Manchester Jewish Museum
Our Chanukah Appeal: Help Us Make A Difference
As Chanukah approaches, the whole museum team would like to wish you a peaceful holiday season and thank you for your invaluable support over the past year.
2024 has been an incredible year for our museum! We’ve connected with nearly 12,000 people from Manchester and beyond, creating special memories with visitors, schoolchildren, artists, and community members.
None of this would be possible without your support. As a charity, we rely on your visits, memberships, and donations to share the rich stories of Jewish Manchester, bring people together, and promote peace through understanding. Thank you for being part of this journey!
Read our Chanukah appeal to learn more about how you can support our work in the coming year and what exciting things we’ve got in the pipeline for 2025:
Visit Us
We are a place to experience how we are different, together.
Our museum first opened in 1984, housed in a Grade II* listed 1874 (former) Spanish and Portuguese synagogue in Cheetham Hill, one of the most diverse areas in Manchester.
Following a redevelopment and extension in 2019, our museum includes a modern gallery, vegetarian café, shop and learning studio & kitchen as well as the beautifully restored synagogue, now part of the permanent exhibition.
We are open seven days a week and tickets for general admission can be booked up to 4 weeks in advance, either online or at the museum. For group bookings please refer to our Group Bookings page here.
Our museum can be busy on weekdays when we often have schools visiting. If you would like a more peaceful visit, we would recommend visiting at weekends or after 2:30pm.
We look forward to welcoming you to our museum.
Coming Soon
Join us for a Chanukah-themed workshop to get you in the festive spirit!
Join us for fun-filled sessions of music and bonding with your loved ones at our Family Music Sessions! Open to all residents of Cheetham & Crumpsall.
Our Song-writing Group meet monthly to work with amazing composers, singers, writers and musicians to create new music and poems inspired by the stories in our collection and your own experiences. In this session we will be exploring stories connected to journeys from our collection, drawing on our own experience of personal and physical journeys to inspire our writing.
Become an MJM Member
Connect closer to our museum.
Support Manchester Jewish Museum by becoming one of our MJM Members.
For just £35 a year you will support our beautiful historic synagogue and help us to bring communities together to celebrate our similarities and our differences, and to share stories of Jewish Manchester with the world.
To become a Member click the button below or call 0161 834 9879. You can pay a one off fee, or choose direct debit to renew your membership automatically each year and continue to give vital support to the museum.
150 years of history
2024 marks the 150th anniversary of our Spanish
& Portuguese synagogue.
Designed by Jewish architect Edward Solomons and inspired by the Spanish and Portuguese origins of its members, the synagogue was opened on 6 May, 1874. It was the first Sephardi synagogue in Manchester.
Over the years the building has changed to reflect the needs of the congregation and in 1984 it was transformed into a museum.
Following our capital redevelopment project in 2019, this beautifully restored synagogue now serves as both a major museum exhibit, offering visitors a unique insight into a Manchester Sephardi Jewish history and also as a stunning performance space in which the museum hosts live cultural events, gigs, talks, shows and concerts.
DISCOVER & CELEBRATE
Join us as we celebrate our 150th anniversary with an exciting programme of events, sharing Sephardi stories from Manchester and beyond.
July 2019
February 2020
April 2020
July 2020
November 2020
March 2021
June 2021
OURS AND YOURS
Our mission
We are a place to experience how we are different, together.
Here, you can bake, sing, laugh, dance, cook, cry, get messy and make friends.
Using our collection and synagogue we connect Jewish stories, culture and traditions to the wider world. In doing so, we bring people together, showing we have more in common than what separates us.
We make connections to make things better.
OUR GROUPS
We have a growing community of artists, song-writers, textile enthusiasts, local residents and cultural and community partners.
Our community groups are a great opportunity to meet other people to share stories and cultural traditions – and we are always looking for new members.
SCHOOLS & LEARNING
Our modern building includes a fully equipped Learning Studio & Kitchen as well as an educational gallery. The fully restored 150 year old (former) synagogue provides the perfect hands-on environment for schools wishing to learn more about Jewish culture.
We are offering two half day workshops: Synagogue & Stories and Holidays & Challah. These can also be booked together as one full day, giving your students the full Manchester Jewish Museum experience, through film making, baking and exploration activities!