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The Cardiff United Synagogue is an Orthodox Jewish synagogue in Cardiff, Wales. It is the only Orthodox Syngagogue in Wales to still maintain daily prayer services and employ a full-time minister, Rabbi Michoel Rose. In addition to daily services, the synagogue provides educational classes, youth and festivals programming and is instrumental in interfaith work in South Wales.
History
A Jewish community existed in Cardiff by 1841, when the Marquess of Bute donated land at Highfield for a Jewish Cemetery. The congregation, which is the result of the merger of several historic congregations, traces its roots to the Old Hebrew Congregation, which erected a synagogue building on Trinity Street in 1853, and to the Bute Street synagogue of 1858. Bute Street was the center of the Jewish community in the nineteenth century.
Former locations and ancestral congregations in Cardiff include the following:
Original (Old Hebrew) congregation,New (Orthodox) congregation,Windsor Place congregation, Windsor Place, Cardiff (1918–1955)Penylan congregation, Ty Gwyn Road, Penylan (9 January 1955–2003)The most architecturally distinguished of the several historic synagogue buildings was the classical/eclectic synagogue in Windsor Place. One of the congregation's former buildings was purchased in 1979 and converted into a Hindu temple. With the diminution of the Cardiff Jewish community and a drift away from the older neighborhoods, these congregations consolidated in the present, modern building in Cyncoed Gardens, dedicated by Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks in 2003.