My Personal Standout:

The hulking icon HMS Warrior, the world’s first iron-hulled warship, a technological marvel of her time and the pride of Queen Victoria’s fleet (HMS is short for “Her Majesty’s Ship”). This ship, built in 1860 and the fastest and most powerful warship of its era, marks the transition from wooden ships to iron vessels immune to shelling. It dominates the harbor and evokes the naval warfare that was such a crucial part of the imperial era.

Fly the Waves:

If you’re in a great hurry to get from Portsmouth to the Isle of Wight, there’s a scheduled hovercraft service — the only commercial hovercraft still in use in the world! Hovercrafts are amphibious craft that float on a cushion of high-pressure air, and this one will bump you over the 20-mile-long stretch of sea known as the Solent in just ten minutes, instead of the 50-minute voyage by ferry, which will transport your car across the water for you to use at the other end. We took the ferry, honoring the wishes of the seasick among us, and allowing us to bring along the car to explore the Isle.

British Kiddush

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he Portsmouth and Southsea Hebrew Congregation is a few minutes’ drive from the docks on a quiet street in Southsea, one of Portsmouth’s better neighborhoods. Soon after we arrive, a car draws up with Reverend Gabriel Burns and his wife, Batsheva, Londoners who come every Shabbos to host services and meals. They don’t waste time in unloading the kiddush food, all from the capital’s kosher bakeries.

A member of the synagogue ladies’ committee (the UK equivalent of a sisterhood) is helping arrange this week’s kiddush, and she keeps on top of things by phone as Batsheva Burns reviews what they’ve brought in the car.

“Where is the clotted cream to serve with the scones and jam?” she inquires.

“I don’t know — maybe they’ve packed it in with the bridge rolls?” replies Batsheva, referring to the soft white bread rolls with a slightly sweet, brioche-like crust that are popular in British cuisine for parties and afternoon teas — or, in our circles, at a kiddush, vort, or wedding reception. They’re typically halved and spread with egg mayonnaise or lox topped with cress.

It sounds like (milchig) kiddush in Portsmouth is still served in the best of British traditions.

Submerged

The Jewish community here peaked around the beginning of the 19th century, when Portsmouth Jewry took part in the economic boom of the Napoleonic wars, provisioning the Royal Navy as it rose to become a formidable military force. The ties continued through the centuries, and throughout the years, naval men and women stationed locally have come into this shul to maintain their Jewish connection.

The vestry — a room next to the synagogue where the rabbi and dignitaries used to put on their robes — sits behind the main sanctuary’s double doors. If you look at the vestry walls, which are covered with community memorabilia, that relationship is evident. On display is a plaque presented in 1945 by Jewish personnel of the US Army in deep appreciation to the Portsmouth kehillah for their welcome to those stationed here during World War II. There is also a picture of a submarine signed “Tannin” in Hebrew, dated 1959. Tannin was the very first submarine acquired by the Israeli navy, bought from the British Royal Navy and commissioned with the Israeli flag on its mast here at Portsmouth.

It was also from this city’s harbor that the doomed Israeli submarine Dakar set off on its first and final voyage. INS (Israeli Naval Ship) Dakar was a diesel-electric submarine that had been modified from its first service as a World War II British Royal Navy T-class submarine and was bought by Israel in 1965. For two years, when her crew was based in Portsmouth for training, they connected with the local Jewish community. They took their leave of friends here and received an engraved Kiddush cup as a gift before departing on their maiden voyage in January 1968, but who would have dreamed that none of the young sailors would make it safely to their destination of Haifa? The Dakar mysteriously sank and was recovered only some 30 years later, in 1999. A son of one of its sailors came to Portsmouth at that time to lead a memorial service here in the shul.

For 200 years, this tiny but affluent community punched far above its weight in the city. Portsmouth has had seven Jewish Lord Mayors and innumerable Jews on the city council. Until today, the city of Portsmouth is twinned with Haifa. In better times, groups of local teenagers went on exchange trips to experience life in Haifa.

There are still occasional Jewish sailors or staff posted in Portsmouth. Reverend Burns recalls that on a recent Shabbos afternoon stroll, he found himself sitting next to a Russian man on a bench down near the harbor. Suddenly, the hefty Russian turned to him.

“Do you mind if I smoke a cigarette?” he asked.

“Why should I mind?” replied the Reverend.

“Because you’re Jewish, and my wife lives in Ashdod, so I know Jews don’t smoke on Shabbat,” replied the sailor.

Lost at Sea:

A hand-illuminated manuscript features the text of a special Keil Malei Rachamim that is recited in the shul every Shabbos Parshas Terumah. On Erev Shabbos Parshas Terumah in Adar I 5518 (1758), 12 local Jews set off by boat from the HMS Lancaster where they were doing business, in order to arrive home for Shabbos. They were killed by a sudden storm at sea; some bodies were lost at sea and never retrieved for burial. The tragedy is memorialized with this unique prayer still recited annually in the shul.

Pomp and Circumstance

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hen you walk into the shul and take in its stained-glass windows and ornamental aron kodesh, don’t forget to look up. High on the wall of the ladies’ gallery, a balcony that wraps above the main sanctuary, there’s a unique insignia: a crest of the British monarchy, dated back to King George III (1738–1820) — and apparently presented by the king himself. Portsmouth Synagogue is the only shul in England to boast such a feature.

“The story goes that the king was once on a ship during a violent storm. He made an oath that if he survived the danger, he’d give thanks at the first house of prayer he encountered on his return,” explains Reverend Burns. When the ship docked safely at Portsmouth, the nearest house of worship was the synagogue, then located on Queen Street, which is very close to the docks. The king stopped there to offer thanks and gifted the shul with his coat of arms.

More recently, Portsmouth had its day with the media, paparazzi, and inevitable controversy when United States President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump joined members of the British royal family to visit the city in 2019 for the 75th anniversary of D-Day, when Navy warships departed Portsmouth for France to oust the Nazis.

“The whole town was sealed off completely, every road around here closed, and Trump’s security team inspected every drain,” Reverend Burns says. “The police warned locals not to even open their windows to look out.”

As a representative of the city’s Jewish community, he took a front seat at the ceremony, two rows behind the Queen and then-Prince Charles.

Octogenarian Alan Berman, a native community member who is showing us around, can’t help but compare today’s armed police cars that surround the chief rabbi on his visits to the town to the simplicity of the old days.

“When Chief Rabbi Lord [Immanuel] Jakobovits came down, I picked him up from the train station and brought him to the shul, we had a nice afternoon, and then he got on the train and went back. That was it.”

Separate Together

Portsmouth Jewry’s first purchase was land for a cemetery in the middle of a field. But by 1742, they had founded a shul in Oyster Row, right near the docks, where they held services until a proper synagogue was built in 1780 on White’s Row/Queens Street. We page through brochures and even some of the shul’s early records, which are written in Hebrew and German and mention generous charity to “our poor coreligionists in Palestine” as well as an insistence that “members lived in strict accordance with Jewish law.”

Foundation stones at the White’s Row/Queens Street site memorialize classic Jewish names such as Abraham Cohen, Benjamin Levi, and Abraham Woolfe, as well as the leading rabbis of the two branches of Jews in the country at that time, Rabbi Tevele Schiff, chief rabbi of the Great Synagogue, and Chacham Moses Cohen D’Azevedo of the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue, both in London.

In 1766, the community was torn by a serious dispute over the appointment of a new rabbinic authority in London. Portsmouth, then one of the most important of the British provincial communities, was split, as 16 members supported Rabbi Meshulam Zalman, the son of Rav Yaakov Emden of Altona, and eight senior members supported Rabbi Schiff. The majority took the sifrei Torah and removed them, breaking away to set up their own shul in a house on nearby Daniel’s Row. For 23 years, the secessionists davened on their own and even maintained their own kosher butcher store. The town’s mohel, whose records detail his 112 brissim over 45 years, belonged to this breakaway minyan.

In 1789, the secessionists surrendered and rejoined the main community, which had moved to a purpose-built synagogue in the interim. From that time, every person called to the Torah was required to make a blessing to Rabbi Schiff, and every marriage paid a fee to him as chief rabbi, in an arrangement foreshadowing the preeminence of England’s chief rabbis in later centuries.

O

ne of the town’s storied families was the Levys, well-to-do businesspeople who owned a factory producing Minibrix, an interlocking rubber brick construction toy that was a forerunner of Lego, sold worldwide before being superseded by plastic variations. They were also very strongly Orthodox, particularly one brother, who was known as “Frummer Levy.”

Frummer Levy hired a private rebbi to teach his five children, and in the 1930s, he struck gold when the melamed he hired was Rav Leib Lopian, the son of Eitz Chaim Yeshivah mashgiach Rav Elya Lopian. Rav Leib, who married Frummer Levy’s eldest daughter, went on to become the rosh yeshivah of Gateshead Yeshiva, soon joined in this position by his brother-in-law Rav Leib Gurwitz. The two roshei yeshivah became mechutanim when today’s rosh yeshivah, Rav Avrohom Gurwitz, married Rav Leib Lopian’s daughter.

When the port city was heavily bombed during World War II, many Jewish families, including the Levys, evacuated to Petersfield, just 18 miles away inland. There they took in Julius Klein, a Kindertransport child, son of the rabbi in Dusseldorf, Germany, who would stay in Portsmouth all his life and was a key community member until his passing in 2016.

Ever conscious of their influence on the community, the Levys took care not to wheel out their prams (baby carriages) on Yom Tov, so that local Yidden wouldn’t assume they were permitted to do so on Shabbos.

Rebbetzin Sarah Gurwitz, the daughter of Rav Leib and Rebbetzin Tzipa (née Levy) Lopian and rebbetzin of Gateshead’s rosh yeshivah today, was born when the family evacuated to Petersfield. One Portsmouth story that remains with her is the legend of her mother’s wedding day.

“My grandmother was a very emotional person, but she knew she mustn’t cry at the chuppah, because if she did, the people of Portsmouth would think she was crying that it had been arranged for her daughter to marry a ben Torah and a talmid chacham,” she shares. “They would think she didn’t want the shidduch with my father.”

History junkies, don’t miss:

D-Day Story, a museum right here in Southsea, Portsmouth. It recreates the D-Day landings of June 6, 1944, when British boats left from here to Dunkirk in the largest seaborne invasion in history, taking thousands of soldiers to reclaim the European continent from Germany’s hold.

Lost at Sea:

A hand-illuminated manuscript features the text of a special Keil Malei Rachamim that is recited in the shul every Shabbos Parshas Terumah. On Erev Shabbos Parshas Terumah in Adar I 5518 (1758), 12 local Jews set off by boat from the HMS Lancaster where they were doing business, in order to arrive home for Shabbos. They were killed by a sudden storm at sea; some bodies were lost at sea and never retrieved for burial. The tragedy is memorialized with this unique prayer still recited annually in the shul.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1100)