How useful is the Jewish Museum to an historian studying the living and working conditions of the Jews in Manchester in the early 20th Century

Authors Avatar

Coursework assignment: British History- Multicultural Britain                           By Jillian Smith      GCSE Coursework      Miss Cartwright      10A2

How useful is the Jewish Museum to an historian studying the living and working conditions of the Jews in Manchester in the early 20th Century?

              I visited the Jewish museum on Monday 14th March 2003. The museum was located on a main road in Cheetham Hill, the centre of Manchester. The museum used to be a synagogue for the Spanish and the Portuguese Jews. They came from the Turkish Empire. All the Jews that immigrated to England were escaping from poverty and persecution. The typical Jews had escaped from Eastern Europe although these Jews lived mainly in London. The Jews that had moved to Manchester were the ancestors of those in Eastern Europe.

                   In 1788 the Jews started to immigrate to Manchester for freedom. They lived in a slum area of old Manchester, struggling their way through life with many problems facing them. Nobody in Manchester could understand their language, they could not find jobs because they didn’t have the qualifications that were needed, they struggled to pay for food, pay rent for the house they were living in and they couldn’t find any schools which would be able to educate their children. Most Jews that moved to Manchester at this period of time found themselves selling cheap second hand goods. Only around twenty Jewish families managed to escape to live in Manchester at this time, as the years went by the amount of Jews that started to live in Manchester increased rapidly.

                   By 1840, the number of Jews that lived in Manchester grew so much so that they managed to gather together two Jewish communities, the rich and the poor. The poor lived in Red Bank. It was cheap, rough and a slum area to live in. The Jews that lived in Red Bank were the third class poor people who were struggling to pay for costs. The middle class Jews lived in Cheetham Hill, were the museum is located. This was an average place to live in but still not in great condition. The educated and upper class Jews lived in a place called Hightown. This was a very posh place were only the wealthy lived.

                    I expected the museum to offer a wide range of artefacts and other pieces of factual information. Although, I was very shocked to see how small the museum actually was. I took into context that the museum used to be a synagogue for the Jews in Manchester to use but the sources on living and working conditions of the Jews were not as helpful as I would of expected them to be. The museum still provided me with plenty of information about the Jews though. The biggest source at the museum was the man that gave me the tour. As a Jew himself he spoke for his people and had obviously studied the life and work of the Jews in great detail. The museum was also useful in the set up because it made you realise the lay out of synagogues and the day-to-day sessions that the Jews do for their religion. The surroundings also gave a big clue in what kind of Jewish people used to live there.

                   The museum provided a tremendous amount of information considering the size of the place. It had two floors and they made excellent use of the space provided. The tour guide claimed that they had a huge amount of artefacts and information stored away but there wasn’t enough room for them to be on display. The people that worked at the museum had to decide what information would be most appropriate and useful for the audience. The type of audience that they provided the information for was of a young age. I concluded this because of the simple displays and the brief explanations that were given throughout the museum. This affects the knowledge of the audience because if the audience was of an older age then they would not find out the in depth information that they were looking for.

                 The museum is kept in the style of a synagogue to create the culture to the tourist. Although I found many of the reconstructions not to be based on the truth of the Jewish people. I can back up this point because the Sabbath table was set up for two people when the average working class Jewish family was five to six members. The reconstructions were very sketchy although they still gave me an idea of how the Jews lived and worked. The reason why the museum did not provide accurate displays was because of the amount of room that they had. The museum was very helpful in the terms of living conditions because there were artefacts of what some of the houses looked like that the Jews lived in and maps of were abouts the Jews lived. It also listed areas of were the common population of Jews lived.

Join now!

               I found the section on working conditions very poor. The section barely focused on the rich Jews. It was biased in the way of the poor people. The poor used to work in what was called, ‘ The sweatshop industry.’ The sweated trade consisted of terrible working conditions, low wages and long hours. It was the kind of job that nobody wanted but had to do in order to live in the environment they were in. Although some people died working in the garment industry because of the lousy conditions. The job required ...

This is a preview of the whole essay