Glasgow Jewish Community Trust

Grant-making charitable trust for the Jewish community of Glasgow, Scotland (OSCR SC013684)

Glasgow Jewish Community Trust
Type	Charitable trust (founding document is a deed of trust)
Founded	June 1963
Founder(s)	Ephraim Goldberg, Michael (Melach) Goldberg, Sir Maurice Bloch, Samuel Ross Campbell, Isidore Walton
Registration ID	SC013684 (Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator)
Status	Active
Headquarters	Caledonia House, 89 Seaward Street, Glasgow, G41 1HJ
Area served	Glasgow and surrounding districts
Services	Grants to organisations
Registration	Scotland (OSCR)
Website	gjct.org

Glasgow Jewish Community Trust (GJCT) is a grant-making charitable trust that manages funds on behalf of the Jewish community of Glasgow and the surrounding areas, and says it has funded more than 50 organisations since it was formed in 1963. It has been on the Scottish Charity Register as charity SC013684 since 27 February 1964. Its constitutional form is "Trust (founding document is a deed of trust) (other than educational endowment)", and its main operating location is Glasgow City.

Its registered purposes are "the prevention or relief of poverty", "the advancement of education", "the advancement of religion" and "any other purpose that may reasonably be regarded as analogous to any of the preceding purposes". Its stated object is:

"To hold and to use the Funds of the Trust on behalf of the Jewish Community of the City of Glasgow and the surrounding districts for the charitable, religious and educational purposes of the said Jewish Community."

In the year ending 31 December 2025 the trust reported income of £1,592,088 and expenditure of £263,670. It has no staff and no volunteers.

The Trust gives the following description of itself:

The Trust was formed in June 1963 by Ephraim Goldberg, Michael (Melach) Goldberg, Sir Maurice Bloch, Samuel Ross Campbell, and Isidore Walton. It has however grown over the years. In 2010 the Bloch and Winocour Trusts merged with the Community Trust. In 2011 the reserves of the original Glasgow Talmud Torah and Board of Jewish Education (later known as Calderwood Jewish Education) also found a home in the Community Trust. In 2012 surplus funds held by the Glasgow Rabbinical College were transferred to the Community Trust and most recently in 2016, Habonim funds were also deposited with the Community Trust and a Habonim and Youth restricted fund was created.

There are seventeen Trustees of the Glasgow Jewish Community Trust, and they meet three times a year to consider all applications that have been submitted.

History of the trust

That's when Isaac, on behalf of the Trust, approached Matthew Dickie of house builders John Dickie and Son, which later became the John Dickie Group. Isaac already knew Matthew Dickie as when he and his brother Louis moved to Glasgow, they bought houses back-to-back to each other in Douglas Avenue and Otterburn Drive. As the street name suggests there was a burn at the bottom of their land with the surrounding area virtually a swamp. The brothers drained the ground with landfill topped off with soil which they then sold to house builders Dickie who put additional houses on it. That's how they became friends with Matthew Dickie.

So when the Trust members began to wonder about the land they now owned at Braidbar, Isaac Jesner arranged to meet Matthew Dickie at the Braidbar site. The builder liked what he saw and offered £10,000 for each acre that was able to obtain planning permission for housing. The company also undertook test borings to check what land was safe for buildings. It seemed that initial £5000 investment was going to pay off handsomely.

The road to profit though is not always straightforward. Many meetings took place with the local planning authority who initially seemed positive but then ruled after further investigation by experts that the drainage on the land was insufficient for a scheme of 100 houses.

Then three years later house builders Wimpey expressed an interest and were talking about offering £240,000 for the whole site. It was a vast sum, but Isaac told his fellow trustees to hold their nerve as he still believed it was worth far more than that. But then Wimpey pulled out of the deal. As Isaac said: "Ephie was despondent and I was delighted."

The Trust had to be patient. Another four years passed and Wimpey returned to the table. Matthew Dickie were again approached and was told about Wimpey's interest. At that Dickie's offered £84,000 for each buildable acre. The science of land reclamation over old mines had moved forward in the ensuing decades and it was now likely that more of the land could be economically reinstated and built on. Improved drainage had been installed by the council nearby which would also help with house construction on the land.

Finally, in 1986, nearly 20 years later, the first phase of Braidbar was sold. At last, the Trust could see some profit from that initial £5000 purchase all those years ago. And the profit was vast, giving the Trust the additional funds to drive forward their plans for the community.

Initially they achieved a return of £647,000 from Braidbar with another £106,000 the following year. In total, before the millennium, it eventually raised over £900,000 for the Trust which happily put it to good use helping much-needed projects, particularly in social housing. It really took the Trust to another level.

There were doubts too about what Giffnock members thought was the simplest solution - expanding the existing shul at May Terrace. Architects who looked at the site said a more costly demolition and rebuild was the only viable answer and therefore remaining was not the cheap option some had hoped for whenever they argued its case. Previously the ever-resourceful Isaac Jesner had circulated a further suggestion - building to the rear of a traditional villa, one of the oldest in Giffnock, further south on Fenwick Road named The Glen which had the attraction of having a large plot of land of over an acre to its rear, which would be a suitable site on which to build. He had told a few friends about his proposed solution which is why a phone call one morning changed everything. It was one of his friends who asked him if he had seen an advertisement that morning in the Glasgow Herald stating that The Glen on Fenwick Road was for sale at offers over £7000. Suddenly decision time was upon them if what might have been a whimsical idea was to come to fruition.

With two other members of the shul, he went to see The Glen, and more importantly its land, the following day. A brief stroll around convinced him that his initial idea that the spare ground behind the house was large enough for a synagogue was a sound one. But convincing the members of the shul could be time-consuming, as the discussions were sure to be numerous and lengthy. The immediate problem of course was that houses in desirable areas can sell quickly - there would be no time to call meetings and debate in minute detail the pros and cons of the site. So Isaac swallowed hard, and said he himself would buy it. His mantra had always been, If you want something done, just do it".

If the shul members eventually rejected the proposal, he hurriedly thought, he could always build flats or shops on the land and recoup his investment so it was not such a foolhardy endeavour that some people might assume. As he later recalled: "On my return to my office I phoned the solicitors and asked if they were in a position to accept an immediate offer of £7000. They thought the offer too low but promised to discuss it with their client.

"I had a sleepless night. At 10a.m. the next day they phoned to say the least they would take was £7250, and we finally closed the deal with our lawyer's offer in their hands the following morning. I don't think our solicitor had ever worked so fast in his life."

So, shul members, now accepting that the Tudor site was not to everyone's taste, and that remaining at May Terrace was more costly than envisaged, now looked more closely at Isaac's land behind The Glen. Of course, support was not unanimous as there were concerns that the ground would not be large enough and that there would be insufficient space for parking. Nevertheless, it was finally agreed that they would build the new shul behind the existing house at The Glen at an estimated cost of £140,000, and fund-raising began immediately. It was then the Trust was on hand to help it come to fruition, and in a way which helped not only Giffnock shul, but the Maccabi youth organisation.

Since the Jewish community had spread south of the Gorbals, raising doubts about the future of the existing three major synagogues there, shuls had been established in first Queens Park just before the First World War, then Langside, Pollokshields, Crosshill, Newlands and Clarkston, and finally Newton Mearns. But by the sixties a number of them were seeing members move even further south to Giffnock and Newton Mearns and so they began to face the pressure of falling memberships that had dogged the congregations in Gorbals. There was also a fall in regular attendance by members of the Jewish community which was not immune to the growing secular trend in Scotland as a whole. And so, they turned to the Community Trust for help.

Benefactors

The trust lists the following as benefactors since its creation.

• Ashdown Trust
• Clive Jay Berkley Foundation
• Maurice & Joseph Bloch Trust
• Calderwood Jewish Education
• Campbell Foundation
• City Site Estates plc
• Cohen Family Trust (Sheila and Denis Cohen Foundation)
• Dover family
• Harold Dykes
• Victor Fields
• Gerber family
• Ephraim and Clarisse Goldberg
• Glasgow Jewish Educational Trust
• Glasgow Rabbinical College
• Goldberg Family Charitable Trust
• Betty & Joe Kingsley Charitable Trust
• H. and E. Livingstone Charitable Trust
• Geoffrey Ognall
• Alexander Stone Foundation
• Talteg Limited
• Walton Foundation
• Westleague Limited
• Dora Winocour Charitable Trust
• Alma & Leslie Wolfson Charitable Trust

Registration and finances

• Founded: June 1963 (formed); registered 27 February 1964
• Income and expenditure: Income £1,592,088; expenditure £263,670 (year ending 31 December 2025)

The Glasgow Jewish Community Trust is registered with the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator (OSCR). Its register entry gives the following details:

• Charity number: SC013684
• Registered: 27 February 1964
• Constitutional form: Trust (founding document is a deed of trust) (other than educational endowment)
• Principal office: Caledonia House, 89 Seaward Street, Glasgow, G41 1HJ
• Geographical spread: more than one local authority area in Scotland. Main operating location: Glasgow City
• Beneficiaries: "Other charities or voluntary bodies"
• Activities: "It makes grants, donations or gifts to organisations"
• Staff: 0. Volunteers: 0

Annual returns to OSCR

Year ending	Income (£)	Expenditure (£)	Annual return received
31 December 2021	131,250	161,313	29 September 2022
31 December 2022	127,415	172,135	12 September 2023
31 December 2023	1,865,490	263,202	10 July 2024
31 December 2024	160,995	200,549	25 September 2025
31 December 2025	1,592,088	263,670	17 September 2026

For the year ending 31 December 2025, OSCR breaks income down as donations and legacies £1,316,624 and investments £275,464. It breaks expenditure down as raising funds £42,048, charitable activities £207,640 and other £13,982.

From 9 March 2026 OSCR began publishing the names of charity trustees on the Scottish Charity Register; supplying them becomes mandatory only as part of future annual submissions. In October 2026 the register entry for the trust listed eight trustees: Delia Berkley (spelt "Berkely" on the register), Gillian Quigley, Samuel Kingsley, Howard Beach, Stanley Lovatt, Adrian Jesner, Malcolm Livingstone and Mark Tenby. Gillian Quigley, the one name on the register not in the Trust's April 2024 list, sat on UJIA's Scottish Programmes Committee in 2016 alongside Adam Berkley, Paul Morron and Hazel Tenby. A Gillian Kate Quigley of Giffnock has been company secretary of Doughball (Scotland) Ltd since 2004.

Donations

1971

According to Fred Samuel Berkley Chairman circa 1971 of Hillel Foundation Glasgow, the Trust gave Hillel a grant of £2,500 and the Jewish Youth Fund in London gave a six year loan bearing 5 per cent interest for a 'similar amount'.

2016-2023

Recipients - Annual grants	2016	2017	2018	2019	2020	2021	2022	2023	Total
Friends of Lubavitch Scotland						4,000	4,500	7,000	15,500
Glasgow Jewish Representative Council	18,000	18,000	17,500	18,000	18,000	20,000	20,000	20,000	149,500
Glasgow Maccabi	18,000	5,000	5,000	5,000	5,000	5,000	10,000	5,000	58,000
Jewish Care Scotland							12,000	12,000	24,000
Jewish Student Chaplaincy Scotland						20,000	22,500	17,000	59,500
Lubavitch Foundation	4,000	4,000	4,000	4,000	6,000				22,000
Newark Care	5,000								5,000
Northern Region Jewish Chaplaincy	11,000	11,000	11,000	12,500					45,500
Scottish Council of Jewish Communities	7,000	10,000	10,000	10,000	8,000	8,000	8,000	10,000	71,000
Scottish Jewish Archives Centre	2,500	2,500		3,000		2,500	2,500	2,500	15,500
UJIA	4,000	4,000	4,000	4,000					16,000
Total	69,500	54,500	51,500	56,500	37,000	59,500	79,500	73,500	481,500
Recipients - Special grants	2016	2017	2018	2019	2020	2021	2022	2023	Total
Aberdeen Synagogue		500		750					1,250
Beatson Cancer Charity						1,000			1,000
British Heart Foundation							500		500
Clarkston Chanukah Celebration							1,250	1,500	2,750
Cosgrove / Cosgrove Care	8,000	5,000	7,500	7,500					28,000
Glasgow Reform Synagogue						10,000		1,500	11,500
Garnethill Hebrew Congregation						2,000			2,000
Garnethill Synagogue		500							500
Garnethill Synagogue Preservation Trust							5,000		5,000
The Gathering the Voices Association	2,500	2,500	2,500	2,500			2,500	2,255	14,755
Giffnock & Newlands Hebrew Congregation			1,200						1,200
Glasgow Friends of Israel			5,000						5,000
Glasgow Hebrew Burial Society	500	20,000	20,000	20,000	10,500	20,000	10,000	4,000	105,000
Glasgow Jewish Representative Society		6,300			1,000			5,000	12,300
Glasgow Rabbinical College		5,250	1,814	3,500					10,564
Glasgow Rabbinical College and Mikveh (Education)							14,000	12,000	26,000
Glasgow Rabbinical College and Mikveh (Mikveh)						4,000		20,000	24,000
Jewish Care Scotland	10,000	12,000	12,000	12,000	15,000	12,000			73,000
Lubavitch Foundation	500								500
Magen David Adom UK								25,000	25,000
Northern Region Jewish Chaplaincy	5,000	5,000	10,625						20,625
Scottish Council of Jewish Communities			1,377						1,377
Scottish Jewish Heritage Centre						1,000	1,000	1,000	3,000
Miscellaneous								1,100	1,100
Total	26,500	57,050	62,016	46,250	26,500	50,000	34,250	73,355	375,921
Restricted income funds	2016	2017	2018	2019	2020	2021	2022	2023	Total
Calderwood Lodge	2,929	2,100	3,220	1,650			500	6,100	16,499
Glasgow Maccabi				6,000					6,000
Habonim	22,000	10,000	15,000	15,000					62,000
UJIA	10,865	16,730	16,730	16,730	16,451	20,730	28,137	26,648	153,021
Prism The Gift Fund			1,000						1,000
Total	35,794	28,830	35,950	39,380	16,451	20,730	28,637	32,748	238,520
Total grants	131,794	140,380	149,466	142,130	79,951	130,230	142,387	179,603	1,095,941

Note: Data from Glasgow Jewish Community Trust Financial Statements 2016-2023.

2024-2025

Recipients - Unrestricted grants	2024	2025	Total
Calderwood Lodge		5,000	5,000
Clarkston Chanukah Celebration	1,500		1,500
Friends of Lubavitch Scotland	7,000	10,000	17,000
Glasgow Jewish Representative Council	250		250
Glasgow Maccabi	2,700		2,700
Glasgow Rabbinical College and Mikveh	18,000	22,000	40,000
Glasgow Reform Synagogue	3,201		3,201
Interfaith Glasgow	5,000		5,000
Jewish Care Scotland	15,000	15,000	30,000
Scottish Council of Jewish Communities / Jewish Council of Scotland	40,000	40,000	80,000
Jewish Student Chaplaincy Scotland	17,000	18,000	35,000
Newark Care	10,620		10,620
Scottish Jewish Archives Centre	4,000		4,000
Scottish Jewish Heritage Centre	1,000		1,000
Miscellaneous (each under £5,000)	5,304	22,711	28,015
Total	130,575	132,711	263,286
Recipients - Restricted income funds	2024	2025	Total
Calderwood Lodge	6,500	13,129	19,629
Giffnock Newton Mearns Synagogue		14,000	14,000
Glasgow Jewish Representative Council	2,500		2,500
Habonim	10,000		10,000
Jewish Council of Scotland		16,000	16,000
SJYA/UJIA	32,200	31,800	64,000
Total	51,200	74,929	126,129
Total grants	181,775	207,640	389,415

Note: 2024 figures from the itemised note 5 in the Trust's 2024 financial statements; 2025 figures from note 5 of the 2025 financial statements, which fold smaller grants into Miscellaneous and restate the 2024 SJYA/UJIA line as "SJYA". The Scottish Council of Jewish Communities and the Glasgow Jewish Representative Council merged in early 2025 to form the Jewish Council of Scotland (OSCR records the change of name on 19 February 2025; the accounts give 19 January). The 2024 accounts are a redacted copy.

Total grants 2016-2025: £1,485,356 (2016-2023 £1,095,941; 2024-2025 £389,415).

See also

• Garnethill Synagogue Preservation Trust
• Scottish Jewish Archives Centre
• The Scottish Jewish Heritage Centre
• Garnethill Hebrew Congregation
• Glasgow Jewish Community Trust

People

• Chair: Adam Lewis (Since June 2023)
• Vice Chair: Raymond Strang
• Hon. Treasurer: Mark Tenby
• Hon. Secretary: Helena Winocour

List of those who have served as a permanent Trustee
Name	Role
Adam Berkley
Fred S Berkley
David M Cohen
Dr Kenneth Collins
John Dover
Victor Fields
Clarisse Goldberg
David Goldberg
Irene Goldberg
Mark M Goldberg	2nd Chairman
Stephen Kliner
Dr Jack E. Miller OBE JP
Paul Morron
Geoffrey P Ognall	3rd Chairman
Abigail Peters
Melville A Robinson
David Strang
Henry Tankel OBE
David Wolfe
Walter Wolfe
Original & Funding Trustees
Name	Role
Sir Maurice Bloch	Funding Trustee
Dennis Cohen
Samuel Campbell	Funding Trustee
Harry Coutts
Leslie Diamond
Harold Dykes
Maurice Felstein
Ephraim Goldberg	Funding Trustee & 1st Chairman
Michael Goldberg	Funding Trustee
Philip Jacobson
Isaac Jesner
Joseph Mellick
Symie Miller
Isaac Sclar
Robert Spence
Sir Alexander Stone
Isadore Walton	Funding Trustee
Berl Wober
Joseph Wolfson
GJCT Trustees as at April 2024
Name	Role
Howard Beach
Delia Berkley
Laura Bernstein
Ralph Gurevitz
Rabbi Adrian Jesner
Samuel Kingsley
Adam Lewis	Chairman
Malcolm J. Livingstone MBE	Hon President & 4th Chairman
Stanley Lovatt
Lewis Orchant
Larry Sellyn
Raymond Strang	Vice Chairman
Mark Tenby	Treasurer
Evelyn Tiefenbrun
David Walton CBE	Hon President
Michael Walton
Helena Winocour	Secretary

Office Bearers
Name	Title	From	To
Isaac Jesner	Original Hon President
David Walton & Malcolm Livingstone	Current Presidents
Ephraim Goldberg	Chairman	03/07/1963	29/03/1987
Mark Goldberg	Chairman	29/03/1987	08/12/1996
Geoffrey Ognall	Chairman	08/12/1996	02/07/2000
Malcolm Livingstone	Chairman	30/10/2000	28/06/2023
Adam Lewis	Chairman	28/06/2023
Adam Berkley	Vice-Chairman		30/06/2022
Raymond Strang	Vice-Chairman	28/06/2023
Harold Bach	Secretary	06/06/1963	30/06/1970
Jack Goldman	Secretary	11/10/1970	16/10/1988
Larry Sellyn	Secretary	12/02/1989	25/03/2007
Mark Tenby	Secretary	25/03/2007	28/06/2023
Helena Winocour	Secretary	28/06/2023
Mark Tenby	Treasurer	28/06/2023

Finance Committee

• Malcolm Livingstone | Adam Berkley | David Walton | Adam Lewis | Delia Berkley | Samuel Kingsley | Abigail Peters | Melville Robinson | Lawrence Sellyn

Contact

Glasgow Jewish Community Trust, c/o Martin Aitken & Co., Caledonia House, 89 Seaward Street, Glasgow, G41 1HJ

External links

• Glasgow Jewish Community Trust (official website)