The Museum is the only place in the UK where schools are taught curriculum-based sessions inside a synagogue building (the oldest surviving synagogue building in Manchester, built in 1874).

The museum collects material which illustrates Jewish life in Manchester, past and present. Our collection contains objects relating to Jewish ritual, culture and religious life and also the home and work lives of the Jewish population of Manchester.

Our main oral history collection consists of interviews given by Jewish people living in Manchester from the late 1970’s to the mid 1980’s. The topics covered in the interviews include immigration, home and school life, work, politics, anti-Semitism, war and religion. Since the museum opened we have recorded interviews with prominent members of the Jewish community in the 1980’s and1990’s and we have also collected recording Jewish musical performances, lectures and events held in the community. We also hold many interviews with Holocaust survivors and refugees from Nazism in the 1930s.

Our photographic collection was first established during the 1970's when the Manchester Studies Unit at Manchester Polytechnic undertook an oral history project relating to the life of the Jewish Community in Manchester.