Latest news with #Manningham
Yahoo
17-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
On this day in 2015: Manningham parade for Prophet Muhammad's birthday
On this day in 2015, the Telegraph and Argus reported that more than 1,000 people from across the country had attended a parade in Manningham to celebrate the Prophet Muhammad's birthday. The Naqshbandia Active Development Association (NADA) organised the procession, which began at the Jamia Masjid Naqshbandia Aslamia Islamic Centre on Tile Street. Marchers walked through the streets before returning for a spiritual meditation programme, followed by food and refreshments. Nazim Ali, of NADA, said the aim was to show how much Islam integrates with British society. He said: "We had guests from all over the country, from as far away as Glasgow, Bedford, and Birmingham. "It has been a wonderful day, with wonderful weather for our holy parade, which is called a Milad. "It was also a family day and food has been distributed to people living in Tile Street. "That also means to people who are not Muslim, as this is a total community event and we want everyone to join in the celebration." The march also marked the fifth anniversary of the centre's opening. Speeches were delivered in English and Urdu by Islamic scholars, and Islamic songs (Nasheeds) were recited. According to "Muslims use a lunar calendar which differs in length from the Gregorian calendar used worldwide. "This means the Gregorian date of Muslim holidays shifts slightly from one year to the next, falling about 11 days earlier each year."
The Guardian
09-05-2025
- General
- The Guardian
‘If it isn't recorded it will disappear': the Muslim photographer shining a light on Bradford's Jewish community
In April 2013, Nudrat Afza, a Muslim woman from Bradford, gave her 90-year-old Jewish friend Lorle Michaelis a lift to the local Orthodox synagogue. 'As Lorle got out of the car, she told me it would be the last service,' Afza recalls. 'There were no longer enough people to run them. I was shocked. I knew the building would be sold or demolished.' Afza got out of the car and took a few quick photos of the synagogue's exterior. Months later, she happened to be passing when the caretakers were coming out. 'I put my foot in the doorway and took some pictures inside, to quickly record what was there,' she says. The Orthodox synagogue was sold and redeveloped in 2015. Afza didn't know it at the time but the photos were the start of a multi-year project to document Bradford's declining Jewish population. 'I grew up looking at pictures of the 1960s civil rights movement in the US, the Vietnam war and other political struggles in Britain and south Asia,' Afza explains. 'I saw the importance of documenting something before it disappears.' It had previously looked as though the Bradford Reform Synagogue, in the diverse inner-city area of Manningham where Afza lives, might also go the same way. In 2011, the Grade II-listed building needed extensive work to fix a leaking roof. When the synagogue's remaining few members couldn't afford repairs, the Muslim community stepped in to donate funds, which was followed by a £103,000 National Lottery Heritage Fund grant. Built in 1880-1881, the Reform Synagogue is now the only remaining synagogue in Bradford, with about 30 members. Afza's photos from the synagogues and Scholemoor Cemetery, all shot on film using vintage cameras, are collected together in her new book, Kehillah (Hebrew for 'congregation' or 'community'). She's keenly aware that 'a Muslim woman taking photographs of the Jewish community' might jar with the common narrative that Jews and Muslims don't get along. 'In Bradford, people from different communities respect each other,' she tells me. 'When I came to Bradford, when I was 10, I was aware of other religions, as well as my own, and we had nothing but respect for that. I was aware I was an outsider, so I was sensitive to what I did and how I did it.' Kehillah has an elegiac quality. 'A lot of the people have died since the photographs were taken,' says Afza. 'When I came on the scene, you could count on your fingers the Jewish people at Bradford Reform Synagogue's Saturday services. I felt that if it wasn't recorded, it would disappear.' Born in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, in 1955, Afza moved to Bradford in 1965. By chance, she picked up a camera in the mid-1980s. Simon Beaufoy, the Oscar-winning screenwriter behind The Full Monty and Slumdog Millionaire, later saw Afza's Salon series – a project documenting the final year of a local establishment, Kenmore Salon, before it was sold in 2012 – and got in touch to offer his support. '[Beaufoy] told me that I have talent and gave me a Hasselblad XPan camera.' Afza's documented others slices of northern life, including female football fans in Bradford City's stadium (City Girls), derelict buildings (Ruins Oof Bradford) and a personal project, Cancer: Shadow Aand Light, which followed her sister Sairah's treatment for breast cancer. Afza's work was produced during tightly restricted intervals: a mother of two, she spent more than three decades as a full-time carer for her daughter, Khadijah, who was born with a life-threatening liver condition. 'With the Salon pictures, the hospital was right across the road from the salon, so I'd leave my daughter in hospital and say, 'I'll be right back', and go off and take some photos.' Khadijah died in January 2025, aged 35. 'With my first pictures that I took, she was in my arms, very poorly, in hospital,' Afza remembers. 'I'm a bit of a recluse, so whenever I got my contact sheets, she was always the first person who saw them. She would look at them and tell me which ones she liked.' This year, Bradford is the UK city of culture. The place has been known in the past for racial tensions but Afza hopes it's on the up. 'I love Bradford,' she says. 'There's a wide range of communities today and they do their best to work together and make the most of things. It just needs a lot of money pumped into it: schools, hospitals … Looking after my daughter in the hospital, we were on the receiving end of a lack of resources and expertise. Despite that, I'm optimistic for Bradford.' Kehillah by Nudrat Afza is published by Dewi Lewis (£30) The Kehillah photographs will be exhibited at the Dean Clough Galleries, Halifax, 16 August to 19 October. Chanukah ServiceBradford Reform Synagogue, Bradford, 2018This is a photograph of Suzie Cree, the chair of trustees at the Bradford Reform Synagogue, taken at the end of a Chanukah service. It was taken very late in the evening. Everybody else had gone home. I saw Suzie come to blow the candles out. The photo captures a moment in time and resonates with the decline in numbers of Jewish people in Bradford. CoveredBradford Reform Synagogue, Bradford, 2018 'The men do this when they come to the synagogue. They're covered by the Tallit prayer shawl, as a way of expressing reverence and awe of God during prayer. It's put right over the head and a blessing is recited: 'Blessed are you, Adonai, ruler of the universe who has commanded us to wear the Tallit,' which is then lowered to the shoulders. I think it's an image that the outside world doesn't see.' Jewish Burial SpaceJewish burial space in Scholemoor Cemetery, Bradford, 2018 'The cemetery contains the tombs of Jewish people from many generations who lived in Bradford. The picture is just so evocative. I like the shape of the photograph, with the ground covered in frost, the trees with their branches and leaves, and the mist creating an eerie atmosphere. It's quite a mournful image. It looks beautiful and haunting at the same time.' TabletBradford Reform Synagogue Bradford, 2018 'I took this as I was walking past the two children – just one snap. Initially, when you look at the image, your reaction is that they're praying. But, in fact, they have a modern gadget and they've both got earphones in – they're watching or listening to something on their tablet.' TorahBradford Reform Synagogue, Bradford, 2018'This is the Torah being unrolled to select the reading for the Shabbat service. The Torah is the Jewish sacred text. This Torah is about 150 years old. Its staves are made of wood and the scroll is adorned with silver. As a photographer, I wanted to capture these details.' Day of Atonement (main image)Bradford Reform Synagogue, Bradford, 2018'I absolutely love this picture. It's taken on the Day of Atonement or, in Hebrew, Yom Kippur. There's modern and old mixed together – you have the old architectural details in the background and the electric menorah on the right-hand side, which gives a surreal feel to the picture. It's not posed or contrived.'
BBC News
14-03-2025
- Entertainment
- BBC News
Chandwell YouTuber adds cathedral to his model town
A YouTuber who built a model town from paper and cardboard has completed a scale replica of Bradford Cathedral to celebrate the area's City of Culture Scott, an IT consultant, began constructing "Chandwell" during lockdown and uploads videos documenting his progress as the town buildings are inspired by landmarks from across the Bradford district and the cathedral is the latest Scott, 47, said he was "very proud" of Bradford's architecture. Chandwell was originally a model railway layout created during the spring 2020 lockdown as a way to pass the time with his two sons, who are now teenagers, and stepdaughter."When I actually started building it and I started to need some buildings to make the town into a town, I started making them out of card based upon buildings in and around Bradford and West Yorkshire."It quickly became something that I realised I was quite good at and really enjoyed, so it became less about a model railway, more and more about the town of Chandwell."He added that when his YouTube channel - simply named Chandwell - started amassing more subscribers, a running joke began that the town was rundown. "It's a glum kind of place, so we wanted to do something to essentially give back a little bit to Bradford because, you know, Chandwell was very down at heel," he forward, Mr Scott has more plans to give his more than 17,000 subscribers a flavour of what Bradford is added: "I'm looking forward to making some of the grand Bradford mills, probably possibly Salts Mill or Manningham - or some combination to get that kind of look. "Also maybe some somewhere like Little Germany, as there are some beautiful buildings there."The railway section is based on Bradford Interchange and the town also includes Shipley's clock tower and the Midland Hotel in the city is even a replica of Shipley nightclub Fluid and Mr Scott, who lives in Burley-in-Wharfedale, said it was based on how the area would have looked in progress of Bradford Cathedral can followed on Mr Scott's YouTube to highlights from West Yorkshire on BBC Sounds, catch up with the latest episode of Look North or tell us a story you think we should be covering here.
