The Jewish community, in Manchester as elsewhere, was very aware of the growing threat of fascism throughout Europe in the 1930s. Jewish workers were active in fighting fascism, as trade unionists, as members of the International Brigades in Spain and in their opposition to the activities of the British Union of Fascists there.

Above all, the community rose to the challenge of taking in some 3,000 refugees from Hitler's Europe who made their homes in the city. A Manchester Jewish Refugee Committee had been formed in 1933 to help many find a way out of Germany (and later, Austria, Czechoslovakia and Poland), and to provide accommodation and support to those arriving in Manchester. The refugees themselves both contributed to the culture and economy of the city, and helped shape the future of Manchester Jewry.

Refugee industries, particularly in the manufacture of textiles, electrical engineering, tanning and chemicals contributed to the war effort, gave immediate work to thousands of the local unemployed and survived to become durable features of the local economy.

Refugee rabbis, meanwhile, strengthened the religious structures of the community. One of them, Alexander Altmann, became Communal Rabbi of Manchester in 1938. Another, David Feldman, who arrived from Leipzig in 1936, consolidated the foundations of what was to become, during the 1950s a major colony of the haredim in the Broughton Park area of Salford. The haredi community, now the most rapidly growing segment of Manchester Jewry, was further strengthened by the refugees who arrived in smaller numbers from Hungary after 1956.

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