Receipt from John Bull Stores, Burt Street, Cardiff to Cardiff New Synagogue Youth Association, dated 19 May 1953

Description

Receipt for a 4¾ pound (weight) tin of Devon Creams (biscuits) supplied by John Bull Stores (Jaybee) Ltd to Cardiff New Synagogue Youth Association at a cost of 7 shillings and a penny.

John Bull Stores was a retail and wholesale grocery business run by brothers-in-law David Fay and Ivan Weinglass. Ivan was the younger son of a cabinet-maker from Poland, who also had five daughters. Ivan’s sister Esther married David Fay. David’s father was Joseph Krotosky, a Jewish butcher in Cardiff. David’s branch of the Krotosky family changed their name to Fay.

Esther was a very talented needle woman who had her own small business during the First World War making blouses for the army. When the war finished, her business packed up because at that time the men in the family didn’t think that ladies should be in business. Ivan had left the army and they used the money from her business and his discharge grant to start John Bull Stores.

In addition to their head office in Burt Street, they had a very large grocery shop, on the corner of Bridge Street and The Hayes. They had sold the business to Melia’s before the shop was demolished at the end of the 1960s to make way for St David’s Centre.

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:
Parry-Jones, Cai., ‘The History of the Jewish Diaspora in Wales’ (doctoral thesis, Bangor University, 2014) [accessed 24 February 2021]
JCR-UK/JewishGen. Cardiff Reform Synagogue, Cardiff, Wales (2020). [accessed 24 February 2021]

Depository: Glamorgan Archives.