Newspaper obituary of Judge Joseph Zigmond in Manchester, 1980

Description

This undated newspaper clipping, possibly from the Jewish Chronicle, notes the sudden death of Judge Joseph Zigmond at the age of 65. Judge Zigmond was born in Caerphilly and lived for a time in Cardiff where he got married in the Cathedral Road Synagogue. A practising doctor before his career in law, Zigmond served in the Royal Army Medical Corps in the Second World War. His death was also noted in The Guardian on 9 December 1980.

The county borough of Caerphilly covers an area that in the early 1900s was home to several small Jewish communities, some of which were short-lived. These were based in Blackwood, Newbridge, Bargoed, and New Tredegar. One by one these congregations disappeared as the dwindling membership meant that the communities were unable to gather enough men for a minyan. The communities of Bargoed and New Tredegar survived the longest, merging in the 1920s into New Tredegar & Bargoed Hebrew Congregation. No purpose-built synagogue appears to have existed and services seem to have stopped by the mid-1930s.

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/caerphilly.htm).

Depository: Glamorgan Archives.