Dunfermline Jewish community

The Dunfermline Jewish community was founded in 1908, although there were Jews living in the town before that. By 1911, there were over 40 Jews in the town.

In her autobiography. “My Mother’s Daughter”, Edith Ruddick described her childhood in the town:

“…The dozen or so families had their own synagogue, a small stone hall …up an open wynd in Pittencrieff Street… it was built as a small sectarian religious meeting house, either by Seventh Day Adventists or Jehovah’s Witnesses …There were the Sclars, Brodskys, Millers, Bernsteins, Segals, Ruddicks, and Greens, and at one time we had a Hodes family, and another time a Warrens family, but they came for a little while and went away.”

There was a minister – first Reverend Morris Balanow (father of the minister of Netherlee & Clarkston Synagogue), then Reverend Segal.  The children were taught in cheder, and kosher meat was available from a special department in Dunfermline Co-operative Society. In the 1930s, there was even a Dunfermline Lady Zionists group.

In 2005, a new housing complex was named after Reverend Segal.