the former

Gloucester Old Synagogue

& Jewish Community

Gloucester, Gloucestershire

Page created: 22 August 2005
Latest revision or update: 26 August 2020

City of Gloucester

The city of Gloucester, with a population of approximately 110,000, is situated on the right bank of the river Severn in the West of England. It is the county town and a local government district of the county of Gloucestershire, and was a county borough until 1974.

Jewish Community

There had been a Jewish community in Gloucester in the medieval period. A new community, sometimes referred to as the Gloucester Old Synagogue (see below), was founded in the eighteenth century. The community had its own cemetery in the early 19th century, with its own shochet in 1830. In 1871, the Chief Rabbi visited the city, but by then the independent existence of the community had come to an end, the remaining members being affiliated to the Cheltenham Synagogue.

In 2008, the Gloucestershire Liberal Jewish Congregation (see separately), was established, serving the whole county of Gloucestershire.

Congregation Data
Description:	Gloucester Old Synagogue
Address:	Mercy Place, Gloucester, opposite the Infirmary
Founded:	Eighteenth century
Disbanded	By 1870
Ritual:	Ashkenazi Orthodox

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

on JCR-UK

The Rise of Provincial Jewry - Gloucester by Cecil Roth, 1950, including inscriptions on gravestones at Gloucester Jewish Cemetery. Part of the Susser Archive.
Reference to Gloucester in papers on Provincial Jewry in Victorian Britain, compiled by Prof. Aubrey Newman
Bibliography.
Gloucester Medieval Community.
Material relating to the Gloucester Jewish Cemetery, see below.

on Third Party websites

The Hebrew Community of Cheltenham, Gloucester and Stroud by Brian Torode, 1989 (pdf 23mb) previously on btsarnia.org website.

Gloucester Jewish Cemetery Information

The Coney Hill Cemetery, Coney Hill Road, Gloucester has a small hedged Jewish Section that contains the remains from the old Gloucester Jewish Burial Ground, Organ's Passage, which were exhumed (to make way for a children's playground) and re-interred here in 1938. The remains date from about 1760 and about 27 gravestones survive, the oldest being from 1886.

Articles and other material on JCR-UK:

"Jewish Tombstone Inscriptions in S. W. England - Studies in Anglo-Jewish History No. 3", by Rabbi Dr. Bernard Susser, includes an Introduction that makes reference to Gloucester. Part of the Susser Archive.
The epitaphs on the gravestones at this cemetery are listed in the Gloucester section in The Rise of Provincial Jewry by Cecil Roth, 1950, part of the Susser Archive.

Communal Records

Synagogue Records:
The manuscript of the congregation's regulations, or Takkanot, is in the Mocatta Library, London

Jewish Congregations in Gloucestershire

Jewish Communities of England home page

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