The Making of ‘Manchester House’

On Sunday 14 June 1964, Alderman Abraham Moss, among the greatest of the grand panjandrums of mid-20^th century civic and Anglo-Jewish affairs, was elected as the President of the Board of Deputies of British Jews.

Bronze bust by Bruno Schotz

A week later, he was dead.

A textile merchant by trade, Moss’s extraordinary political and communal career had ridden the coattails of the age of deference and, similar to other leaders like Nathan Laski and Labour MP Sir Barnet Janner (Lord Janner), had wielded an eye-watering amount of personal power and prestige.

Fifty-five years later there is scant mention of him in public, save any reference to the Mancunian institutions that still bear his name. Indeed, even the Halle Concert Trust Fund established in his honour in 1976 was deregistered as a charity in 2004 as it had long ceased to exist.

However, there is renewed interest in the former Lord Mayor of Manchester and his contemporaries – not in Manchester but in Israel – where next week an event at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem  will mark the efforts he and many others made towards  the establishment of ‘Manchester House’, known formally as ‘The Einstein Institute of Mathematics’.

Suri (Barbara) Ordman, an immigrant from Manchester and a prime instigator of the event, explains that her interest was sparked after her son, Boaz, a PhD student at the university. noticed a sign to the building.

She says: “Curious, he went inside and there on the wall was a plaque with the names of the donors.  He forwarded a photo of the plaque to me.  It was like going down memory lane.  Most of the names conjured up well known Manchester faces from a generation ago.  It appears that Manchester House was inaugurated in 1957, four years after a plot of land near to the-then new Knesset (Israel Parliament), was designated for the construction of the second Hebrew University campus”.

The evening, to include a ceremony honoring the original donors, will be addressed by Professor Eli Lederhendler, a US-born modern historian at H U who will trace Manchester’s connection to the establishment of the State of Israel via figures like its founding president Dr Chaim Weizmann.

The event is on Sunday 7 July at Manchester House in the university’s Givat Ram campus (6.30-8.30. p.m.). Entrance is free.

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The title of this piece deliberately echoes that of the best-known work by the late Bill Williams, the popular non-Jewish historian of Manchester Jewry.

© Natalie Wood (28 June 2019)