A new immigrant community

In Russia, Tsar Nicholas I (1825-55) issued many decrees regulating Jewish life, and after the collapse of Poland in 1835 Jews were mainly confined to the Pale of Settlements (present-day Lithuania, Ukraine, Belarus and eastern Poland), where they lived in isolated and impoverished shtetls (small market towns). The assassination of Tsar Alexander II in 1881 led to vicious pogroms (the worst at Kishinev in 1903), and vast numbers fled. Many of them walked to Hamburg, from where - if they could obtain a visa, which usually involved bribery - they could sail to London in appalling steerage class conditions for 16s. a head (half price for children). From 1880-1895 they landed at Irongate Steps, Tilbury Dock, where some were sold bogus onward tickets to the USA.

The Jewish population of Britain increased from 46,000 in 1882 to 300,000 by 1914 (official figures almost certainly under-represent the numbers, because of the fear that overcrowding would be reported). The majority were in London. Previous Jewish settlers - mainly Spanish and Portuguese, and Dutch Ashkenazis - were horrified at the influx: in 1888 the former Chief Rabbi Nathan Adler wrote to the rabbis in Eastern Europe: Every Rabbi of a community kindly to preach in the synagogue and house of study, to publicise the evil which is befalling our brethren who have come here and to warn them not to come to the land of Britain, for such ascent is descent. Reports home from families who had settled here were garbled and contradictory. G. Eugene Harfield's handsomely-printed Commerical Directory of the Jews of the United Kingdom (Hewlett & Pierce 5634/1894), listing established traders and professionals (including barristers) throughout the land, is a sign of the desire to make good by assimilation, which a flood of poor immigrants threatened - see below. Significantly, its title page [right] combines Palestinian aspirations and loyalty to the Crown. (See HERE for the listings of shops and businesses in this parish.)  By contrast, many eastern European immigrants espoused radical politics: see HERE for a scurrilous, and racist, article from the Evening Standard of 1994 on the 'haunts of the anarchists'.

The British Brothers League, formed in 1901, agitated for an end to immigration and called for repatriation. Who is corrupting our morals? The Jews. Who is destroying our Sundays? The Jews. Who is debasing our national life? The Jews. Shame on them. Wipe them out. The 1905 Aliens Act reduced immigration by 40% - immigration officers were given the right to deport 'undersirable' (the term was not defined) immigrants. A few Jewish politicians actually supported this trend. It certainly changed the scene: for instance, most Jewish schoolchildren were now those of the second generation, who had been born here. The local Board schools were heavily used for voluntary activities on Sundays.

Jews Temporary Shelter

Lord Rothschild warned: We have now a new Poland on our hands in East London. Our first business is to humanise our Jewish immigrants and then to Anglicise them. (See below on Basil Henriques, who took the same approach.) He was instrumental in setting up a shelter in 1895, at 84 Leman Street (moving in 1928 to 63 Mansell Street), and the Rothschild Buildings in Flower and Dean Street, built as 'model artisan dwellings', became a focal point of Jewish life - see Jerry White

Synagogues in the parish

The history of Jewish settlement and life in East London has been extensively researched and written about. This is purely a record of 24 known synagogues that existed, for longer or shorter periods, in this parish. The historic roots of East London Jewry were in Spitalfields and Whitechapel, but spread over time east towards Bethnal Green, and south into this area. 

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 large, and historic, Bevis Marks synagogue on the edge of the City, representing a somewhat different style of Jewish life, and as noted above, reacted nervously to the new influx.  And 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: see, for example, Emanuel Litvinoff 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.

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 are struggling to survive.

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 Berners Street, off Commercial Road. 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'). Sir Basil ('the Gaffer'), 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 [pictured right]. 

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 Berners 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 London Hospital. See further his autobiography The Indiscretions of a Warden (Methuen 1937) amd L.L. Loewe Basil Henriques (RKP 1979).

There were other Jewish clubs with similar ideals, such as 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 outdoors activities; Habonim Dror is now a major international secular socialist Zionist youth movement.

After Sir Basil's death, and in his honour, Berners Street was renamed Henriques Street. The site of the synagogue and club, at 71 Henriques Street, was named Bernhard Baron House and is now private apartments. Here is a view of the building, and two views of the street.

In the 1980s the Settlement Synagogue (as by then it was known) moved to 2 Beaumont Grove E1, and in 1998 it merged with the South West Reform Synagogue, Newbury Park, Ilford where it became South West Essex & Settlement Reform Synagogue.