Birmingham can still have a bright Jewish future, believes the community’s chronicler

But the synagogue that occupies a special place in the book and in her heart is still standing, the now grade II*-listed Singers Hill, founded 170 years ago, of which her family have been “members forever”.

Her parents married there, as did their parents, and so did she and her husband Leon, who hope to celebrate their diamond anniversary next year.

They met at one of the dances at the Cotton Youth Institute adjoining the synagogue, where “we did the twist and hippie hippie shake every Sunday night” to bands like Carl Wayne & the Vikings and the G-Men.

She traces the religious, social and working life of the community from the days when collectors went round and knocked on doors to gather synagogue dues, and members who were found to be trading on Shabbat were deemed ineligible for a mitzvah until they paid a penitential levy.

Gradually, the community’s welfare and educational infrastructure developed, including a Hebrew school before the current King David, where the teachers were “I don’t want to say sadist, but they were very strict and used the cane more than the chalk”.

To piece together the past, she acknowledges her debt to “a wonderful lady called Zoe Joseph, who's no longer with us, who, many, many years ago, started to collect some of this stuff. And I was lucky I was working [as an administrator] at Birmingham University and someone had her book and her paperwork and I was able to utilise some of that research.

“I also used a lot of what I call witting testimony, my own memories, which are always… truer than anything you can read in a history book.”

Her text is interspersed with novelistic vignettes which draw on her family history to recount what life was like, such as revisiting the journey of a 14-year-old boy sent by his father to escape the hardships of Lithuania to seek a better future with relatives in England. The boy was her paternal grandfather, and her pen name is an anagram of his surname, Olswang.

The community’s forefathers would “trundle their wooden carts with their homemade goods into the Bull Ring” to sell, she recalled. “Gradually, as they made a bit more money, they diversified a bit. So you started to get, a century later, jewellers and bootmakers and capmakers.”

But she was particularly interested in the role Birmingham Jews later came to play in the entertainment industry. Oscar Deutsch opened his first Odeon in 1930 in Birmingham.

Once estimated at 10,000, Birmingham Jewry dropped to around 6,000 in the 1960s – the latest Census put the population at 1,700 in 2021. She recalls the unsuccessful merger talks that took place in 2004 between Singers Hill and the other main Orthodox synagogue in the city, Central.

Interior of Singers Hill Synagogue (Photo: JCR-UK)[Missing Credit]

“There was absolute mayhem at those merger talks. I was actually someone who stood up and spoke, obviously, for Singers Hill. I got quite a lot of brickbats from people who were on the other side.”

A proposal to move to Central’s premises did not go down well with the Singers Hill faithful. “If you were to see it, it's the most amazing place.

Beautiful, with all the pillars and the stained glass. We can't imagine why anybody would want us to leave there and go to a small modern place that is refurbished.”

Yet, the magnificence of the building was not matched by the style of worship, which she characterised as a “drab traditionalism”.

Her childhood memory of the synagogue was of being “a bit fearful because there were all these men in black top hats and stern-looking faces”.

But the appointment of an energetic Chabad rabbi, Yossi Jacobs, as chief minister and his rebbetzin Rochel in 2007 has changed the congregation for the better, in her view.

“We’d never installed a young rabbi before; they were always old. There was this young man who brought over his American wife and we'd never seen that before.

“Everybody had seen rebbetzins who were in dark clothes and very serious. All of a sudden, you've got this glamorous woman – very glamorous, but strictly Orthodox, and I'd never seen that before

“She's now got eight children and they're all beautifully dressed, beautifully well-behaved. They're the most wonderful family, and they've changed the atmosphere at Singers Hill almost overnight. It’s a pleasure to go.”

Despite the demographic downturn, she is far from ready to talk about managing decline. Singers Hill has been there since 1856 – “We’ve done it this long, so we hope it can continue.

“What we need to do is to persuade young families who are perhaps living in an area where the accommodation is way too expensive because they can get much cheaper places to live in Birmingham. I think that would be the major carrot.”

Cover of 'And the walls sang' (Photo: The Book Guild)[Missing Credit]

She wrote the book, she explained, “because, for me, history has to be written down so that it's available for the next generations. It mustn't die with us”.

But there was also another reason, which was illustrated more recently by the hostile comments she received when she posted something on Facebook about the pro-Jewish singer Boy George. “You've got to show people that we're good people. They’ve picked up all this propaganda which is wrong.

“I can't sing like Boy George, but I can write. And if what I've written changes one person's view of the Jewish people, then it'll be a good thing.”

And the Walls Sang, Olga Swan is published by The Book Guild