Kehilat Middlesbrough Newsletter No 12 November 2001

Ed note: Teesside Archives hold copies of the Marriage Registers detailing the marriages solemnized at the Middlesbrough Synagogue (Brentnall Street and Park Road South) from 1871 to 1957. We asked for copies to put on to our website. Teesside Archives recently sent us the following by email.

We have finally had a reply from The Registrar General on the above.

The upshot of the letter is that it is not permitted, for the following reason. Information from marriage registers is only available in the form of a certificate, which is intended for limited distribution: the internet is clearly not limited!

Please follow up the following if you are interested to do so:

susan.henstock@ons.gov.uk. She is our contact at The Registrar General's Office

http//www.hmso.gov.uk/guides.htm. Guidance Note 7 relates to the copying of certificates

I hope this is not too disappointing for you, at least you know where the registers are kept

Best wishes

You might like to have some local news.

The Shul is up for sale again. The organisation that bought it did not get the support from the local authority to enable the Youth Centre to keep going. Bids have gone in from various interested parties. Of course it is nothing to do with us now but all so sad.

The Anne Frank Exhibition opened in Hartlepool on 11 October 2001 . Karen Adams has arranged it. We have been working on a new Teachers pack to go with it. My sister Betty Levinson has helped with a section on the Hartlepool Congregation. She still goes round lecturing on Judaism in Hartlepool. I have to do the same on Teesside - there is nobody else.

I got some wonderful letters from children the other day. One wrote that if I changed my religion next year she would like me to come again. Another wrote that she would like to join the Jewish religion. Both were girls aged 7. They seem to find my video (Tour of the Shul) quite interesting..

We had an unusual Passover. In addition to family I had a Scottish Presbetyrian and his Lutheran wife. Last year was more incredible-25 Roman Catholics.

Unfortunately as there are so few of us I get involved with Radio Cleveland when the Festivals come round. I find that I am learning a lot in the process.

David Simon

Middlesbrough

I'm Bernard Reubens, son of the late Eve (Goldstein) Reubens and great nephew of Miriam and Benny Goldstein.

My brother, David and I are both still here in Middlesbrough, David in Nunthorpe and myself in Ormesby.

How the years have flown. The shul is back up for sale already! From the outside it just looks the same - only a little weathered.

My wife and I recently ran a business "Busy hands ceramics" for 3 years at The Southlands Business Centre, teaching classes of adults and children in Arts and Ceramics. Unfortunately we had to close the business due to lack of funds mainly caused due to the closure of the steel industry and the foot and mouth epidemic (the craft shows were cancelled). But I now work at Holmwood Primary School for learning & behavioral problems as a teaching assistant and Artist in residence. It's a very interesting position.

I have just completed my largest piece ever, a mural of Saltburn to Captain Cooks Monument 28ft x 9ft.

I am also called upon to give talks on Judaism in local schools. I have probably learned more about the religion in the past few years than ever I did in the many years of chedar!!

At present I am trying to get info on my family tree for my children. I have all the information on the Reubens side, but I need the info on the Goldstein /Goldberg side. I have found out that our family name should have been Rivolsky, as my Lithuanian great great grandfather couldn't speak English. When he arrived in a travelling circus and was asked his name, told officials that his 2nd name was Reuben. It was indeed as his full name was Isaac Reuben Rivolski. He set up a slipper factory in Dundas Mews Middlesbrough, and evidently helped the Goldstein family

Middlesbrough

Travelling through Lithuania now after completing a mural for the new Jewish museum in Vilnius due to open 23 September 2001.

Very mixed feelings, but I found my great grandfather’s old house site in Zagare and my great grandmother’s savings book. She was Dorah Nurak nee Cohen from Seduva.

There is so much I never knew about all this!

Carole Smollan