Patterns of settlement
Russell & Lewis's 1900 map of Jewish East London

'The Hutch'
In 1872 a Jewish Working Men's Club & Lads' Institute had been founded by the Jewish Association for the Diffusion of Religious Knowledge, with a reading room and lecture hall at Hutchison House, Hutchison Street, Aldgate; Samuel Montagu was President. Becoming independent two years later, they added a library, games, entertainments and other club features for 400 members of both sexes. In 1883, a purpose-built club for 1,500 was built in Great Alie Street, with a Lads' Institute for boys between 14 and 20. Membership continued to increase; the Lads' Institute returned to Hutchison Street, and in 1892 the Great Alie Street premises were enlarged at a cost of £4,000. By 1905 there were 975 members, and the Hutchison House Club was created by the Rothschild family in conjunction with Max Bonn (1877-1938, an American-born merchant banker, later Sir Max Bonn KBE) and Frank Goldsmith MP, based at Camperdown House, in Half Moon Passage. (In 1915 they offered these premises to the government for war work; in the 1920s, social work conferences were held here.) 

All but one (which is described below) were Orthodox and Ashkenazi in their foundation and ritual. This was for two reasons: primarily because most of the settlers were from Eastern Europe, but also because the establishment of Sephardic synagogues in the area was inhibited by the presence of the historic Bevis Marks synagogue on the edge of the City, representing a somewhat different style of Jewish life, which as noted above reacted nervously to the new influx. (This is the oldest synagogue in England, built in 1701 and designed by the Quaker Joseph Avis who had worked with Wren, so its style is not unlike contemporary Anglican and nonconformist churches - deliberately so, since this was the prevailing architectural style and they did not wish to draw attention to themselves. It is tucked off the main street since at that time Jews were not permitted to build on main thoroughfares. Benjamin Disraeli's family had been members here, before a dispute which led to the children being baptized as Christians - which in due course enabled him to serve as prime minister.)  Apart from the divisions between Sephardi and Ashkenazi Jews, there were tensions between the various, very different immigrant groups:  for example, urban Jews from Kiev, Ukrainian farmers, those from small Galician (Austrian) towns and those from Polish ghettoes.

Willy Goldman (1910-2009), who grew up near the St George-in-the-East district and wrote East End my Cradle in 1940 and several other books about East End life, said that Rumanian and Polish Jews mutually regard each other as God's lowest creation. As one who largely rejected his religious heritage, he also wrote We Jewish children acknowledged the superiority of the Gentiles' method in one field: religion. He was practically exempt from it. With us the Rabbis dominated one part of our life as the school-teacher dominated the other. Most of their teaching, he reckoned, would have been forgotten within a week of barmitzvah.... But other East End Jewish writers (of which there are many) have a different take: Emanuel Litvinoff (1915-2011), for example, never had a bar mitzvah because his father returned to Russia and his mother could not afford it: see Journey Through a Small Planet  (1972).

The oldest congregations in this area were on the edge of, or just within, the City, in what became the parish of St Mark Whitechapel, many of whose late-19th century clergy were actively involved in Christian-Jewish mission, but which closed a generation later for lack of a local Christian population. Here are details of several Jewish convert clergy who served at St Mark's and at Christ Church, Watney Street.

In 1887 the Federation of Synagogues was established on the initiative of Samuel Montagu MP who was concerned by the spread of worship in small, unregulated and often insanitary premises. Those marked (1) were represented from the time of the preliminary meeting on 16 October 1887, those marked (2) from its official launch on 6 November 1887, and those marked (3) affiliated later. The title 'Great' does not mean that they were grand buildings - most were not - but rather that they were purpose-built amalgamations of small synagogues which previously met in homes or converted workshops.

In time, all those in the parish closed, amalgamating with other congregations, both local and further afield. A few remain on its borders - Nelson Street, Commercial Road and Fieldgate Street – but they are struggling to survive. However, they are actively involved in interfaith activity, through Tower Hamlets Interfaith Forum - and there is also a slight increase in young Jewish professionals living in the 'City Quarter' who attend daily prayers.

The synagogues are listed in historical order of foundation.

St George's Settlement Synagogue
was founded just after the First World War by Mr (later Sir) Basil Lucas Quixano Henriques (1890-1961) at 26a Betts Street, moving in 1929 to 33 Berner Street, off Commercial Road, on the site of a former Board School. In the mid-1920s it affiliated to the Movement for Reform Judaism and the Union of Liberal and Progressive Synagogues (which later became 'Liberal Judaism') - preface to their prayer book right. Sir Basil - 'the Gaffer' -  was educated at Harrow and Oxford, and his wife Rose, née Loewe - 'the Missus', though he called her 'Bunny' - became leading figures in the community, and advocated an assimilationist or Anglicised style of Jewish life, which was promoted through their clubs and holiday camps which were run on traditional English lines. (See here for his involvement in the creation of the war memorial at St George's.)

The Oxford & St George's Club began in 1914 at 125 Cannon Street Road, originally for boys; in 1919 girls were included and it moved to Betts Street, and in 1929 to Berner Street. He remained as Warden until 1947, and was also chairman of the East London Juvenile Court, President of the London Federation of Boys' Clubs and involved with the [Royal] London Hospital. See further his autobiography The Indiscretions of a Warden (Methuen 1937) and L.L. Loewe Basil Henriques (RKP 1979).

There were other Jewish clubs with similar ideals, such as 'The Hutch' (see above), Brady and Victoria Boys. Habonim is said to have been founded in Cannon Street Road in 1929 by Wellesley Aron and Norman Lourie, modelled on the German Wandervogel movement, and espousing collective strength and outdoor activities; Habonim Dror is now a major international secular socialist Zionist youth movement.

After Sir Basil's death Berner Street was renamed Henriques Street in 1961 [pictured 1909, inter-war and today]. The site of the synagogue and club, at no.71, was named Bernhard Baron House [pictured right] and is now private apartments.