THE JEWISH EAST END TODAY

CONTENTS
ACTIVE SYNAGOGUES
AIR RAID VICTIMS
BLUE PLAQUES
COMEMERATIVE PLAQUES
CLUBS AND SETTLEMENTS
JEWISH MONUMENTS
JEWISH STREET NAMES
JEWISH-NAMED BUILDINGS
OTHER PLACES TO SEE
JEWISH CEMETERIES AND DISUSED SYNAGOGUES.
MAP OF EAST END

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 reference numbers are colour coded on the on THE MAP.

The Jewish Communal organisations which are open are:-

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.

THINGS TO SEE

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.

See also old DISUSED SYNAGOGUES still visible.

CLUBS AND SETTLEMENTS

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

PEOPLE WITH POSSIBLE JEWISH CONNECTIONS

2 Beaumont Grove
Brady Street
Beaumont Grove

BUILDINGS WITH JEWISH NAMES

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:

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.


See also old JEWISH CEMETERIES AND DISUSED SYNAGOGUES in the East End.

See EXPLORING EAST LONDON for a good general historical guide to the area.


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