Call To Action
SAVE OUR SYNAGOGUE – KNOW OUR HISTORY – SHAPE OUR FUTURE
This site is a call for us to remember, honour and return to the original vision of our founder Rabbi Erwin Rosenblum, and for that to be a guiding light for our plans for the future of our precious synagogue: our building and our community.
We are a group of members with a positive vision for the future of our Synagogue building and our community. As a group we are committed to constructive and fact-based debate and transparency – this is about ideas, in the interests of our shul and our community. We reject any attacks of a personal nature as unnecessary and unconstructive.
Today our heritage is threatened, our history risks being forgotten. Everyone can play a part in what happens next. We want a future based on the preservation and restoration of our existing building and our focus is on making that a financial and practical reality, on the basis of transparency, openness and participation.
Our synagogue is more than a building. It is a sanctuary. A memorial. A bridge. It shelters our Torah scrolls and gives space to our prayers and for the education of our children, yes — but it also speaks powerfully to what it meant to build Jewish life anew in the shadow of the Holocaust. In the words of our founding rabbi, it was created “to be a bridge to link the past of our people and our religion with the present and future of our faith.” It stands, eternally, “to the glory of God and to the memory of the six million Jews who perished in Nazi concentration camps — in honour of the dead, an inspiration to the living.”
This building, our building, is a work of faith, of craft, and of collective hope. And in its heart, a sacred work of stained glass — the Petts windows — tells our story in colour and light, now recognised as one of the great religious artworks of the 20th century, and recorded in the Imperial War Museum. The recent listing of BHRS as a Grade II building by Historic England is more than a tribute to our architectural significance. It is national recognition of the spiritual and historical power of our vision.
The founding vision reminds us today that this place was built for memory, but also for action. It is not only right that this building be protected — it is right that we now ask ourselves how we carry its mission forward. That’s where you, reading this, come in!
Our community is at a crossroads. Despite the listing and growing evidence for and exploration of alternative plans to save our existing building the preferred option of our council remains ‘option A’: to tear the synagogue down and build an apartment complex in its place, and erect a small synagogue building where our car park stands today.
This website aims to:
- Teach you about our history
- Disseminate the vision of our founders
- Share the reasons for which our synagogue has gained national recognition
- Look at plans for how we might preserve and build on our heritage and,
- Give you the opportunity to be part of a bright future of a very unique synagogue.