Manchester Jewish Museum

The Manchester Jewish Museum stands in Cheetham Hill, a district in North West England. It occupies a former Orthodox synagogue built for the Spanish & Portuguese Jewish congregation. The building served as a place of worship from 1874 until 1984. In 1974 it was recognised as a Grade II* listed structure. The museum opened in 1984 to tell the story of Jewish settlement in Manchester over two centuries. After a £6 million redevelopment it reopened in July 2021 with new galleries and facilities. The museum’s collection contains more than 31,000 items. It includes 530 oral history testimonies and over 20,000 photographs. There are 138 recorded interviews with Holocaust survivors and refugees. The artefacts document Jewish migration and life in Manchester. The redevelopment won two awards at the British Construction Industry Awards. Architects Citizens Design Bureau and engineers Buro Happold led the project. The 1874 building is a fine example of Moorish Revival architecture. Edward Salomons designed it with horseshoe windows and decorative arches. Inside, polychrome columns support the galleries and a horseshoe arch frames the heichal. The front doors feature intricate mashrabiyya latticework. Visitors can explore the restored synagogue and new learning spaces. A vegetarian café and shop are also on site. The museum offers a quiet space to reflect on local Jewish history.