At 79 years old, Anthony Morris is the last trustee of the Jewish cemetery in Brynmawr.

Originally there were three men on the burial board, the retired solicitor explains, but, in what is sadly a growing occurrence in the ageing Jewish community in Wales, one has died, and the other has moved to Israel.

Now, living 150 miles away in London, he is the only one left.

But for him, keeping a connection to the place which holds so much of his ancestry remains an important part of his life today.

“It’s sentimental,” the retired solicitor answers thoughtfully, when asked why he keeps his role going.

“I’m looking for someone to take it over from me as I’m approaching 80 and as much as I want to go on forever I don’t know if I can.

“I have asked my son if he would take it over but he also lives in London and I don’t know anyone locally.”

Perched on top of a hill overlooking the Blaenau Gwent town, the cemetery is now maintained by the local authority.

(Image: Richard Swingler) (Image: Richard Swingler)

All the gravestones except one point the same way, allowing those buried there to lie with their feet pointing towards Jerusalem.

According to Anthony, it is thought that the one gravestone breaking the tradition belongs to a woman who died in mysterious circumstances.

Sadly, the prayer house once there has been removed due to anti-social behaviour, and replaced by a shelter to allow respite from the wind when a burial takes place. If there is one.

“My role is just a figurehead,” the grandfather-of-16 and great-grandfather-of-12 explains.

“If there was a problem with the cemetery, if there was vandalism, the trust would have to come out of hiding and do something about it but we are nominal

“[Former trustee] Gerald Robinson used to deal with it if anyone wanted to be buried there but I don’t think anyone has been buried there for quite some years.”

Dotted across the south Wales valleys, cemeteries such as the one at Brynmawr are only one way of quantifying just how big the Jewish population once was.

While many towns had their own synagogue, most have now been converted, left derelict or simply re-built.

Wales disappearing Jewish communities: Slide the fader left

In 2016, the once striking synagogue in Merthyr Tyfil was put up for sale for less than £300,000 after ending its life as Christian community centre, and later a gym.

In Swansea, the old synagogue on Christina Street is now a Welsh language book shop.

Underneath the ground floor is an area where Jewish women once used to bathe, while the alley behind served as the site where chickens were prepared in the Kosher way.

Now, thanks to an unprecedented oral history project by the Jewish History Association of South Wales (JHASW), the stories of the families at the heart of such places have been brought to light once more.

Video: The memories of Jews who grew up in Wales

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By 1918 the Jewish population of Wales had reached around 6,000 people.

Between 1881 and 1914 anti-Semitic pogroms, persecution and economic hardship had seen mass migration from Tsarist Russia.

Then, between 1933 and 1939 more Jews fled to the UK from Nazi-controlled territories to escape persecution.

At the time, common stories passed down the generations tell of ancestors arriving in Wales, believing it to be America after being missold tickets.

Of those, many have unimaginable tales to tell - including Anthony’s own grandfather.

Speaking from his London home, he said: “My father’s father went to Warsaw to be an apprentice to a watchmaker and the watchmaker’s son was called up to the Polish Army.

“When he came back his hands were hard and calloused and he wasn’t able to deal with the tiny precious metals. He hung himself.

“My grandfather decided he wasn't going to do that and got smuggled out of Russia [in about 1900] travelling by night and sleeping in barns by day. He got shipped to Hamburg I think, and caught a boat to London.

“He walked straight to the east End in London and got a job with a watchmaker.

“After a year or so, the business went bankrupt and my father went out to Ebbw Vale. He saved up some money, came to London to buy old clocks and watches and took them to back to repair them.”

(Image: JHASW)

(Image: JHASW) (Image: JHASW)

Like many Jews arriving in Wales at the time, Anthony’s grandfather made an income by peddling before saving enough to settle down and open his own business.

Now owned by a different company, the original clock still hangs on the shop wall on Bailey Street in Brynmawr as a tribute to the tobacconist, jewellers and sweet shop once so central to the town.

Run by the businessman right until his death, his story is one of a man fully integrated into Valleys life.

Anthony said: “Even in the time I remembered him my grandfather lived at the top of the hill in on Harcourt Road and would go to the shop in the morning, work until 12.50pm, shut up shop and the bus would wait for him on Market Square to take him back up.

“After lunch he would come back to the shop to his comfortable chair in the back room and have a snooze. If people wanted him they would come wake him up, that’s what business was like in the valleys.”

(Image: JHASW)

(Image: Anthony Morris)

Among the tales from the Welsh man’s family history, however, are some memories, and characters, not typically associated with the south Wales industrial age.

By 1901, the Jewish population of Brynmawr had grown so quickly that a synagogue had opened on Bailey Street.

For Anthony, passed down within his family, there was the story of one man who would faint, like clockwork, during the afternoon of the annual 25-hour fast to mark the Day of Atonement.

Every year, the congregation would get a chair and a bucket of water ready for the inevitable, despite his protestations that it wouldn’t happen again.

Then there was local figure Icky, or Isaac Isaacs, who give children Anthony’s father’s age threepence every year for visiting the synagogue on the anniversary of his parents’ deaths - affording those from Brynmawr an extra two mornings off school.

Anthony said: “I remember I was there for Passover in Brynmawr and going to the synagogue which was lit by big gas lamps.

“In my father’s day there was quite a big community but it gradually declined so by the 1950s or 60s it had ceased.

“I married in 1964 and I came back [to Brynmawr] a couple times after that and it was becoming less and less.”

(Image: Collect unknown)

In 2019, there are only three synagogues in south Wales.

One remains in Swansea, while one orthodox and one reform synagogue survive in Cardiff.

The Kosher butchers have long shut down and deliveries come from London to Cardiff only once every two weeks.

While there was once a time where Jewish families lived in the valleys in their dozens, today there is no functioning community left.

According to Klavdija Erzen, project manager at JHASW, there is no one reason for the decline over the years.

She said: “[With] the mines were closing down there was less economic prosperity, so that’s when some people would be forced to close their shops.

“There was also a change in occupation as first generation Jews would be peddling and selling goods but they didn’t want the same for their children.

“They wanted them to be a lawyer or doctor. Education was of paramount importance so they would sacrifice everything for their child to go to school. Some doctors would return to set up practices but very often the nature of the occupation meant that people would settle elsewhere and not come back.”

Originally from Merthyr, Cardiff accountant Stephen Hamilton knows better than most how things have changed over the years.

Now a member of the orthodox synagogue in Cyncoed Gardens, his family were quite literally at the heart of the community in its heyday - through both the best and worst of times.

In 1848, Merthyr became the first place to boast an established synagogue in the south Wales valleys.

By 1939, there were 175, in 1959, there were just 40 and in 1999, George Black “the last Jew in Merthyr”, died aged 82.

Stephen, 65, said: “My father’s grandfather came from eastern Europe, Belarus, I think at the turn of the century.

“All I know was that his name was Himmelstein and during World War One the police came to him and basically said with such a German-sounding surname we think you had better change it.

“His grandfather asked what do you suggest and it was the policeman who said Hamilton.

“He was an optician, jeweller and was a magistrate. He was doing all three at the same time. I can remember as a young kid when he was approached, it was a big honour.

“My dad was the local GP and his brother was the local chemist.”

Aberfan

The events of October 21, 1966 will be a day the people of Wales will never forget.

Like everyone else living near Aberfan at the time of the disaster, Stephen remembers exactly where he was when the news hit.

The father-of-two said: “A lot of people caught up were former patients [of my father], so he went up there on the Friday because he had heard that the headmistress had been brought out alive, which sadly was not true.

“At the end of the day all he could do was help identify bodies. I went up with him.

“I was just sitting in the car for what seemed like an age, not knowing what he was doing. I had this terrible fear that it had collapsed again.

“My grandfather’s brother was also a local solicitor, but more importantly he was the coroner at the time.

“He was the one who decided that the cause of death was accidental death. There was an outcry that it was not death by murder.”

(Image: JHASW)

In the time that Stephen was growing up, it was becoming clear that the Jewish community in Merthyr was beginning to fade. In youth clubs, or in Sunday school, there would only be a handful of children, compared to “scores” over in Cardiff.

At age 10, his parents made the decision to move to Cardiff, to be nearer other young families like his.

There, his father found a role as the doctor for Cardiff City, and the friendship of kit manager Harry Parsons.

Stephen, who is now part of the Chevra Kadisha organisation that prepares Jewish bodies for burial, said: “My father became a doctor for the team in 1965 and in those days Cardiff City played a lot in Europe.

“In the late 60s, early 70s, they played in Moscow. At the time there were thousands and thousands of Jewish people who wanted to get out of Russia and were denied a lot of basic stuff.

“They concocted this plan to get these great big wicker containers and create false bottoms to hide jeans and Jewish prayer books.

“The surreptitiously had secret meetings with these people and handed them over. Harry always said if he was caught he would end up in the salt mines.”

(Image: WalesOnline/Rob Browne)

Alongside Stephen, fellow Merthyr boy Mervyn Joseph has a better idea of what it was like to be one of the few Jewish families left.

While his family also took the decision to move to Cardiff, he remembers the struggle to get enough men in the town together for minyan - a quorum of 10 men needed to worship in synagogue.

Mervyn, 81, said: “A lot of people like my grandfather...they didn’t really know where they were going. They were sort of scattered in Wales, Bargoed, Brynmawr and places like that.

“Some thought they were going to America and ended up in Pontypridd.”

As a child, Mervyn’s memories of Merthyr life are vivid. Looking back, he describes in detail running down the street chasing a turkey he had the responsibility of taking to slaughter.

(Image: WalesOnline/Rob Browne)

The grandfather-of-two said: “In Merthyr when I left in the mid 1950s there were probably, I’m not sure, but no more than about 40 Jewish people.”

“I went on a regular basis to the synagogue. For a full service you have to have a quorum of 10 so people like myself would, as soon as we became 13, became a very useful member.

“I would go with my friends and the minister at that time but if they couldn’t get 10 people they would send me and my friends down into town - there were Jewish chemists, furniture shops, opticians - to go round them up.

“Eventually, it ended up without a minister. There was still a certain number of Jewish people left in the town without a synagogue.

“The last Jewish person or so I understand in Merthyr was a barber and that was 20 years ago, maybe more. He moved away when he was in his 80s.”

Now also a member of Cardiff United Synagogue, he added: “The one thing that really stands out looking back to my Merthyr days was that the Jewish people really took part and were very much an active part of the community.

“When you think about it, even in the early days in Merthyr there were probably no more than 40 families but each one were very much part of the working of the town. There was three doctors, two pharmacists. Proportionally, it was huge.”

(Image: WalesOnline/Rob Browne)

Among more than 70 oral histories painstakingly compiled as part of the JHASW project, memories of anti-Semitism are thankfully rare.

While the accounts depend on memory and interpretation, established Jewish communities in places like Swansea, Pontypridd and Tredegar flourished.

However, for those like Anthony Morris, family memories of the so-called anti-Jewish riots of 1911 live on.

Anthony recalls: “My father was born in 1908 and remembers the riots. He said he was sent out of the house to the maid’s house - all Jewish children were sent out.

“All the shops were boarded up but it stopped just outside Brynmawr.

“My grandmother’s father had a shop in Tredegar which apparently was badly looted. Apparently he had a stroke as a result of the damage.”

On one August night in 1911 a crowd of around 200 young men and women took to the streets in Tredegar, marching into the town’s thoroughfares.

Newspaper reports at the time suggest the group’s first port of call was to “attack” a Jew’s residence in Salisbury Street and “terrify” its occupants.

(Image: Getty Images) (Image: Getty Images)

Since then, debate about the true motive for the unrest continues, with suggestions it may have been aimed at landlords instead.

While Jewish historian professor Geoffrey Alderman describes the events as “anti-Jewish”, others do not.

Anthony said: “The problem was that landlords were turfing people out of their houses when they couldn’t pay rent and they resented that.

“They were the ones that rioted and it so happens that the landlords were Jewish..which is why it became known as anti-Jewish.”

Out of those who have shared their stories, perhaps no-one has done more to promote education and understanding of Jewish communities than Swansea’s Norma Glass.

As well as a 40-year member of women’s volunteer organization Soroptimist International, the mother-of-two and interior designer has also spent time as the Board of Deputy representative (the only democratically elected, cross-communal, representative body in the Jewish community) and works with Race Council Cymru and Community Security Trust.

(Image: www.adrianwhitephotography.co.uk)

At one point, as part of her involvement with Swansea peace organisation Peace Mala, Norma welcomed 300 pupils every day into the synagogue to improve relations between Jewish and non-Jewish communities alike.

Sadly, in 2002, it was on one of those days that she made the gut-wrenching discovery that someone had vandalised the now only Jewish synagogue on Ffynone Street.

Of all the hundreds of years of Jewish history in Swansea, however, she is keen to stress that such an incident is far from the norm.

Speaking from her Sketty home, Norma said: “They integrated very, very well. They call Swansea a city of sanctuary now but it was always a welcoming city. In fact Jewish people couldn’t carry anything but their education with them and weren’t allowed land so most did go into business.

“Down in Wind Street in the core of the city they had a synagogue at the back of someone’s house and had a jewellers shop, a pawn shop. They became very important to city life.”

(Image: www.adrianwhitephotography.co.uk)

Recalling the vandalism, she added: “For 50 years I’ve been and in and out of schools, I used to have 300 children a day come into the synagogue. They came from all over Wales because I was the only Jewish person that did it.

“One day I went along to talk to a group and when I got there, it was awful, awful. It was all on the walls, f*** the Jews and a Terezin sign (concentration camp), so it was people who knew they were doing.

“I always had one scroll out that was slightly damaged so I could use it to show children. They took it out of the ark, did their business and tried to set fire onto it. I’ve always believed in dousing flames not putting oxygen on so if there’s anything [like that] I don’t give a reaction.”

Now 80 years old, Norma can only be described as a powerhouse. Barely passing five foot in height, she is quick on her feet to busy a tray of tea and coffee before sitting down to chat.

Her attitude, it seems, is something she shares with her grandmother, a remarkable woman on every front.

(Image: www.adrianwhitephotography.co.uk)

Norma said: “[My grandmother] was the only Jewish farmer in the country, a woman farmer. You can see on the milk bottles they had, M Wyman, proprietor of the first TB-tested herd in the country

“She was a man among men. When I think about it now she would get up at 5am and be there milking the herd with the men and they would be frightened of her.”

Originally from Lithuania, Norma’s grandmother was called over to Wales in what can only be described as an unusual matchmaking affair.

After escaping the Russian army where he would otherwise be conscripted for life, Norma’s grandfather had found himself in Wales, and from there directed to help a struggling widower with her shop in Penrhiwceiber.

But after falling in love, he was told that the woman’s sister would be a more sensible match instead - and Mary was duly sent from her home to Wales to meet him.

(Image: www.adrianwhitephotography.co.uk)

Norma said: “My grandfather never stopped moving of thinking and moving and said to my grandmother one day that he had bought a farm in Caereithin, north of Swansea.

“It was tenanted and they went to have a look at it. She was appalled by the state of the animals and said they would live there for six weeks to sort it out.

“Well those six weeks ended up a lifetime and that’s how she ended up running it. My grandfather, who wasn’t a farmer, built some houses on the land and they had Stars of David on the front, above the bay window. I think there’s still one or two that are still there.”

With a Jewish cemetery dating back to 1768, Swansea boasts the oldest Jewish community in Wales.

But for Norma, growing up as the only Jew in her area her childhood was not quite the same as others in the city.

With a wicked smile, she explains: “You know [the saying] the only gay in the village, well I was the only Jew in the village.

“The house that my grandfather designed [for us]...he decided he wanted it to be like a home in Israel with a flat roof. I was known as the one with the Jew’s house. It had a lot of leaks!”

(Image: www.adrianwhitephotography.co.uk)

After a quick pause, she adds: “We were the only Jewish people in what was a very poor area in those days.

“I was in school with a lot of children, some of them who really didn’t have shoes or if they did they weren’t their shoes and of course I was looked after so well.

“When it rained, my parents, who were very good parents, would give me wellingtons and a mackintosh.

“As soon as I got to the first puddle in the road I would swish the wellingtons through the water and drag the mac so I was soaking wet. When I arrived in school, the teacher would tell anyone who as wet to come and sit by the fire so I could be like everyone else and sit around the fire.

“I felt very Jewish in my home, but when I was with my friends I wanted to be like them I suppose. And there was that difficult time when they were all talking in November, December about what they were going to have for Christmas.

(Image: www.adrianwhitephotography.co.uk)

"Fortunately I was born in December which was perfect so I learnt to say what I wanted to have or the things I was expecting for my birthday and I never let on that it wasn’t Christmas."

In 2009, shortly before his death, Norma’s husband Martin gave the Jewish community in Swansea a legacy which will continue for years to come.

Thanks to his hard work, their base in Ffynone Street was sold to the LifePoint Church, on the arrangement that one room inside could continue as a synagogue for the 30 or so that still attend.

Norma explains: “My husband predicted [the Jewish community] would only be around for another five to seven years but it’s been 10 years since he sold the synagogue and we are still going, but it is coming to and end.

“[The synagogue] was a white elephant for the number we were but the LifePoint church are brilliant. It’s an example of the best of race relations.”

(Image: Google)

In Cardiff, Stephen and Mervyn estimate that the population has dropped from 3,000 families in its height to no more than 300 people now.

Whereas those in the valleys would visit Cardiff to socialise, Mervyn’s granddaughter now goes to Manchester or London to meet new Jewish people through youth clubs and groups.

And while Stephen and his family try and support the Kosher deliveries in Cardiff, there is no denying the ease of getting the essentials while visiting his family in London, and the luxury of picking his own meat from behind the counter.

Reflecting on the community in Merthyr, Stephen said: “It’s sad, obviously, but it’s a fact of life and sadly Cardiff is going that way but we try and put a positive slant on it. People love Cardiff when we have visitors.

“I don’t want to give the impression that we are insular. A lot of our friends are Jewish but we have non-Jewish friends here as well.”

Over the last two years, Klavdija and her team at the JHASW have heard the stories of 72 Jews from across Wales. Since that time, seven people have died - proving just how instrumental their work has been.

Rather than lamenting what has been lost, however, she believes the research is also an opportunity for celebration.

(Image: WalesOnline/Rob Browne)

The project manager said: “We want to present how rich Jewish lives and heritage are, and what they have contributed to Welsh society.

“Many people have very traditional images of Jewish people, what they are supposed to look like and supposed to do and a lot of stories that we collected would probably be a surprise.

“We have stories of amateur theatre, we have businessmen who brought trade from Japan. It’s much more than just not driving on a Sunday or having a kippah.

“Many things make you laugh and make you cry...and it’s about sharing that with the wider public outside the Jewish community and enabling them to learn about Jewish life, work, and its part in the Welsh landscape.”

As part of the Voices and Images of the south Wales Jewish Community project, JHASW is hosting a major touring exhibition across south Wales.

Thanks to funding from the National Lottery Heritage Fund, The Jewish Historical Society of England, and donations from individuals , the exhibition will launch at Neath Library on June 17.

For more information, and a full list of touring dates, go to: https://www.peoplescollection.wales/users/31091

You can also follow the JHSAW on their Twitter account here.