A FORMER synagogue in Barnsley is to be commemorated with a blue plaque.
The synagogue a Jewish place of worship was in a house on Castlereagh Street, Barnsley which was in use from 1903 to 1946.
A blue plaque will be unveiled by the major Coun Jeff Ennis on March 18 at the site.
It has been organised by the Barnsley Civic Trust.
John Love, of the trust, said the synagogue was a house, most likely lived in by a Jewish family who used it for prayer meetings.
John, of Huddersfield Road, Barnsley, said: “I was aware there had been a synagogue, but I had thought it was in Pitt Street, which of course it isn’t.
“It’s likely it was a house that belonged to a Jewish family who held their meetings there. To be a synagogue, 10 people had to meet there.
“Because Jewish people were persecuted, they had to be careful. They didn’t spread it about, because there was prejudice in those days.
“It is not like a church, it was a meeting place. The synagogues you visualise look like churches, but in the early days they didn’t, they were houses.
“It was obviously in use for some considerable time. It was the war that finished it of course. I don’t know the exact reasons of why it stopped being a synagogue, if the people who lived there moved on or died out.”
The house is now a house of multiple occupation, and John said it had taken a long time to track down the freeholder to gain consent for the plaque.
He said the freeholder was also unaware of the house being used as a synagogue, but has since been very supportive.
Owen Gleadall, chairman of the civic trust, said: “We get applications from a range of different people and organisations asking for heritage certificates and we looked at this and it was so unique.
“None of us knew anything about it - even elderly Barnsley residents didn’t know.
“The Jewish community really wanted to make a deal out of it and said they would like to have a plaque, so we agreed to organise the plaque and they agreed to fund it.
“The Jewish population in Barnsley is very small. The fact there was a synagogue suggests there was a larger Jewish population in times gone by. Using a house for a synagogue, it can’t have been that large, but it was clearly large enough to have their own synagogue.
“There are quite a lot of people coming from Leeds for the event.”
Owen said it was only right that places such as the synagogue are recognised and commemorated.
He added: “If you look at the James Hudson Taylor plaques, where he used to live, where he used to work, it is quite important to the history of Barnsley.
“One of the things we have been doing is looking at how many famous people, places and events we can find in and around Barnsley that we can commemorate. It’s quite interesting.
“At our last meeting we were talking about someone who was the first person to introduce smallpox vaccinations before they became generally available. It is one of the people we are researching at the moment.”
