History of Cardiff Reform Synagogue | Cardiff - Capital of Wales Articles

By: Cardiff New Synagogue

Founded in 1948 the Cardiff New Synagogue as it was called then, is in fact by now one of the older constituents within the Movement for Reform Judaism. It was brought about by a fortunate combination of circumstances. Two prominent Cardiff residents had (separately) experienced a Reform service and preferred it to what was then available in Cardiff.

At the same time the Cardiff Jewish community had been swelled by a strong contingent of recent immigrants (mostly from Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia), who, on the strength of skills and/or money they had brought with them, were given permission to establish their enterprises in what was then a deeply Depressed Area. Most of them were used to synagogue services very different from the strictly traditional and were glad to join in the effort to found something more familiar. As many of their enterprises prospered they were eager and able to contribute to the founding of the new Reform Synagogue.

At first services were conducted by visiting rabbis and held in a building called the Temple of Peace in Cardiff’s Civic Centre. But the search for a resident rabbi and for a suitable building began almost immediately.

The late Rabbi Dr. L. Gerhard Graf, trained at the Berlin Hochschule and previously Rabbi at Bradford and Leeds, was appointed in 1949 and continued in office until his retirement 31 years later. Since Rabbi Graf's retirement the Synagogue has had three rabbis (as well as a number of student rabbis). Two of the rabbis, Kenneth Cohen and Rachel Montague, had relatively short spells in Cardiff, but Elaina Rothman came as a student rabbi in 1990 for two years, at the end of which she became our full, though part-time, rabbi. She is retired in December 2002.

During 2004 Rabbi Dr. Charles Middleburgh began taking services while the search continued for a rabbi to replace Rabbi Rothman. It was soon apparent that the solution to the communities search had been staring them in the face for almost a year.