Description

A newsletter for the congregation of Cardiff New Synagogue (later Cardiff Reform Synagogue), dated December 1980. The newsletter contains opinion pieces, articles, sermons, reports from synagogue groups, a recipe, details of past and future synagogue-led events, and open letters.

The newsletter includes:

A piece about Rabbi Cohen's induction to the Rabbinate on 19 October 1980. It was overseen by Rabbi Graf.

Induction Service Address by Rabbi Graf.
Graf highlights how Cohen was chosen to succeed him by the congregation that he is addressing. He also describes how the role of Rabbi differs from priest or clergymen - a rabbi is a teacher who is meant to be on equal footing with his congregation.

Induction Service Address by Rabbi Cohen.
Cohen claims that Graf is 'the last of the German born and trained rabbis to serve in the Reform Movement in Britain'.

Rabbi Graf and his wife had fled from Nazi persecution in Berlin in 1939 and moved to Britain. He was one of the many Jews who escaped to Britain during this period. In fact, during the 1930s an estimated 80,000 Jews entered the UK ('Jewish Refugees, Evacuees and the Second World War' in 'The History of the Jewish Diaspora in Wales' by Cai Parry-Jones, p.124; http://e.bangor.ac.uk/4987).

An article entitled 'History is Made'.
The piece describes how on a recent Sabbath the synagogue had its first ever Torah reading from a woman.

The Cardiff Reform Synagogue was founded in 1948 as the Cardiff New Synagogue. The following year, it became a constituent member of the Movement for Reform Judaism. Born in reaction against the more restrictive traditions of the Orthodox Judaism of Cardiff Hebrew Congregation, such as the prohibition of driving on the Sabbath and the ban on interfaith marriages, the new Synagogue appealed to the immigrants who had fled the war-torn Europe, where the Reform movement was already well-established. The congregation worships in a converted Methodist Chapel on Moira Terrace they acquired in 1952.

Sources:
'The History of the Jewish Diaspora in Wales' by Cai Parry-Jones (http://e.bangor.ac.uk/4987);
JCR-UK/JewishGen (https://www.jewishgen.org/jcr-uk/Community/card1/index.htm).

The depository: Glamorgan Archives.

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