Swansea Jewish Community

On-line Articles and Other Material
relating to the Swansea Jewish Community

on JCR-UK

• Swansea Hebrew Congregation 1730 - 1980, a souvenir brochure, assembled and edited by Martin Glass, with sections on history researched and written by Neville Saunders, published by the Swansea Hebrew Congregation in 1980 to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the founding of the Swansea Jewish community. (Note: the document is a 14 MB pdf file.) We are extremely grateful to David Factor and David Simon for providing a copy of the brochure and to the Swansea Hebrew Congregation for granting their permission to publish the same.

• The Rise of Provincial Jewry - Swansea by Cecil Roth, 1950. (Part of the Susser Archive.)

• Provincial Jewry in Victorian Britain -  - Papers for a conference at University College, London, convened by the Jewish Historical Society of England, prepared by Aubrey Newman - 6th July 1975.

  • Into the Vortex: South Wales Jewry Before 1914, paper by Geoffrey Alderman.

  • Papers on Swansea, including a paper by Bernard Goldblum.

  • Chief Rabbi's Questionnaire of 1845 - Congregational Data and Educational Data & Other Remarks.

• The Swansea Jewish Community - The First Century - an article by Harold Pollins originally published in the Jewish Journal of Sociology, vol 51 2009, updated January 2012.

• Press Reports on the Swansea Jewish Community 1804-1917, 2008-10, extracted by Harold Pollins.

• Other article by Harold Pollins relating to Swansea, initially published in the Oxford Menorah:

  • Amis and the Oriental, published Winter 1999.

  • Strange Broiges Affair, published September 2017.

• Articles Relating to the Jewish Cemeteries, see above.

• Bibliography

on Third Party websites

• Jewish History Association of South Wales (JHASW), including:

  • Voices and images of the South Wales Jewish community on peoples collection.wales website.

• Videos on YouTube:

  • History of the Swansea Hebrew Congregation

  • History of the Jewish Community of Swansea.

• Swansea Hebrew Congregation, an online exhibition to celebrate the history of Wales's oldest Jewish community, on the Swansea Council website.

 
Some Notable Jewish Connections with Swansea

• Michael Howard, Baron Howard of Lympne CH PC KC, born Michael Hecht in Swansea in 1941, was Leader of the Conservative Party and Leader of the Opposition from November 2003 to December 2005. He previously held a number of ministerial positions in the Governments of Margaret Thatcher and John Major, including as Home Secretary, 1993-1997.

• Sir Julian Lewis, born in Swansea in 1951, is Conservative MP for New Forest East since 1997. As of 2024 he is Chair of the Intelligence and Security Committee, a post he has held since 2020.

• Mervyn Levy (1914-1996), born in Swansea, was an artist, art teacher and writer on art. He was a member of the Kardomah group of artists who met at the Kardomah cafe in Swansea in the 1930s.

• Michael John Michael served as the Mayor of Swansea in 1848 and in 1849 he was made a Justice of the Peace.

• Sir Alfred Mond, 1st Baron Melchett, PC, FRS, DL (1868-1930), younger son of Sir Ludwig Mond, was an industrialist, politician and leading Zionist. He was Liberal MP for Swansea (1910-18) and for Swansea West (1918-23).

• Sir Ludwig Mond (1839-1909), founder of the Mond Nickel Company which established the Mond Nickel Works in in 1902 in Clydach (a village about six miles from the centre of Swansea) to refine nickel from Canada by means of a process devised by Sir Ludwig. The plant was one of the largest employers in the Swansea valley. A statue of him stands opposite the main entrance of the works. He was the father of Sir Alfred Mond.

• Catherine Zeta Jones, actress, born in Swansea in 1969, while not being Jewish herself, is married to actor Michael Douglas (Jewish by patrilineal descent) and has raised their son as Jewish.