With a population of less than 30,000 people and a prime location in the heart of South Lakeland District of Cumbria, England, the market town of Kendal has a quaint charm buoyed by its distance from the United Kingdom’s large cities.
Were it not for the work of Jewish organizations 80 miles to the south in Manchester, the few Jewish residents who call Kendal home would likely find their peaceful paradise devoid of such seemingly ubiquitous items as Passover matzah and Chanukah menorahs.
Rabbi Yisrael Cohen, director of L’Chaim Outreach, a program of the Chabad-Lubavitch yeshiva in Manchester, remembers one Passover when he visited a Jewish couple living in a farm house in a remote part of the countryside around Kendal. A woman answered the front door, turned to her husband and exclaimed, referencing a custom of the Passover Seder: “Elijah the Prophet has come!”
But over the last couple of years, Jewish life in this part of England has taken on a prominence unheard of in recent memory. Following a trip by American rabbinical students Yossi Goldstein and Schlomo Yager to the town in 2007, then-Mayor Gwendoline Murfin reported to the local press than her Jewish constituents seemed to be walking taller.
Later that year, a Chanukah menorah came to Kendal, joining its annual holiday display at Castle Street Centre during the town’s first public Chanukah celebration. More than 25 people gathered as Murfin assisted rabbis from Lubavitch of South Manchester in lighting the menorah. The following year, another rabbi presided.
So began a whole series of holiday events, including a springtime Purim party with the mayor. And although the Jewish population doesn’t justify the building of its own synagogue, last Passover, about 30 people attended a community Seder led by a local resident.
Last December, the city’s Chanukah celebration was held for the first time Kendal Town Hall at the invitation of current Mayor John Anthony Bateson. A large group of Jewish residents and members of the city’s other faith groups attended the ceremony, during which a local man explained the history and significance of the holiday.
Following the ceremony, Jewish residents presented Bateson was a collection of prayer books and other Jewish volumes that had been donated by L’Chaim and the Manchester Chabad House.
“The Chanukah celebration was a great opportunity to meet members of other faiths in our community,” the mayor said in a recent interview. “This is something we’d like to see continue.”
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