In 1958 Cardiff was due to host the British and Empire Commonwealth Games and the Council realised that an Olympic size pool would be needed. A site on the banks of the River Taff was chosen and the County Surveyor approached Rabbi Rogoznitzky of the Cardiff United Synagogue, suggesting a mikvah be incorporated into the new Wales Empire Pool.
Mikvah at the Wales Empire Pool, 1959.
Image credit Cajex: Magazine of the Association of Jewish Ex-service Men and Women (Cardiff), September 1959, p. 82.
The cost was initially to be borne by the Corporation but with rising expenditure the community were eventually asked to contribute; Councillor Leo Abse playing a prominent part in the fund raising. When the
mikvah was finally opened, in April 1958, a plaque commemorating the event was unveiled including the names of the main contributors: Victor Freed, Harry & Abe Sherman and S.F. & W Stern.
However, despite this success the actual practice of this religious cleansing was rapidly beginning to wane. When a new synagogue was built in Penylan, in 1955, the building did not contain a mikvah. In 1998, the year before the Empire Pool was demolished to make way for the Millennium Stadium, the mivkah there had only been used on fifty-four occasions, with those being mostly by visitors and not the local community.
Yet it raised a problem for the remaining religious Jews of the Cardiff community, particularly as married Rabbis were less inclined to move to the city without access to a mikvah. Rabbi Ives eventually agreed to take the post provided a mikvah was installed within 2-3 years. As this eventually seemed unlikely one was created from the Ladies cloakroom.
