JEWISH
EAST END OF LONDON PHOTO GALLERY & COMMENTARY
London's East End Synagogues, cemeteries and more......
My personal journey through the Jewish East End of London
The Hon Miss Lily
Montagu, 1873 - 1963
Lily
Montagu was born in 1873. Her father was millionaire banker Samuel
Montagu. Samuel Montagu had been MP for Whitechapel and was the
founder of the Orthodox Federation of Synagogues. He later became
Lord Swaythling. Lily Montagu was much concerned with the welfare of
underprivileged working class East End girls. To help make a
difference to the harshness of their lives she and her sister founded
the West Central Jewish Girls’ Club in 1893. She was also very
concerned with the drift away from Judaism by an increasingly
assimilated Jewish Community. She regarded the Orthodox Judaism of
her father as a major cause of this drift and believed that a new and
progressive style of Judaism accessible and understandable by all was
the only answer to this problem. In 1902 she and Claude Montefiore,
together with several Orthodox colleagues, founded the Jewish
Religious Union. Orthodox supporters included Reverend Simeon Singer
(editor of the United Synagogue’s Singer’s Prayer Book), and Rev J F
Stern – the minister of Stepney United Synagogue. Simeon Singer, J F
Stern and others were subsequently put under great pressure by the
United Synagogue authorities to withdraw their support. We can only
speculate with regret on what might have been have had this not been
so. Despite this set back Lily Montagu and Claude Montefiore pressed
on and in 1909 established the Jewish Religious Union for the
Advancement of Liberal Judaism – later known as the Union of Liberal
and Progressive Synagogues. In 1911 the new movement founded its
first synagogue – the Liberal Jewish Synagogue in St John’s Wood. The
Rabbi of the LJS was a dynamic young American named Israel Mattuck.
Israel Mattuck, Claude Montefiore and Lily Montagu were known as the
‘Three M’s’ and became the guiding lights behind the onward
development of Liberal Judaism. Other synagogues quickly followed the
establishment of the LJS, including our own in 1929. Lily Montagu
became president of the Union of Liberal and Progressive synagogues
and remained so until her death in 1963. Her busy and fulfilled life
included membership of South London Liberal Synagogue.
At the heart of
Judaism is a mystery that will always be a matter of faith. Lily
Montagu’s great achievement was to make this mystery accessible to an
increasingly Anglicised generation of Jews. Her legacy lives on.