About

After over 350 years of secure settlement unrivalled anywhere in Europe, Britain’s Jewish community, the oldest non-Christian faith group in the country, proudly possesses a unique architectural heritage that is now acknowledged as part of the nation’s heritage.

The Jewish community has always been a very small minority, never comprising more than about 450,000 people at its peak in the 1950s. The latest figures show a slight increase in the Jewish population, from ca.267,000 in the 2001 Census to ca. 269,000 in 2011, still representing a mere 0.5% of the total population. In the suburban strongholds of  North London, South Hertfordshire, and and North Manchester where Jews are tending increasingly to congregate, communities are actually growing. On the other hand,  smaller Jewish communities scattered around the country are vanishing. Dwindling communities lack the resources to look after their historic sites, and suburbanisation has led to the redundancy of historic synagogues and cemeteries in urban centres.

Established in 2004, Jewish Heritage UK is the only organisation specifically tasked with protecting on a professional basis the built heritage of British Jewry for future generations. The task of Jewish Heritage is the protection of British Jewry’s material cultural heritage, covering synagogues and cemeteries, and also moveable property such as artefacts, archives and ritual objects.