Description
A newspaper article detailing Rabbi Rachel Montagu's induction in 1985 as the first woman rabbi in Wales for the Cardiff New Synagogue. Rabbi Montagu was inducted by former Rabbi Dr Gerhard Graf.
Rabbi Rachel Montagu graduated from Cambridge University with a degree in Classics and was ordained as a rabbi at the Leo Baeck College in London in 1984.
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);
Leo Baeck College https://lbc.ac.uk/d-var-torah/parashat-vaetchanan-5/;
The Ammerdown Centre http://www.ammerdown.org/Jeremiah-and-Huldah-Rabbi-Rachel-Montagu-2018.
Depository: Glamorgan Archives.
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