 Click to Enlarge PERCY STERN:
I joined the Leeds Jewish Institute (to give it its proper title) in 1947. At that time the Secretary was Mr Barnett who was later succeeded by the late Monty Klugerman.
I can recall a wealth of characters the like of which we shall never see again. Velf Priceman who was one of the founders and a wonderful supporter of the Board of Guardians (now the Welfare Board) would be there on a Sunday morning with his wonderful poems, Claude Wolfson with his amazing pranks, Ted Saunders the Chairman, a first class gentleman who was also Chairman of the Kosher Kitchen for Hospitals, Morris Landey who brought the meat for the Sunday morning sandwiches, Ruffkie Cramer a legend in charitable fundraising, Sammy Saffman who was Chairman of the limited company that operated the club who was later succeeded by his son, the late Leonard Saffman and the ever present Bob Teeman and Syke Wolfe who virtually lived there.
Regrettably all of the above are no longer with us.
This was a mens club and the main daily activities centered round the billiard room and card room. There was also a table tennis room. The marker in the billiard room was Simie Hart – a character in his own right. I soon became a member of the snooker team which played in the Leeds and District Billiard League, the other teams being mainly Catholic club teams with whom we had a very good relationship. Amongst those who played in the team were Manny Aigin, Bobby Marks, Gerry Godlove, Mo Bellman, Shim Pleiner – all of whom are no longer with us, together with Arnold Morris, Jerry Bird (who is still playing) and myself.
In the card room the games played were Solo and Bridge. I remember Harold Franklin, Irving Manning, Eric Newman, Joe Bloomberg, Ronnie Dorsey and Leonard Saffman – all top bridge players being regular attendees there. I am sure that there are a multitude of other regulars who your readers will remember but I cannot recall.
Here again with, I am pleased to say, the exception of Eric Newman, they are no longer with us, and, while I do not want to turn these memories into a eulogy, I think that many of your older readers will be pleased to remember names from what for most of us were very happy times.
Upstairs was the Jubilee Hall where the dance floor and stage provided the venue for dances and many weddings (my own amongst them). There were club dances every Sunday night and I am certain that many of your readers will say that this was where they first met (usually dancing to Charlie Marcus and his Orchestra) and fell in love with the person they later married. Numerous charitable organizations held their annual dances there, with Christmas day night being reserved for the Old Aged Home (now Donisthorpe) and New Years Eve reserved for the Kosher Kitchen for Hospitals.
The Out Yom Kippur dance was probably the best patronized of the year,
On Saturday nights in the winter there were often some of the country’s top bands such as Edmundo Ros, Sid Phillips, Harry Gold and his Pieces of Eight and Ivy Benson and her all girls orchestra.
Finally, there were outside activities in the form of flourishing rugby and soccer teams with many excellent players, too numerous to mention.
BERNARD WILLIAMS:
 Click to Enlarge When I was a young man, we had a shop down Green Road, LS9. The other street has been demolished now. It was off Regent Street, which leads right up to Beckett Street.
I went to Jubilee Hall from the age of 18 onwards. There was a window as you came in. People used to sneak in through a window if they were underage! My brother Freddy is younger than me. He was born in 1918 and was 18 in 1936 – he joined as soon as he was 18. Pre-war it was a different generation.
I used to go there and practise table tennis, as well as playing snooker and socialising. I came nearly every night to play table tennis.
 Click to Enlarge I was called up for the army on 16th October 1939. We went to Jubilee Hall on the night before for big party – my friends came to see me off. It was like a second home. Every time I came back from the army, I went there. I was on leave one Sunday night in 1942. It was full of soldiers on leave, and girls dancing. I saw my friend Manny Abrahams dancing with a girl I’d never seen before. Her name was Shirley Wolfe; we’ve now been married for 64 years! We’d both been going for years, but never met each other ‘til then. We got engaged, then married on 10th September 1944.
When we came back, my wife and I joined the Juniors Organisation for Leeds Jewish Charities. We had a fancy dress ball in 1957 or 1958. Not many people in the photograph are still living. Even when we were married and had children, we went down on Sunday mornings with them, just to socialise. Different age groups went. The other photograph was taken in the 1950s, and is of my wife, my son and I with other friends in the basement of the Institute, drawing the tombola.
 Click to Enlarge The Leeds Jewish Institute table tennis team won the Cup in 1938. I’m second from the right in the photograph. There are only two people in this photograph of the table tennis team still living – Dr Stanton and me. He is the first on the left on the front row.
I was called up in August 1939 – the furniture firm I worked for (furniture) got me a deferment because there was no war at that time. But when war was declared on 3rd September, I was called up with a few days notice on 16th October.
Social things were still going on during the war. 21-22 was the average age of the people who went. It was just routine to go there.
We had a big meeting there called AJECS – the room was full and some of the people there spoke. It stood for Jewish Ex-Servicemen’s Associations.
 Click to Enlarge When I was married, I still used to go and meet up with old friends. Table tennis was being played by people younger than I by then. I formed the Leeds Jewish Blind Society with Eric Sachs in 1960. There was a big stage show called Oy Vegas! at Jubilee Hall, which my son appeared in whilst he was a student.
It left a big gap when the Institute closed. It was a big attraction. Young Jewish people had had a place to go, but didn’t when it closed. It closed due to lack of support. My son would go to the pub instead of going to the Institute.
After the war, the Institute lost a lot of its attraction. You either went to the cinema or theatres before the war. But it was very, very popular on a Sunday.
RUTH MARKINSON:
The Jubilee Hall was formally known as the Leeds Jewish Institute.
As it was licensed premises, membership was open only to those who were 18 years and over.
I was allowed to become a member at the tender age of 17 years old, only because my late father was a contemporary of Mark Feddy.
I have a lot of bittersweet memories of that time. For instance, females weren’t allowed to walk through the bar!
Inside the building were various rooms, i.e. the blue room, the pink room and the snooker room. There was a cafeteria which sold light snacks.
Most of the time, all the rooms were occupied. The ladies committee held their meetings, and people socialised, and played cards.
There was a large ballroom, which has a stage at one end which had beautiful floor-length dark blue velvet curtains, which were often used when pantomimes took place.
A fair number of young people went to the Jubilee Hall, and went on to become engaged and later married. Some are even with the same spouses to this day!
Engagements and wedding receptions were held at the Jubilee Hall, and were catered by two well known caterers of the time.
In my latter years, I heard a rumour that the Jubilee Hall was to be demolished and went down to the site to retrieve a brick! I brought the brick back to the bungalow where we lived at the time, and placed it in the front garden. It is probably still there, but now covered with moss and weeds! But the memories linger on!
BOBBIE CAPLIN:
My first memory of Jubilee Hall is my Bar Mitzvah party there in August 1945. It was limited to three-courses that couldn’t cost more than five shillings, as rationing was still in force. There were no oranges or bananas! At the time, I lived on Hamilton Avenue, LS7. It was the centre of the Jewish population in Leeds in those days.
There was very little bombing in Leeds that year; the war had virtually finished. Most of the Bar Mitzvahs were held there, as the new synagogue (now the Northern School of Contemporary Dance) was over the road.
The big night of the year was the dance held after fasting and praying all day on Yom Kippur. I went to Jubilee Hall for the dance. I’d say more marriages were made there than anywhere else! I met a few people there myself.
Jubilee Hall was very popular, with lots of big bands of the time like Vic Lewis.
There was a big increase in the amount of entertainment; lots of big show bands played after the war. Activities at the Institute carried on during the war – the older people played snooker downstairs. You had to be 17 to go into the Institute. My parents didn’t go there; they were too busy working.
The Institute must have started in the early Thirties. I went often to see the big bands; there were lots of them, with quite a provision for all ages. Charlie Marcus and Johnny Adelstone were two of these. When I got a bit older, I went to the regular Sunday dances.
Nothing really replaced Jubilee Hall after it closed. A lot of people in the Judean Club went to Jubilee Hall. They started a bit younger there. Most of the people at the recent Judean Club reunion would have gone to Jubilee Hall in the early days. It was a good meeting place. Girls stood at one end and boys at the other; the boys were very shy.
PHYLLIS KLUGERMAN:
You had to be 17 to become a member of the Institute. Most members graduated from the Judean Club. I started going there in 1939, just before the war. My husband was the secretary for five or six years in the 1950s; he booked functions and various other things. He managed it, although there was a rotating committee with presidents.
Before the Institute was at Savile Mount, it was the Young Men’s Institute somewhere in North Street, lower down in Chapeltown. Jubilee Hall was the main function hall for weddings and other occasions. On Sunday night there was always a dance with a band, for a long time it was Charlie Marcus and his band – they were very popular. Many young people met their future spouses there; it was a wonderful meeting place. Men used to go in and have a drink on Sunday; you could play billiards and table tennis. Some volunteers worked on a Sunday night to make sure the people who came in were eligible. These included Syke Wolf, Bob Teeman and Ted Saunders.
A lot of other functions took place there - events for charity, Chanukah, children’s parties for Purim. Leeds Jewish Servicemen used to sponsor and organise them.
Sunday night was a big night. New Year’s Eve, and Yom Kippur – there was always a dance every year when it finished. Everyone knew Jubilee Hall – they went with their friends, they met boys there. It was a focal point for the single people in the community in Leeds, especially on the Sundays.
MAVIS SOLK (NÉE PORT):
 Click to Enlarge Club membership was 18 years old and over, but some friends and I joined on our 17th birthday in 1953, and told a white lie that it was our 18th!
Ballroom dancing took place most Sunday evenings for club members. Live bands played there; Charlie Marcus and his band, Johnnie Addlestone and his. After the dance finished, crowds from the club would walk down Chapeltown Road to Cantors Corner of Harehills Avenue to continue socialising. Snooker, card games and table tennis also took place during weekdays.  Click to Enlarge
Miss Jubilee Hall started in about 1956 and the event lasted a few years.
The photographs show the entrants. From memory, I think number 18 came 1st, number 3 2nd, and number 19 3rd.* The photographer was Gerald Donne; he had a studio at the bottom of Chapeltown Road.
*The winner of the 1956 Miss Jubilee Hall beauty contest was number 3, Avril Levy
BETTY GIBBS:
I went to Jubilee Hall on a Sunday night from the age of 17, between 1946 and 1948. I lived in LS17 at the time. I used to go regularly – my husband didn’t go as much, and I didn’t meet him there. There were all sorts of things going on; we had our wedding reception there, after our marriage at Newton Road synagogue.
All sorts of Jewish functions were held at Jubilee Hall, and there were big live bands like Joe Loss. Swing, rock and roll, jiving… it was always busy at the dances. Girls stood around while men came to ask them to dance.
Jubilee Hall was very nice inside; my brother had his reception there too. There was a large function room, with chairs all round the sides. We sat round at the side; it was casual. They used to have big dinner dances and tombolas on New Year’s Eve and Christmas Eve. Hundreds of people came. There were steps going up the side of the building to get to the Hall itself. It was the main attraction in those days. The ground floor was for snooker and table tennis.
BERNARD GIBBS:
I went to Jubilee Hall to see the big bands. You had to be Jewish to be a member. I remember Tito Burns and his band playing there. It was great dance music, with something big on once a month. The ballroom used to fill up with people – it was almost overcrowded. Humphrey Littleton used to play there –he’s still going! A painting of the first Jewish Lord Mayor of Leeds, Alderman Hyman Morris, hung in the foyer of the building.
We had our wedding reception there; Charlie Marcus and his orchestra played for us. He was a bandleader with his own orchestra, and was very popular with Jewish community who wanted a band for events. He was from Leeds, and was very well known. We’re celebrating our diamond wedding anniversary on 22nd December.
Stag nights were held there for men only – these were very good. We had a meal beforehand, then a cabaret reserved for men, held upstairs in the ballroom. The games rooms were open to anybody, and they had a bar down there.
FREDDY WILLIAMS:
 Click to Enlarge The Judean Club was for people up to the age of 17. Then you went to Jubilee Hall. You met people socially there. Mainly teens to people in their mid- to late twenties. I lived on Sandmore Lane at the time.
There was snooker, table tennis, dances, a bar, a whist drive and social events. The rugby team had a big following; I remember us playing in Dublin. Members of Jubilee Hall followed the rugby team. There was a football team as well. There was a snooker room at the back of the ground floor – you put your name down to play. Table tennis was in the basement.
I have happy memories of the club. They used to run a whist drive and dances. At the whist drive, if you won, you moved up to the next table. One time my wife and I were playing whist – she’d never played cards before so we didn’t move tables much that night! When we did move up to the next table many hours later, the whole rugby team cheered!
The outside of the building nowadays looks similar to what it used to in those days. The inside of the building looks completely different. There was a beautiful large ballroom upstairs on the first floor.
I started playing rugby in 1947. We used to follow the Leeds rugby team. Then we started practising on Soldiers’ Field on a Thursday and a Sunday until eventually we were entering competitions. Rugby was a big feature at the Institute.
My parents didn’t go to events at Jubilee Hall – it was mainly younger people. My parents would invite people to come round to their house to play cards, or other games.
The most memorable occasion for me was my wedding reception there; we got married in 1952. There was a ballroom, stage, and big bands. We were married at the synagogue over the road – United Hebrew Congregation (now the Northern School of Contemporary Dance).
Eventually, when the Institute closed, a club opened on Street Lane to replace it. I never went there after our marriage.
The photograph is of the rugby team before our match against Adel Post Office in 1951. We won! We played for the love of playing. We were known as the Leeds Jewish Institute Rugby League team. All the players in the photograph started in the team in 1948. The Irish team came over in 1952 – I was married by then.
The team started in a small way, with 15-20 boys practising in a field. All the rugby league teams at the time were looking for talent. Workshop competitions were held in the evenings – anyone outstanding was asked to come in for trials. We played in Headingley, Hunslet and Bramley. Clothes firms, Leeds Market, the postmen – they all used to get a rugby league team together to enter this competition. There was Busvale, a Meanwood amateur club. We played at Hull and Birmingham. Our major ground was Soldiers’ Field in Roundhay. I was in the team for the entirety.
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