The Manchester Jewish Representative Council has warned that communal strategy must be based on reliable demographic data, particularly for the mainstream. But there was no questioning the growth of the local Charedi community.
Introducing a panel discussion at Sunday’s meeting on the city’s changing Jewish population, Frank Baigel said that figures often quoted were based “on rumours, prejudice and hearsay”.
Former mathematics lecturer Martin Stern said data he had collated on births in the strictly Orthodox community since 1996 corroborated other data suggesting that 35 per cent of Manchester Jews were Charedi. Another panellist, Dr Yaakov Wise, predicted that up to half the city’s Jewish population would be Charedi within 10 years.
But Janis Stout — a former government consultant who has been analysing 2011 Census data on Manchester — cautioned that the impact of the growing proportion of strictly Orthodox should not be overstated.