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The Jews of Brynmawr
The Brynmawr Hebrew Congregation was formed in 1888. Initially, services were held at the home of the then President of the congregation, Barnett Isaacs, and then later in Brynmawr Town Hall. The congregation solicited funds to build their own synagogue, which was eventually built on Bailey Street and opened in 1901. A Burial Ground was acquired by the congregation in 1919 thanks to a donation by Abel Myers of Abersychan and the plot was consecrated in Brynmawr’s municipal cemetery in August 1920.
By the early 1960s the Brynmawr Hebrew Congregation had decreased to such an extent that the community was forced to stop religious services in 1963. From then onwards the small number of Jews living in Brynmawr joined the Newport Hebrew Congregation, and the synagogue in Bailey Street was eventually sold in 1966.
– Parry-Jones, Cai, ‘The History of the Jewish Diaspora in Wales’ (http://e.bangor.ac.uk/4987);
– Pollins, Harold, ‘The Jewish Community of Brynmawr, Wales’, The Jewish Journal of Sociology, L, 1-2 (2008): jewishjournalofsociology.org/index.php/jjs/article/download/15/16.
VIDEO:
Local actor Oliver Wood explores the history of the Jewish community that once lived in Blaenau Gwent.