These pages consist of a script for a Yom Kippur sermon delivered by Rabbi Dr Charles Middleburgh at Cardiff Reform Synagogue on 2 October 2006. The sermon opens with the rabbi's remark that that that year's Yom Kippur falls on his own fiftieth birthday. Throughout the sermon he reflects on his own life and profession, how the community has changed throughout his rabbinic role and the reawakening of spirituality.

The Cardiff Reform Synagogue was founded in 1948 as the Cardiff New Synagogue. The following year, it became a constituent member of the Movement for Reform Judaism. Born in reaction against the more restrictive traditions of the Orthodox Judaism of Cardiff Hebrew Congregation, such as the prohibition of driving on the Sabbath and the ban on interfaith marriages, the new Synagogue appealed to the immigrants who had fled the war-torn Europe, where the Reform movement was already well-established. The congregation worships in a converted Methodist Chapel on Moira Terrace they acquired in 1952.

Sources:
'The History of the Jewish Diaspora in Wales' by Cai Parry-Jones (http://e.bangor.ac.uk/4987);
JCR-UK/JewishGen (https://www.jewishgen.org/jcr-uk/Community/card1/index.htm).

Depository: Glamorgan Archives.