Extract from Wales Assembly: Questions to the Minister for International Relations and Welsh Language: National Museums and Galleries of Wales - Apr 3

David Melding AM: Minister, can I commend you for trying to get as much of the national collection out there and seen as possible? Too much of it is held in storage and we should remember that these items are there to be seen and that is why they're in the collection in the first place. Will you join me in commending Dawn Bowden's work to promote knowledge of Merthyr's Jewish community, established in 1848, and most magnificently seen in the Gothic revival style synagogue, which was built in 1877? That synagogue's future is still in question, and I wonder if you would ask the National Museum to look at the new initiative that's been called—that is called, rather—the Historic Synagogues of Europe project, which is looking at industrial communities and other areas where there was a large Jewish population and ensuring that these historic treasures are preserved.

Dafydd Elis-Thomas AM (Deputy Minister for Culture, Sport and Tourism): I'm very grateful to you for your support on our activity. I have a particular interest, of course, because of my own background and my own practice, in the history of all faith communities and particularly the role of the Jewish community in the development of Wales, the development of business and capitalism and investment within Wales, especially in key periods of the industrial revolution, and I will certainly make sure that I discuss this. There has been an initiative, and I have attended some meetings of faith groups specifically looking at the use of faith buildings for the conservation purposes that will then lead to them having a current value, and it seems to me that the key here, as always, is monuments are not there to be monuments. They're there to be used currently in order to interpret what happened there in the past.