THE JEWISH EAST END TODAY

Just because Blooms has left the East End it does not mean that all Jewish life has ceased in the area. It is thought that there are probably about 3000 Jews still living in the East End. That is "the Near East" and not "the Far East" of Forest Gate or Redbridge. The Stepney Jewish Day Centre has about 700 people pass through its doors each week.

The Jewish Communal organisations which are open are:-

• Stepney Branch of SWESRS (Reform), the details of which and history are on this Web Site.
• The Hackney Synagogue. (United Synagogue)
• Fieldgate Street Synagogue (Federation) More Details
• Nelson Street Synagogue (Federation)
• Sandys Row (Independent Orthodox) More Details
• Congregation of Jacob (Independent Orthodox) More Details
• Bevis Marks (Sephardi) - on the edge of the area
• a Jewish Society at Queen Mary College.
• The Stepney Jewish Day Centre, previously the Stepney Jewish Girls Club, which now has Friendship Clubs, Luncheon Clubs and sends out Kosher Meals on wheels. This building is now run by Jewish Care

There are also Jewish food shops in the area, like Carmel Wines on Mile End Road, which is strictly Kasher. There are also some which do not come under a Beth Din like Rinkoffs the Bakers in O'Leary Square, which have excellent Challahs, and also two Bagel Bakes at the top end of Brick Lane where you can get filled bagels, very reasonably priced.

A visitor to the East End can see many reminders of the time when there were more Jews there. Many of the old Synagogue buildings are still standing, but they are now being used for other purposes.

SYNAGOGUES STILL HOLDING SERVICES

Congregation of Jacob Synagogue.	Fieldgate Street Synagogue.	Stepney Branch of SWESRS.

Sandys Row Synagogue, off Middlesex St, E1. ( MAP. 16.)

is the oldest Ashkenazi Synagogue in London still in continuous use. Daily, Sabbath and Festival services. Tel. E. Wilder 0207 253 8311.

The Congregation of Jacob Synagogue. ( MAP.19.)

351 Commercial Road. Email: info@congregationofjacob.org Phone: 020 7790 2874. Web site: www.congregationofjacob.org Services: Friday nights during Winter 10 minutes before Shabbos, during Summer 6.30 p.m. Saturday morning 9.10 a.m throughout the year.

Fieldgate Street Great Synagogue,

41, Fieldgate St, E1. Regular services. Tel. 0207 247 2644. ( MAP. 17.)

Stepney Branch of South West Essex & Settlement Reform Synagogue. ( MAP. 19.)

2-8 Beaumont Grove. Shabbat & Festival morning services. More Details and it's History.

Stepney Girls

Beaumont Grove, Now used by Jewish Care as a Jewish Day Centre. Foundation stones can be seen on the front of the building and on the building on the corner of Louisa Street, which was a Jewish nursery, but is now used by a general playgroup.

Brady Club

Hanbury Street, now called The Brady Centre and also Bradi Sentar, is used as a local communal building, housing offices for Social and Health workers. Several inscribed stones are visible on the front of the building. ( MAP. No. 7. )

The Bernhard Baron Settlement

Henriques Street. Now converted to flats, but still has the inscribed dedicatory stones outside the entrance. (see for a short history featured on this Web Site)

BLUE PLAQUES

198 Cable Street	54-73 Noble Court, Cable Street.	12 Hanbury Street	32 Elder Street

Dr Hannah Billig GM, MBE

Physician, "The Angel of Cable Street" 198 Cable St. The George Medal is equivalent to the Victoria Cross and is awarded for extreme bravery. In this case, for treating patients at great danger to herself during the bombing of London in World War 2. ( MAP. No. 17. )

Kid Berg

Champion Boxer, in Cable Street. ( MAP. No. 16. )

Bud Flanagan

Comedian, born Chaim Reuven Weintrop, leader of "The Crazy Gang". 12 Hanbury Street. ( MAP. No. 12. )

Mark Gertler

Painter, 32 Elder Street, E1. Some of whose paintings hang in the National Portrait Gallery and in Tate Britain. ( MAP. No. 11. )

Paradise Row, E2.	Princelet Street	Whitechapel Library	288 Old Ford Road

Daniel Mendoza

Heavyweight boxing champion and first scientific boxer. (MAP. No. 24. )

Miriam Moses

Social worker and first woman mayor of Stepney in Princelet Street. A key figure at the Brady Clubs and Settlement. ( MAP. next to Synagogue No. 11.)

Isaac Rosenberg

Poet and Painter, by Whitechapel Library Killed in action in World War 1. Remembered for his Trench Poems and other writings. ( MAP. No. 8. )

Israel Zangwill

Author of Children of the Ghetto and other works, 288 Old Ford Road, facing Victoria Park.

COMEMERATIVE PLAQUES.

125-9 Middlesex Street	3 - 5 Dock Street

The Jewish Board of Guardians

Later called the Jewish Welfare Board and Jewish Care. 125-9 Middlesex Street. The ground floor of this is now a pub called the Shooting Star. ( MAP. No. 14. )

Battle of Cable Street

There is a red plaque on 3 - 5 Dock Street . It was thought politically incorrect to use the usual blue colour. ( MAP. No. 15. )

Fieldgate Street	The old Library, Cable Street

Grodzinski's

The Bakers. A small plaque on 41 Fieldgate Street commemorates Grodzinski's first shop opening near there in 1888. ( MAP. No. 6. )

The International Brigade

Who went from Britain to fight against Fascists in Spain in the late1930s. Many of whom were Jewish. Small plaque on the front of the old Library in Cable Street. ( MAP. No. 19. )

JEWISH MONUMENTS

Kindertransport Memorial.	King Edward VII Drinking Fountain.	Inscription on the King Edward Fountain.	Frederic Mocatta Drinking Fountain.

Kindertransport Memorial.

Liverpool Street station, Liverpool Street entrance. Erected to commemorate the 10,000 children who escaped Nazi persecution and arrived in London at this station, 1938-9. (Just off the ( MAP, about 300 yards west of No. 16. )

King Edward VII Fountain. (see illustration)

Opposite the Royal London Hospital. This fountain was erected to commemorate his coronation. The money for this was donated by members of the Jewish community. The bronze inscription has been stolen so many times that it has now been replaced by a plastic reproduction. ( MAP. No. 5. )

Frederic David Mocatta Fountain.

Outside St Botolph's Churchyard, Aldgate. Remembered for his "Benevolent life". He was chairman of council and President of the West London Synagogue (Reform) as well as being a warden of Bevis Marks Synagogue (Sephardi). ( MAP. No. 13. )

Leonard Montefiore Fountain.

In Stepney Green opposite the old East London Synagogue, erected to the memory of Leonard Montefiore, the brother of Claude Montefiore. ( MAP. No. 4. )

OTHER PLACES TO SEE

Soup Kitchen For The Jewish Poor.	Wentworth Street Buildings, Gateway.	Bearstead Memorial Hospital.

Bearstead Memorial Hospital

Behind 24 and 26 Underwood Road. Opened in 1911 as the Jewish maternity hospital, but now is the Mary Hughes Childrens Centre. ( MAP. No. 23. )

The Soup Kitchen For The Jewish Poor

Brune Street. The name is carved prominently on the front of the building. ( MAP. No. 10. )

Stepney Green Court.

Stepney Green. An example of the better class of "Buildings" put up by the 4% Industrial Dwellings Co. Ltd. in an effort to improve living conditions. The architect was N.S.Joseph a founder of the Liberal Jewish Movement. ( MAP. No. 2. )

The Arch.

Wentworth Street. This was previously the main entrance of the Charlotte de Rothschild Model Dwellings opened in 1887. Also built by the 4% Industrial Dwellings Co. ( MAP. No. 9. )

Queen Mary College Clock Tower	Stepney Jewish School Gates.	Albert Stern House.

The Clock Tower

Mile End Road, outside Queen Mary College. This was erected by Herbert Stern in memory of his father Baron de Stern. Baron Hermann de Stern (1815 - 1887) was a banker. The clock was put up in front of what was then the People's Palace and was intended for all the inhabitants of the East End. . ( MAP. No. 22. )

The Stepney Jewish School.

Stepney Green. This is being used for non-Jewish educational purposes. The monogram is still on the gates and the name is carved into the stonework on the front of the building. ( MAP. No. 1. )

Albert Stern House,

253 Mile End Road. This was a Sephardi Old Peoples Home rather tactlessly placed overlooking the old cemetery behind it. ( MAP. No. 3. )

Cable Street Mural. A large mural on the wall of the old library in Cable Street (best viewed from Library Place), which commemorates the Battle of Cable Street in 1936, when the Jewish inhabitants joined with the dock workers preventing the Fascist Black Shirts from marching through the East End. ( MAP. No. 18. )

JEWISH STREET NAMES

• Adler Street.
  Named after Nathan Marcus Adler and Hermann Adler, father and son, who were successive Chief Rabbis of Orthodox Jews. (1844-1890 and 1891-1911 respectively)
• Amiel Street.
  Named after Isaac Amiel, a Firewatcher, of 154 Mile End Road, killed May 10th, 1941. Chosen by lot. (See below)
• Angel Mews.
  Off Cable Street. Presumably named after Dr Hannah Billig GM, known as the Angel of Cable Street who lived close by. See the Blue Plaque.
• Henriques Street.
  Named after Sir Basil Henriques JP specialising in juvenile cases, also social worker, founder and key figure of the Bernhard Baron Settlement. For more details.
• King David Lane.
  Shadwell. The name appears on a map of 1829 and so goes back before the time of Jewish settlement in the area. In 17^th century Oliver Cromwell built a defensive tower nearby called David's Castle and the name was probably preserved and made royal in this lane. King David reigned 1010 - 970 BCE.
• Nathaniel Close.
  Named after Nathaniel Meyer, the first Lord Rothschild (1840-1915) A prominent banker, and previously had been an MP. Among other things, he did much to improve the living conditions of the poor in the East End by founding the 4% Industrial Dwellings Company. See also Stepney Green Court & The Arch.

• Barnardo Street.
  Named after Thomas James Barnardo founder of the Dr Barnardo's Homes, established 1867, who while not Jewish himself, was the son of John Michaelis Barnado, a Sephardi Jew who came from Hamburg and settled in Dublin.
• Hessel Street.
  Named after Phoebe Hessel (1713 - 1821) Phoebe, who might possibly have had Jewish connections, was born in Stepney and masquerading as a man joined the army. She served as a private in the 5th Regiment of Foot and was wounded in the arm, fighting the French at the Battle of Fontenoy in 1745. She first married private Samuel Golding (see next entry) and later wed Thomas Hessel. She lived to be 108 and was buried in a churchyard in Brighton. The only Jewish connection that can be proved is that her tombstone was paid for by a pawnbroker named Hyam Lewis.
• Golding Street
  Probably named after Samuel Golding, first husband of Phoebe Hessel (see previous entry). There seems to be little evidence to show that he was a Jew, apart from his name.

2 Beaumont Grove	Brady Street	Beaumont Grove

BUILDINGS WITH JEWISH NAMES

• Bernhard Baron House.
  Henriques Street. Bernhard Baron (1850-1929) Was born in Russia, emigrated to USA and became a successful cigarette manufacturer. He donated very large sums of money to hospitals and other worthy causes including the Bernhard Baron Settlement which this building was previously called. See picture and more details.
• Phyllis Gerson House. ( MAP. 19.)
  2 Beaumont Grove. Now used by Jewish Care as a Day centre for the elderly. Named after the Justice of the Peace and club Leader of the Stepney Jewish Girls Club and Settlement.
• Mocatta House. ( MAP. No. 21. )
  Brady Street. Probably named after Frederic David Mocatta who died two years before the building was opened. See also Mocatta Drinking Fountain.
• Alice Model Nursery. ( MAP. No. 20. )
  Beaumont Grove, Stepney. Named after one of the pioneers of children's nurseries and playgroups. (The name Model was pronounced to rhyme roughly with Bow Bell.)

  Mile End Road	Hanbury Street

• Harold Pinter Drama Studio.
  Queen Mary College Arts Building, Mile End Road. Harold Pinter (1930- ) is a playwright, who was born in the East End and educated at Hackney Downs School.
• Harry Sherman Wing, The Brady Centre, Hanbury Street. Stone unveiled by Abe Sherman in 1963. ( MAP. No. 7. )
• Albert Stern House. ( MAP. No. 3. )
  253 Mile End Road. Lt. Col. Sir Albert Stern, a member of a family of bankers, was largely responsible for the development of the tank during World War 1. For picture and more details.

AIR RAID VICTIMS

In the 1950s during the rebuilding after World War 2, Stepney council decided to name the new buildings after victims of the bombing. They selected the names by drawing them out of a hat. As the borough had a large Jewish population, several of the names chosen were Jewish. They included:

• Ansell House. In memory of Frederick and Lucy Ansell of 49 Wilkes Street, killed May 10th 1941.
• Barbanel House. For David and Bertha Barbanel and daughters Kate (19) and Muriel (13) of 426 Commercial Road, killed March 25th, 1945.
• Erlich Cottages. For David and Lotte Ehrlich of 185 Stepney Way, killed Sept 10th, 1941.
• Jarman House. For Joseph and Sophia Jarman and children Helena (12) and Joseph (9) of Peabody Buildings. Killed September 18th, 1940.
• Wingrad House. For Bessie Wingrad and children Morris (16) and Estelle (8), the family of David Wingrad of Hughes Mansions. Killed March 27, 1945. (Morris was a member of Brady Club.)

Bethnal Green Underground Station

During the bombing in 1943, it was decided to place a of rocket-firing anti-aircraft battery in Victoria Park. The local population were not informed of this new weapon. So on the first night that the battery went into action, the unexpectedly loud noise caused the people going to the shelter in the local underground to think that a new weapon was being used against them. In the panic to get out of danger they rushed down the stairs, someone tripped and 173 people were crushed to death. Many of the victims were Jewish. This plaque has been placed on the Eastern entrance to Bethnal Green underground station, at the junction of Cambridge Heath Road and Roman Road.

These notes are probably not complete lists of interesting Jewish sites or sights.

During the summer months there are a number conducted walks looking at the Jewish East End. The series of booklets by Aumie Shapiro are recommended for reading.