Manchester Jewish Museum is a independent museum open to the public whose archive holds a broad collection of artefacts and documents relating to the history of the Manchester Jewish community.

Archive Description

The Museum’s collection charts the many stories and experiences of Mancunian Jewish life. The archives tell the stories of lives of Jewish people from all over the world and how Jewish communities were established and diversified. This includes personal objects that were brought to Manchester, objects relating to trades, religious practice, hobbies and domestic life.

The Museum’s main oral history collection consists of interviews given by Jewish people living in Manchester from the 1970s and 1980s. The topics covered in the interviews include immigration, home and school life, work, politics, anti-Semitism, war and religion. Since the museum opened, it has recorded interviews with prominent members of the Jewish community from the 1980s onward and have also collected recordings of Jewish musical performances, lectures and events held in the community. The museum also holds many interviews with Holocaust survivors and refugees from Nazism in the 1930s.

Manchester Jewish Museum is housed in a former Sephardi synagogue and the archives also contain information about the congregation. The museum is currently going through a major Heritage Lottery funded re-development project. The historic building is closed and the archives are temporarily being housed at Manchester Central Library, with a pop-up museum as part of the library. The new museum including newly designed galleries in a modern extension and a renovated synagogue space using historic decorative schemes, will re-open in 2021.

Access Information

The museum will re-open in 2021 and access to view material in the archives can be arranged by contacting the curator Alex Cropper. They will be available at curator@manchesterjewishmuseum.com after November 2020 for advice on how to access material.

Online Accessibility

The archive contains some digitised oral histories and photographs. As part of the re-development project the digital content will increase and the catalogue will become accessible online.

More information on the collection can be found on the Museum’s website.

Street Address

Manchester Jewish Museum
190 Cheetham Hill Road
Manchester
M8 8LW