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

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Sandys Row synagogue, a hidden gem of the Jewish East End of London

 

One of the Jewish East End's quaintest and possibly most beautiful synagogues is the Dutch synagogue at Sandys Row.  This hidden gem, converted from a Huguenot chapel, is located in Sandys Row - a tiny alleyway leading off Artillery Passage near the North end of Middlesex Street.  The synagogue was founded by Dutch immigrants in 1854 and is London's oldest existing Ashkenazi synagogue.  It predates by several decades the East End synagogues founded by the Russian refugees that flooded into London after the 1882 assassination of Czar Alexander 2nd.  Unlike their Russian co-religionists, the Ashkenazi Dutch Jews were economic migrants and they found employment mainly in the tobacco trades that once flourished in the area.  Some of their descendants are still members of Sandys Row today.  The most striking thing you notice when you enter the synagogue is the pervasiveness of the colour orange, which is of course the national colour of the Netherlands.  Sandys Row synagogue holds Shabbat morning services on alternate Saturdays.  Visit them soon. 

 

Meanwhile, some photos:

Sandys Row's historic Bimah Cloth embroidered by the ladies of the community to celebrate Queen Victoria's 1897 Diamond Jubilee

 

Approaching Sandys Row, ahead on the right	Nearly there!
Sandys Row entrance	Sandys Row's informative entrance steps...founded 1854
Inside Sandys Row looking towards the Ark	The view from the Bimah (reading desk)
The view from upstairs.  The ladies' gallery is left and right	Sandys Row tour guide Jeremy Freedman with my tour group
The late Jimmy Wilder with my tour group in the early 2000s.  Jimmy first introduced me to Sandys Row	Memorial to Jimmy Wilder - also see picture left