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
Pre-War
East End memories of Rev J K Goldbloom, Redmans Rd Talmud Torah,
Johnny Isaacs, The Troxy Cinema and more by Asher Tarmon, once of
Jubilee Street, now elderly and living in Israel
AS
A SCHOOLBOY, growing up in the then flourishing East End,
had its advantages. Everyone was more or less in the same boat
and class distinctions were indiscernible. Though the elementary
and central school populations were mixed, there was no barrier
between the Christian and the Jewish children and no feelings or
expressions of racial discrimination. Not in the classroom, not
from the teachers, nor in the playground or the street. We were
all of a kind—identifying with English history, its folk tales
and songs, keenly interested in the annual Boat Race (somehow
always cheering Cambridge rather than Oxford), mad about cricket
and soccer, playing together all the seasonal games that were
played all over the country. The hymns at morning assembly were
clearly universal and never overtly Christian, thus making it
possible for all to sing together in comfortable unison.
We
lived on the third floor of a large complex of tenement housing,
but the huge number of stairs were no hindrance to a boisterous
and energetic young boy who enjoyed his life as I did. The
distinction came, when and if you attended “cheder” in the
afternoons, after you had your tea. My mother enrolled me at the
renowned Redman’s Road Talmud Torah when I was seven. It was as
if one attended a second school every day, an additional duty
for being Jewish! The instruction, organisation and discipline
were identical to those of a regular school. This “cheder” was
very different from the usual Jewish religious educational
institutions, in that all the instruction was in modern Hebrew
(although the Ashkenazi pronunciation was used and not the
Sephardi, as is now common). The spirit behind this, was the
character of the man who founded and headed the Talmud Torah—the
Rev. J. K. Goldbloom, a fervent Zionist who had been acquainted
with Theodore Herzl himself. He was a wise and learned scholar
and a much loved and revered leader in the wider community. He
had to fight a bitter struggle to establish this visionary type
of Hebrew-speaking “cheder”, but the orthodox rabbinate forced
him to adhere to the Ashkenazi rather than the Sephardi
pronunciation, which for them was too closely
associated with Zionist ideology.
The
teachers were thorough and soon I became
enthralled with all the subjects taught—Grammar, Chumash, Rashi,
Mishnah, Gmarrah. In becoming a star pupil, I was also earmarked
for participating in the annual Prize Day play, written,
directed and produced by the headmaster himself. This was, of
course, always in Hebrew, on a theme connecting the current
pioneering in “Palestine” with past celebrations of the major
nature festivals. Whenever he visited Palestine, he would return
with the latest songs being sung there by the pioneers and would
introduce them into the plays he wrote. He was a man of
innovation and introduced events into our lives to make them
interesting and more satisfying. On Tu B’Shvat, we would be
presented with small boxes resembling the JNF collection box,
filled with almonds from the holy land. Annually, there was an
outing to the countryside, replete with games and picnic, an
unforgettable thrill riding in the then prevailing
“charabanc”—an open-top type of bus.
From
a very young age, my mother would take me to the
Yiddish Theatre and I can still recall climbing the endless
number of stairs, lit by gas jets set into the walls, to reach
the highest gallery, which were, of course, the least expensive
seats. This was her most enjoyable form of entertainment and
little did she realise how she was inspiring me with a lifelong
love of the theatre. The plays were mostly musical melodramas
plucking at the heartstrings of the audience but ending happily.
My own dramatic efforts came eventually in school plays, by
appearing in Shakespeare’s “The Tempest,” and George Bernard
Shaw’s “St. Joan,” and also in the annual play staged by my “cheder.”
My deep grounding in Hebrew and love of the history of my
people, was to lead me naturally to the Zionist youth movement
Habonim, in the mid-Thirties. There was never much in the way of
homework from school or cheder in my youth, so being the
possessor of a pleasant treble voice, I was
able
to belong to a synagogue choir, at the Stepney Orthodox. I also
played the violin for a time and was obsessed with the idea of
becoming a conductor. Surreptitiously I would stand in front of
a mirror and throw myself into the part, while listening to a
few old 78 rpm records on a manually driven portable gramophone
that came into our possession at home. In adolescence I went to
sing in the mixed choir (children and adults of both genders) of
the East London United Synagogue, where at the beginning of
World War II, I was to be asked to conduct the choir in the
“temporary” absence of the permanent conductor. I had already
begun to lead a choral group, organising a Habonim Chorus that
specialised in singing “Palestinian” folk songs for all manner
of youth movement events. I had also joined the Habonim Central
Choir, which met weekly at the movement’s offices in Soho.
Sight-reading music and being able to impart the various voice
parts by repetition, led eventually to my becoming the conductor
of this choir too. There are two outstanding performances which
I conducted that remain in my memory. The first is the full
choral wedding service we performed as a gift for our original
founder and conductor Shubi Olsvanger, and which we had prepared
in the utmost secrecy, with the connivance of the minister of
the Highgate Synagogue, until the day of the wedding. I had to
teach all four voice parts of the responses and the hymns, etc.
after the regular weekly practice was over, without Shubi
cottoning on. The second is the four part rendering of the song
“Sovi Sovi Mamterah” which I taught from a handwritten score,
written especially for the sound-track of a film named “The
Promised Land” that was being produced. The choir was
accompanied by the London Symphony and was conducted at the
recording studio by Muir Mathieson, a famous conductor of the
time. Both my knowledge of Hebrew and music were gifts that were
to stand me in good stead in the years to follow.
In comparison with today's pace of life, the pre-war days of my
youth, though lived in a relatively teeming city, were
absolutely tranquil. There was no constant prevailing noise from
motor vehicles, for there were very few indeed, apart from the
commercial ones. Airplanes were a thing of the future, and
became familiar only when the war was on. I remember seeing the
enormous R101—the world’s largest airship, moving oh so slowly
over London in 1931. The wailing of sirens, the blaring radios
that seem to punctuate life wherever you are these days, were
unknown. Transportation was by horse-drawn carts and the public
conveyance, was the tram that rode on iron rails embedded in the
cobbled streets. The greatest thrill was to climb to the upper
section of the tram and view the scene going by at the daring
speed of some 10 miles per hour! There was no telephone to
disturb the home at all hours, no radio or TV, no stereo. They
were not yet even invented. Pollution was a word that remained
hidden in the dictionary. I recall graphically the daily
delivery of milk, when the horse-drawn “chariot” would pull up
with its large urns and you would ask for a pint to be ladled
into the jug you had brought to the milkman. Later came the
bottle delivery. No cars were ever parked in our streets, but
one would see the horses resting between their traces, with
their nosebags raised for them to munch away. When they left,
there was a rush to collect the manure for the gardens.
Each season brought its traditional sights: the muffin man with
his large tray balanced on his head and the wonderful smell when
you toasted the muffins with the special long fork in front of
the open fire; the glowing fire in the barrel of the roasted
chestnut vendor; the large slices of watermelon on the open cart
of the greengrocer; the triangular fruit-ice brought by the
Wall’s Ice Cream man pedalling his square locker near the
school. There were regular visits by the coalman, always with
blackened face and hands, wearing a leather cowl over his head
and heaving the coal-laden sacks on his shoulders, walking up
large flights of stairs, if necessary, to dump his wares.
An interesting sight for us as youngsters was the
knife-grinder who would work his wheel on a hand drawn cart and
sharpen the knives for the women of the neighbourhood. Our
street games were also dictated by the seasons, something that
was instinctive and countrywide. We would enjoy pushing hoops of
iron along the streets with a stick; playing cricket in the
summer and the winter in the middle of the road, without fear of
the traffic which was so mild; stringing hard chestnuts for
playing conkers; matching fast revolving wooden tops against
each other, games with nuts during Pesach.
My
friend Yankel and I would spend hours at constructing elaborate
machinery with the ubiquitous Meccano set, the favourite hobby
of all boys of that era. Later we experimented with building a
crystal set in order to hear the first broadcasts of the BBC
through headphones. When the actual “wireless” came into being,
we had to regularly take the glass acid-accumulators for
charging, in order to give the set its power! Pocket money was
never higher than a penny, unless you went to the cinema, where
for a sixpence, at the new vast Troxy Cinema in the Commercial
Road, you were
entertained by a programme that is inconceivable today—2 feature
films, a cartoon, a newsreel, a stage show with at least 3
different items accompanied by a live orchestra and a sing-along
performance on the Wurlitzer organ! I still remember the first
sound film, ”The Jazz Singer” with Al Jolson, which was screened
at the Mile End Cinema, next door to the most famous of the East
End’s Chip shops “Johnny Isaacs,” where for a penny you got a
whole mound of chips and sprinkled them generously with salt and
vinegar (to this day chips without vinegar are totally tasteless
for me!).
2012 update - The Troxy (above in
1980s Mecca bingo hall guise, below in 2012, as it is today) is
undergoing restoration, including the re-installation of a
mighty Wurlitzer cinema organ
Above, The Troxy's magnificent restored interior
in 2012
Whenever I visit England I still compare the experiences of
those times with today’s “technological advances”— I miss the
steam trains of yore with their separate compartments and the
corridors that ran for the length of each carriage; the two mail
deliveries per day brought by the uniformed postman with his
helmet that resembled an inverted gravy dish; the old familiar
smells of the chimney sweep; the bread baking in the oven of the
corner baker, the flat irons on steaming laundry,
the fog, the special Jewish holiday foods. We had no electricity
and all lighting and cooking were done by gas for which a penny
had to be inserted into a slotted meter. To save on gas, I would
read deep into the night by candlelight. Borrowing books cost
nothing and my favourite haunt then as now was the local
municipal lending library. They may have been hard times, those
years of economic depression and rampant unemployment, but
people’s needs were simple and there was no intrusive
advertising for the “better life.” Whatever limited means
parents possessed, they skimped on themselves for the sake of
their children. They were conscious of the need however, to do
what is expected when a Jewish holiday or a family celebration
occurred. Somehow these events were made into milestones and
though modest by today’s flamboyant standards, probably
necessitated borrowing money from relatives and neighbours to
ensure a measure of enjoyment.
Such was my Bar-mitzvah, held, after my having read the entire
weekly portion instead of just the customary few sentences, in
the humble abode of a family member. It was a home-cooked dinner
and not catered, but the atmosphere was a happy one. I had
written my speech inspired by my growing enthusiasm for the
hoped-for renewal of the Jewish people’s future in their
homeland—Palestine. I said that my dream in life was that when I
grew into adulthood, I would be able to achieve my ambition by
going to Eretz Yisrael to be a pioneer! Like others in my circle
of friends and classmates, I was giving expression to the deep
influence on our lives, by our “cheder” headmaster, the renowned
“J.K.”, a number of whose star pupils became active in the
Habonim youth movement as a result. Many of them who came
through the war, made it to Palestine.
I
could not
have foreseen what eventually transpired—the major historical
and cataclysmic happenings that my generation has witnessed,
culminating in the unforgettable thrill of achieving an ambition
that could
only
be dreamed of for centuries—to be present at the establishment
of the State of Israel, to have participated in its defence and
in its construction.
