(JHE) — A civic SOS campaign has successfully prevented a 91-year-old synagogue from being sold at auction to property developers, and the building will become a community cultural center that also highlights local Jewish history.
“The Cliftonville Cultural Space CIC will be taking over the Margate Synagogue at the end of January,” Jan Ryan, a leader of the “Save Our Shul” campaign told JHE.
The small, red brick synagogue in the Cliftonville neighborhood of the seaside resort town of Margate was to have gone up for auction on December 16.
Ryan and other artists and Jewish heritage educators formed the non-profit Cliftonville Cultural Space CIC to spearhead efforts to raise £300,000 to purchase the building from the owners, the Margate Hebrew Congregation, and turn it into a cultural hub for the community at large that would also include a permanent exhibition about the history of Jewish life in East Kent.
The group’s crowd-funding campaign attracted local publicity and around 300 donors but raised only a fraction of that sum. The auction was called off, however, after what Ryan termed “an anonymous benefactor” stepped in.
“The future of the building is no longer in the balance,” Ryan told JHE. “An offer was made and accepted in the week prior to the auction and the building withdrawn from sale. Then on Christmas Eve, we got the news that contracts had been exchanged.”
Ryan said the Cliftonville Cultural Space CIC was being given the building on a longterm lease/rent free basis “so that we can begin the work of transforming the space into a welcoming meeting point for everyone, bringing people together through music, theatre, dance, film, festivals, exhibitions and food, as well as celebrating the rich history and diversity of the area past and present. ”
See the crowdfunder video about the synagogue:
The synagogue was built in 1928-29 for what was then a flourishing Jewish community, whose numbers were regularly joined by Jewish vacationers. Its simple brick exterior has subtle decorative elements; its sanctuary boasted elegant wooden fittings.
The orthodox congregation dwindled to such an extent in recent years, however, that it was forced to cancel High Holiday services in 2017 for lack of numbers and has not been used for worship since. (Its wooden fittings have already been removed and sold).
Read our article about the crowd-funding campaign