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Here is the story:
On Wednesday 25th
November 2009 Philip Walker, chairman of
South London Liberal Synagogue and member of
the Jewish East End Celebration Society, led
a group of Nightingale home residents on a
tour of the Jewish East End.
Our first stop was at East
London Central Synagogue in Nelson street
where warden Leon Silver told us the history
of his community and offered us all a very
welcome cup of tea. 82-year-old Nightingale
resident Harry Sack
(Photo below)
recalled how Nelson street reminded him of
his youth when his father would take him to
different shuls on Shabbat.
 He
 particularly remembered the tiny old Castle
street shul where the members conversed in
Yiddish and didn’t need a siddur because
they knew the service by heart. Harry had
lived in Tredegar Square in Bethnal Green
and had been a member of Mile End and Bow
synagogue in Harley Grove
(photo right) where the renowned
Reverend Leslie Hardman was the minister.
He described Reverend Hardman as a man of
the people who would make time for anyone in
trouble day or night. Reverend Hardman, who
died recently, was the British Army chaplain
who went in with the troops who liberated
Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in 1945.
After visiting Nelson Street
synagogue we drove along Stepney Green
taking a look at Stepney dwellings built in
the 1890s by Lord Rothschild’s 4% per cent
industrial dwelling company, and on to the
Leonard Montefiore memorial drinking
fountain, the former East London Synagogue
in Rectory Square, Stepney Jewish School and
the former London Jewish hospital at the top
of Stepney Green.
We ended our tour with lunch
at the Stepney Jewish Day Care centre in
Beaumont Grove. All in all it was a very
satisfying day and the sort of event that
South London Liberal Synagogue looks forward
to being involved in many more times in the
future. |
