Manchester Jewish Museum

Note: needs booking, but can be booked at the door. Weekends are quieter (schoolchildren). An old synagogue, near two hundred years, and still is. As museum since the early eighties. A few millions of development circa. 2021 has doubled the size. The new building houses the museum and has a facade which, though machine‐cut, is one of the most original developments in Manchester. The museum is more about the experience of immigrants than the religion. From the angle of personal history this may be a disappointment, but the marks of immigration are all through the cities of the North yet you’ll find nothing about this (unless you read books). So I for one applaud this museum. It’s small, but well‐presented, the artefacts—clothes, products, letters, identity books—could grab you, the staff have a good reputation, and the new layout finishes with the synagogue, which is a testament and well worth seeing. This may depend on your willingness to become engaged with the story, but visitors report lingering. Cafe and shop, of course. Cafe is small, vegetarian and kosher—how could you have not known the cafe would be anything other than love?