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
Walking the streets of the Jewish East End of London,
from an article I wrote for Shemoth - the magazine of
the Jewish Genealogical Society of Great Britain
The
December 2010 issue of Shemoth was kind enough to feature an article
about my Jewish East End website and subsequently I have been asked
to write this article about the East End. The first thing you
should know about me is I have never lived in the East End.
However, my mother was born and raised in Mile End and I have many
memories of visiting the area with her in the early 1960s when I was
a boy. A location that made a particularly vivid impression on me
at the time was the tall narrow building adjacent to the former
Pavilion theatre site in the Whitechapel Road (close to the corner
of Vallance Road) which was once emblazoned with the legend ‘The
East London Christian Mission to the Hebrews.’ Being a missionary
in the Jewish East End must have been a daunting task. I wonder if
their efforts ever paid off?
And so to 2011. There is so much to be said about
our East End forebears that it is difficult to know where to start,
but as my favourite East End activity is walking and observing the
area, this article is presented in the form of a gentle stroll that
picks up on information along the way. I begin in Great Prescot
Street where in the early part of the 20th century the
Association for the Protection of Women and Girls operated a women’s
refuge. Vulnerable single Jewish girls arriving in London were at
real risk of falling pray to pimps and white slavers, but the
association was on hand to keep a watchful eye on new female
arrivals. Their efforts saved many women from a wretched fate.
It
is just a short step from Great Prescot Street to Leman Street where
another place of refuge existed – The Jews
Temporary Shelter. It was originally founded in1886 by a
Hermann Landau and received additional funding from the wealthy
banker Samuel Montagu. The Refuge provided a night or twos shelter
for penniless immigrants arriving in London with no place to stay.
I’ve read that the address of the shelter was bought and sold in
Eastern Europe among hopeful potential immigrants. The hardship of
those days can scarcely be imagined. Later the shelter relocated to
63 Mansell Street and this building is still there. To my amazement
the organisation also still exists, according to the reporting of
its December 2010 a.g.m. by the Jewish Chronicle.
At the top of Mansell Street is a small alleyway
called Tenter Passage leading to the Tenter Street square complex.
Imagine how this quiet backwater once thronged with Jewish voices.
An article in the 1920 Purim edition of The Jewish chronicle records
the activities of street urchins accosting passers by to sell them
Haman Toffee at remarkably inflated prices. The Jewish Chronicle
reporter records that he is very impressed by their enterprise!
Jews Temporary Shelter, Leman
Street
Also
in this complex of streets lived Rabbi Isaac Suwalsky, a Polish
immigrant who died in poverty in 1913 at the age of 53. Rabbi
Suwalsky was a Zionist who attended the sixth Zionist conference at
Basle in 1903 as part of the Anglo Jewish delegation. He was also a
pioneer in the use of Hebrew as a living language and at his own
expense published a Hebrew language magazine entitled HaYehoodi
(The Jew). Today Rabbi Suwalsky rests virtually forgotten at the
Federation cemetery in Edmonton. He was my cousin’s wife’s
grandfather.
Rabbi Isaac Suwalsky
Nearby Alie Street contains some interesting sites,
including The Swan Public House which was once the Half Moon
theatre, and before that Alie Street Synagogue. Adjacent to the pub
is Half Moon Passage, at the end of which was Camperdown House, home
of the Hutchinson House Club for Working Lads and also the
headquarters of the Jewish Lads Brigade. The Hutch, as it was
known, was founded by the Rothschild family in conjunction with a Mr
Max Bonn and Mr Frank Goldsmith MP. Former members of the Hutch
have described it as an oasis in a dangerous and turbulent World.
Also in Alie Street is Symons House, formerly the premises of the
Workers’ Circle Friendly Society. Jewish Friendly Societies once
thronged the East End and the Workers’ Circle was one of many. It
owned a rest home in Littlehampton, and for a small subscription
provided many services, as well as vigorously promoting Socialism.
Today only one Jewish Friendly Society remains,
The Grand Order of David and Shield of Israel Friendly Society,
which now exists solely as a social club. We should admire
greatly those whose energy and philanthropy created a miniature
welfare state in the East End of London.
From
Alie Street it is a short distance to the Commercial Road junction
with White Church Lane, on the corner of which is a white building
with the legend Kirstein’s Mansions erected 1911 inscribed on
it. This is the site of Kerstein the printers who specialised in
the printing of wedding invitations and the like. Their adverts
featured prominently in the Jewish Chronicle at the beginning of the
20th Century. Perhaps Mr Kirstein took the view that
there was more money in property than printing. Not all Jewish
property developers of this era made their fortune. Witness Abraham
Davis’s handsome but disastrous Moorish Market development in
Fashion Street. Built as an indoor market to tempt in the street
traders of Petticoat Lane, it failed miserably and nearly caused
Abraham Davis’s bankruptcy. The site just about survived and has
recently been redeveloped into smart offices.
Kirstein's Mansions, erected 1911
Further
along the Commercial Road is the turning into Adler Street, named
after the Adler dynasty of United Synagogue rabbis. The United
Synagogue had its headquarters in this street, and the Great
Synagogue, once of Duke’s Place, relocated here after it was bombed
in 1941. It was not to remain here long as declining membership
forced its closure. At the top of Adler Street on the corner with
Whitechapel Road stands an ugly modern building that was once the
site of the Yiddish National Theatre. The Yiddish National Theatre
replaced the Pavilion theatre that closed in 1936. The Yiddish
National Theatre put on classics such as The Merchant of Venice…in
Yiddish. Their 1946 production starred Meier Tzelniker as Shylock
and his daughter Anna as Portia. The Jewish Chronicle’s review
described the production as a ‘thrilling experience’.
A few hundred yards west along the Whitechapel Road
is the Whitechapel Art Gallery. The Gallery now incorporates the
Whitechapel Library which was once known as the University of the
Ghetto. Bernard Kops’ famous poem Whitechapel Library Aldgate
East tells the story. On the wall of the former library is a
plaque commemorating the World War One poet Isaac Rosenberg who
studied here.
Moving East along the Whitechapel Road is the famous
Whitechapel Bell Foundry. This ancient institution built Big Ben –
the Bell that rings out the time on…Big Ben. A rather fine mosaic
stands on the corner of nearby Fieldgate Street. Symbols on the
mosaic, including a Star of David, a bell and more, represent the
changing heritage of the area. In Fieldgate Street is Fieldgate
Street Great Synagogue, one of only four remaining from the hundreds
that were once in the East End. It is open once a month for Shabbat
morning services and I highly recommend a visit. Grodzinski’s
kosher bakery used to be next door, as the plaque on the synagogue
wall reminds you.
Opposite Fieldgate Street Synagogue is Greenfield
Street which leads you back to the Commercial Road and almost
opposite the junction with Henriques Street. On the corner of
Henriques Street stands number 90 Commercial Road, the site of the
Beltz synagogue, now amalgamated with nearby Nelson Street
Synagogue. Do any of you remember the Barry Sisters singing ‘Mein
Shtetele Beltz’? In the late 1930s The Beltz synagogue employed
Romanian immigrant Bernat Hecht as a cantor. Bernat Hecht was the
father of former Conservative party leader Michael Howard
Henriques
Street was originally called Berner Street, but the name was changed
to honour the late social reformer Basil Henriques who’s Oxford and
St George’s Settlement was located in the big red building down the
road on the left. It was called Oxford after the class of people
that Basil hoped to attract into the East End to staff his
Settlement, and St George’s because it was in the Parish of St
George’s in the East. Either side of the entrance to the building
are plaques. The one on the left records the generosity of business
man and philanthropist Bernhard Baron whose 1929 gift of £65,000
enabled Basil Henriques to purchase this former Berner Street
school, replacing premises outgrown in nearby Betts Street. The
Settlement incorporated its famous boys’ and girls’ clubs together
with a synagogue, a Yiddish society and much more. The Oxford and
Saint Georges Settlement was one of a number that existed and
thrived in the East End.
16197/3449
Further down Henriques Street at number 40 was the
print works of the anarchist Yiddish newspaper Arbeter Fraint
(Workers’ Friend). Number 40 was also the premises of the
International Working Men’s Club. The newspaper was edited for a
time by anarchist leader Rudolf Rocker who had moved to London from
Germany in the 1890s. Arbeter Fraint went through many financial
tribulations and in 1900 had to relocate to a ramshackle old shed in
Stepney Green next to foul smelling stables. Nevertheless, at its
peak Arbeter Fraint sold 5000 copies a week. To find out more about
Rudolf Rocker I recommend reading Bill Fishman’s book East End
Jewish Radicals 1875 -1914.
Rudolf Rocker, from the portrait painted by his son Fermin Rocker
Close by to Henriques Street is Hessel Street, once a
thriving Jewish street market specialising in Kosher chickens. A
wonderful film called The Story of a Street is a 1962 Jewish
Chronicle production containing precious archive footage. Get hold
of a copy if you can.
Close
to the junction of Hessel Street and Commercial Road on the left is
a shop named Flicks Fashions. This was once the Grand Palais
Yiddish Theatre. In the early 1960s the decline of a Yiddish
speaking audience forced its closure and for a time it became a
bingo hall, but in its day it featured famous actors such as Meier
and Anna Tzelniker, Max Bacon and others.
Interesting footage of the Grand Palais Yiddish
Theatre can be seen in the 1967 James Mason film
The London Nobody Knows.
Max Bacon is on the right in this photo
From Hessel Street it is a short distance to Nelson
Street Synagogue in Nelson Street. Clearly visible from the street
in the Synagogue’s entrance is the New Road Synagogue consecration
plaque - rescued and placed here by the Jewish East End Celebration
Society. The words on the plaque are simple, but say a great deal:
“On the occasion of the consecration of the above
synagogue (New Road) on May 24th 1892. Her Majesty’s
birthday: a letter was addressed to the Queen on behalf of the
members expressing their respectful felicitations and acknowledging
their loyalty to Her Majesty under whose benign sovereignty they
enjoyed the priceless blessings of civil and religious liberties…..”
The Hebrew inscription on the New Road plaque
above suggests that the synagogue's founders came from Krakov in
Poland
If you’ve stayed with me this far I hope you have
enjoyed the experience, and if you are energetic enough to link the
locations together in sequential order you will find they make an
evocative East End walk. Meanwhile, I believe it is vital we
remember our roots. They are an integral part of who and what we
are.
Philip Walker, April 2011
