Patrick Comerford
Hampstead, Saint John’s Wood, and – above all – Golders Green and Stamford Hill – are the heart of London’s Jewish life, with a large number if synagogues and many kosher shops.
At the end of the 19th century, as the Jewish population gradually left the East End in London, some moved to Hampstead. Several associations came together to create a synagogue that would follow the German and Polish rites, and the Hampstead Synagogue was built in 1892.
During my recent but very short visit to Hampstead, I had all-too-brief look at Hampstead Synagogue on Dennington Park Road, West Hampstead.
Hampstead Synagogue is a brick building designed in the Neo-Romanesque style by the architect Nathaniel Delissa Isaac Joseph (1859-1927), known as Delissa Joseph. He was a nephew of the Jewish philanthropist, social reformer and architect Nathan Solomon Joseph (1834-1909), whose work included the Great Victoria Street synagogue in Belfast and Sandys Row Synagogue in Bishopsgate, London.
Delissa Joseph attended Durham House School and the Jews’ College, and began to practice as an architect in 1882. He designed a number of synagogues, including the Hammersmith and West Kensington synagogue on Brook Green (1890, now the Chinese Church in London); Cardiff Synagogue (1896-1897, now demolished), South Hackney Synagogue (1897, now closed); Finsbury Park Synagogue (1901, now closed); South-East London Synagogue, New Cross (1904, destroyed in a German air raid, 1940); and the Sephardi synagogue, South Manchester (1925-1927).
He designed superstructures over the booking halls of many London Underground stations, including Moorgate Station Chambers, Oxford Circus House and Coburg Court Hotel above Queensway station.
He also designed a number of blocks of mansion flats in London, including those on Fitzgeorge and Fitzjames Avenue in West Kensington, Rutland Court and Rutland Gardens in Knightsbridge, and Chelsea Court and Chelsea Embankment Gardens.
His wife the artist and social campaigner Lily Delissa (Solomon) Joseph (1863-1940) was also an eminent figure in late 19th and early 20th century London. She trained at the South Kensington School of Art, and exhibited regularly at the Royal Academy. She was also a suffragette and in 1912 was detained at Holloway prison as a result of her campaigning. She was a leading figure in the Hammersmith Synagogue, setting up its Ladies’ Guild.
Delissa was supportive of her political activities, and the Jewish Chronicle described him as an ‘ardent supporter of the cause of women’s suffrage in synagogue affairs’.
Delissa Joseph designed Hampstead Synagogue in what has been described as an Eclectic French Gothic-Romanesque style. It is built in red brick with slate roofs and its plan is of an entrance hall to the front of centralised auditorium.
Outside, it has a three-stage central tower with a tall hipped roof, a moulded parapet and clasped buttresses that are continued as octagonal broached ogee-capped turrets.
The doorway has a stepped semicircular arched architrave. Its upper stages are dominated by a moulded semicircular arch with foliate capitals to engaged shafts of three orders flanking a large window set over two order shafts of flanking interlaced arches over narrow lancets.
The tower is flanked by two-storey blocks each having four round-arched lancets above moulded semicircular arched doorway. The two-storey outer blocks each have hood moulds over two round-arched windows to the rear of single-storey ranges each with three round-arched lancets.
The central dome to the rear, which I could not see during my short, brief visit, has lunettes with graduated arched lights to a central drum.
Inside the synagogue, the entrance hall has a coffered ceiling, a mosaic tile floor, two-bay semicircular arched arcades with foliate capitals to the outer bays and decorative wrought-iron balusters on the staircases.
Galleries flank the polygonal-plan centre with the ribs of the panelled dome springing from cast-iron columns with waterleaf capitals supported on octagonal marble piers with moulded abaci. These support the panelled balcony fronts on three sides.
The barrel-vaulted ark area has segmental-arched archivolts. The marble ark is in a classical style, with decorative wrought-iron doors and an overlight set in a semicircular arch flanked by Ionic columns and quadrants that terminate in coupled Ionic pilasters to the dentilled entablature and balustraded parapet.
A marble pulpit is in a similar style with balusters to the front and it is flanked by swept marble steps. I also understand the building has good stained glass.
Hampstead Synagogue was completed in 1901. It was designated a Grade II* Listed Building in 1989, and was restored in 2009-2011. The first service in the newly renovated synagogue building was held on Saturday 12 September 2009
Hampstead Synagogue is known for the beauty of the building, and the power of its choral services on High Holydays, and holds some of the largest seasonal celebrations in the area.
It is a member of the United Synagogue and has been led by Rabbi Dr Michael Harris since 1995. The synagogue holds learning events, concerts, and social meetings for the members and visitors.
Notable members in the past have included the philosopher Sir Isaiah Berlin (1909-1997), who known for his conversational brilliance, his defence of liberalism and pluralism, his opposition to political extremism and intellectual fanaticism, and his accessible writings on people and ideas. An annual Isaiah Berlin Lecture is held at Hampstead Synagogue, at Wolfson College, Oxford, at the British Academy, and in Riga.
Hampstead Synagogue describes itself as a friendly, modern orthodox community characterised by a rich mixture of tradition and forward thinking, which it calls ‘Minhag Hampstead’. Under Rabbi Michael Harris, it combines an inclusive outlook with a belief in the importance of education and cross-community dialogue.
The Shabbat services embrace a lower-key, less formal style, where members of the community share the davening with the chazan Rabbi Shlomo Gerzi. On Friday nights, he leads services in the style of Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach.
Hampstead Synagogue is a fairtrade synagogue.
Shabbat Shalom, שבת שלום
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