One has to make do with such information as one can obtain from newspapers and suchlike sources.

The background to that period was the economic depression of the 1920s and 1930s which particularly hit south Wales.  Ebbw Vale was described as ‘one of the black spots in south Wales’. (xviii)  The situation only improved with the building of a strip mill in the late 1930s together with full employment during and after the Second World War.   So it is not surprising to find the Jewish population declining as people moved away, often when a spouse came from a different town or city.   Yet from time to time newcomers arrived and in the meantime the congregation got on with its activities.  In 1914 the first annual ball was held, in aid of the synagogue’s mortgage fund.  From 1915 collections were made for the Jewish Victims of the War in Russia, continuing after the war as well as for the victims of pogroms in the Ukraine.  There was also a contribution to the London Jewish Soup Kitchen.(xix) 

Soon after the Balfour Declaration of November 1917 – whereby the British government was in favour of a homeland for the Jewish people in Palestine – the Ebbw Vale community immediately collected money for the Palestine Restoration Fund and within two months formed a Zionist Society.  Eighteen months later a Zionist conference was held at the home of Mr H. Peck and £100 was raised for the Palestine Restoration Fund. (xx) 

The work of the congregation continued.  In June 1918 a conference was held in Cardiff where it was resolved to establish co-operation between the communities of South Wales, Monmouthshire, and Bristol.  In 1920 a ball was held in aid of synagogue funds and the pupils taught by Rev Bloch were examined and found to be satisfactory.  In 1923 there were two events: the congregation celebrated the 70th birthday of Haris Peck, who had been President for 15 years.  And various gifts were made to the synagogue: electric light installations and candelabra; curtains and fittings; a silver breastplate for the Sepher Torah; and a cover for the reading desk.  There was much to look forward to.(xxi) 

In fact the newspaper reports of Jews in Ebbw Vale thenceforth were almost entirely of births, marriages and deaths.  Some signs of life were exhibited by announcements of New Year Greetings by families in 1924-1926; and by a sermon being preached by Rev H. Goldman at New Year 1925.(xxii)  All the marriages involving Jews in Ebbw Vale and district were with a partner from another town and ceremonies were held in many parts of the country.  There were two such marriages in 1925 but surprisingly there were more from 1929 when the congregation was defunct.  I have counted 8 of these marriages, the last being as late as 1947.  I take it that most if not all the new families settled elsewhere.


Footnotes ( returns to main text)

  • (i) London Metropolitan Archives, Ebbw Vale Hebrew Congregation: closure of congregation. ACC/3121/B/04/EA/011

  • (ii) JC 24 July 1936 page 47. Yet the Jewish Yearbook, 1935 (referring to 1934) gave a population of 80. This may have been a notional figure or even a guess. The population figures in the Jewish Yearbook are notoriously inaccurate.

  • (iii) Charles Goldblatt died in 1913. JC, 11 July 1913, p. 6, obituary. This states that his house was available for services.

  • (iv) JC, 19 August 1927, p. 8., Roskin, obituary. H.Pollins. ‘The Jewish Community of Brynmawr, Wales, Jewish Journal of Sociology, vol 50, nos. 1 and 2, 2008, pp. 5- 32.

  • (v) JC, 15 August 1969, p. 35. The family lived in Waunlwyd.

  • (vi) The Jewishgen Online Worldwide Burial Register’, in www.jewishgen.org/databases/Cemetery/. Accessed 10 April 2014.

  • (vii) JC, 25 August 1911, p. 12.

  • (viii) JC, 12 July 1900 p. 2,  contribution by C. Goldblatt to Brynmawr Synagogue Building Fund.

  • (ix) Ibid., 18 May 1894, p. 16.

  • (x) Cardiff Times, 10 October 1903; ibid., 2 April 1904 p.9, for reference to Amiel’s arrival.

  • (xi) Ibid., 2 April 1904 p. 9.

  • (xii) Cardiff Times, 5 March 1910 p.9, Goldbratt; ibid., 16 October 1909 p.12, Wiselman; London Gazette, 21 September 1906 p. 6483; Dantzig, Cardiff Times, 22 October 1910, p.5, [He and his family appear in the 1911 Census with the surname Joseph, his forename being Dantzig];  Cardiff Times, 22 October 1910, p. 5, Louis Goldblatt; London Gazette, 25 October 1910, p.7578, Levin.

  • (xiii) Ursula R. Q. Henriques (ed.), The Jews of South Wales. Historical Studies, 1993, p. 52.

  • (xiv) Copies of the Order of Service at the Consecration of the Synagogue at Ebbw Vale on Tuesday Dec. 26th, 5672-1911 are at the National Library of Israel, Jerusalem, and also at Harvard University Library. The location of the synagogue is not shown.

  • (xv) Isidore Salmon was a son of the co-founder of what became J. Lyons & Co, the catering company, and eventually became its chairman, and was vice-chairman of the LCC and a Conservative MP. During the Second World War he was active in establishing the Army Catering Corps.

  • (xvi) JC, 7 June 1912, p. 23, silver pointer; ibid., 26 September 1913, p. 27. Goldblatt memorial; ibid., 13 February 1914 p. 28, Annual Ball.

  • (xvii) JC, 26 June 1914, p. 33, Rabinowitz; ibid., 28 August 1914 p. 2, Baal Shacharit,; ibid., 10 December 1915 p, 28 Olivestone [spelled Olwenstein]; ibid., Chief Rabbi’s letter, Hartley Library, University of Southampton, MS177, 17 October 5678 [1917]; 23 November 1917 p. 2, Fund for Russian Jews; ibid., 13 June 1924, p. 26, Address to Bloch.

  • (xviii) W. E. Minchinton, The Tinplate Industry, 1957, p. 204.

  • (xix) Ball, JC, 13 February 1914, p. 28; Sepher Torah, ibid., 26 June 1914, p. 33; Relief in Russia, 23 June 1916, p. 3; Ukraine, 23 December 1921, p. 4; Soup Kitchen, ibid., 16 April 1915, p. 26.

  • (xx) Restoration Fund, JC, 30 November 1917, p. 18; Zionist Society, ibid., 22 February 1918, p. 16; Zionist Conference, ibid., 8 August 1919, p. 17. In 1922 the name was changed from Pech to Peck: London Gazette, 6 October 1922, p. 7,105.

  • (xxi) Cardiff conference, JC, 21 June 1918, p.14; ball, ibid., 20 February 1920, p. 34; pupils examined, ibid., 16 December 1921, p. 51; Pech’s birthday, ibid.,12 October 1923, p.27; gifts, ibid., 19 October 1923, p. 15.

  • (xxii) JC, 18 September 1925, p. 14.

  • © Harold Pollins

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