Patrick Comerford
The Marble Arch area has two of the most beautiful and dynamic synagogues in central London: Western Marble Arch Synagogue, which I looked at last week (7 March 2025), and West London Synagogue, at Upper Berkeley Street and Seymour Street, which I am looking at this evening.
West London Synagogue is one of the oldest synagogues in Britain, one of the most important Reform synagogues in London and one of the largest congregations in Europe. Together with Davis and Emanuel’s East London Synagogue, it is regarded as one of the finest Victorian synagogues in Britain and is a Grade II listed building.
Until recently, the senior rabbi of West London Synagogue was Baroness (Julia) Neuberger, until she retired in 2020, and it has also been associated with one of her predecessors Rabbi Hugo Gryn. Members of the congregation have included the historian Sir Simon Schama and the actor Maureen Lipman.
WLS, as it is known popularly, has long been seen as the flagship Reform synagogue and was the oldest synagogue affiliated with the Movement for Reform Judaism before that affiliation lapsed two years ago. It continues to see itself as ‘the heart of progressive Judaism in Central London’. It has an inclusive and progressive congregation, with men and women sitting together during services and playing equal parts in leading them.
Although the congregation was established in 1840, the present building was not built until 1870. It was founded primarily by members of two prominent families: the Mocatta family, whose ancestors originally came from Spain, and the Goldsmid family, who originally came from Holland. Both families were long settled in London and believed West London needed a synagogue for ‘British Jews’ and not ones that were segregated based on heritage, lineage or past language differences.
This explains why WLS is known formally as the West London Synagogue of British Jews, although its Hebrew name is Holy Congregation Gate of Zion (ק"ק שער ציון, Kahal Kadosh Sha’ar Tziyon).
The congregation was established on 15 April 1840, when 24 members of the Mocatta, Goldsmid and other families met in the Bedford Hotel, Southampton Row, and announced their secession from their respective congregations, the Sephardi Bevis Marks Synagogue and the Ashkenazi Great Synagogue of London.
The Mocatta and Goldsmid families had been quarrelling with the wardens in their synagogues and complaining over what they regarded as a lack of decorum for years.
They wanted to worship nearer their homes in the West End, religious services with a decorum they believed was lacking in both synagogues, sermons in English, and to together of both branches of English Jews: the Sephardim, mainly of Spanish and Portuguese descent and the Ashkenazim, with German, Dutch and central and east European backgrounds.
The new prayer group hired the Revd David Woolf Marks (1811-1901) as its first minister in March 1841. As the reformers’ plans became more developed, the criticism became more vociferous. in September 1841 the new congregation was denounced by the Chief Rabbi in September 1841, and its members were subject to a cerem or an excommunication order.
The West London Synagogue of British Jews had its first permanent building at Burton Street Chapel in Bloomsbury, from 27 January 1842. A few days before the synagogue was consecrated, the leader of the Sephardi Synagogue at Bevis Marks and the Chief Rabbi of the Ashkenazi Great Synagogue issued a ban and declared the rebels were in contradiction of the beliefs and practices of orthodox Judaism.
Marks and the congregation adopted a unique, bibliocentric approach known to critics as ‘neo-Karaism’. Marks and the new group largely rejected the authority of the Oral Torah and rabbinic traditions, abandoned many traditional prayers, and abolished many practices, such as observing the second day of festivals and excised various prayers grounded in rabbinic tradition.
These premises soon become too crowded too by 1848, and a new location in Margaret Street, off Cavendish Square, was dedicated on 25 January 1849. The new congregation used the term ‘Reform’, from German and American influence, to describe its worship and beliefs.
A new location was required yet again by 1867, and the present synagogue building on Upper Berkeley Street was opened on 22 September 1870, with a seating capacity at the time for 1,000 people.
The synagogue was designed in the Byzantine-Romanesque or Neo-Byzantine style by the architects Henry David Davis (1839-1915) and Barrow Emanuel (1842-1904), partners in Davis and Emanuel. Davis was one of the first Jews to practice architecture in Britain. Emanuel was a graduate of Trinity College Dublin and a son of Emanuel Emanuel, the first Jewish mayor of Portsmouth. Their other synagogues include East London Synagogue (1876) in Stepney Green, and Lauderdale Road Synagogue (1896-1897).
The synagogue is built in brick with a Portland stone façade and a slate roof. The three-storey façade is dominated by the pedimented semicircular arch supported on coupled columns with richly-carved capitals. The recessed entrance bay has graduated semi-circular arched windows over three doorways framed by a semi-circular arched arcade with similar columns.
The attic storey arcade has eight round-arched windows with foliate capitals on square piers. There are similar one-light windows on the projecting outer bays.
Davis and Emanuel also designed the main sanctuary, the bimah and the Torah ark in the Neo-Byzantine style. The other interior features include a panelled entrance hall with a beamed coffered ceiling, a double-flight staircase and bronze candelabra.
The central dome is carried on semi-circular arches and quatrefoil-section scagliola piers with foliate Byzantine-Romanesque capitals, decorative balcony fronts, clusters of colonettes and capitals and barrel-vaulted aisles. There is fine stained-glass in semi-circular arches and square-headed windows.
The premises extend into Seymour Place to include offices, a library and various community facilities. The organ was built by Harrison & Harrison and has 55 stops on four manuals and pedal. It was restored in 2008.
Meanwhile, David Marks retired in 1895. Many of his innovations, which had never very popular with the congregation, were abandoned by his successor, Rabbi Morris Joseph. He brought West London closer to mainstream Reform Judaism and removed from the liturgy its petitions for the restoration of sacrifices in Jerusalem.
Rabbi Harold Reinhart (1891-1961) was appointed in 1929 and brought West London into the World Union for Progressive Judaism. The synagogue was a founding member in 1942 of the Associated British Synagogues, later the Movement for Reform Judaism and now known as Reform Judaism. Rabbi Reinhart resigned in 1957 and with 80 former members of West London Synagogue established the New London Synagogue, later renamed Westminster Synagogue.
His successor, Rabbi Werner van der Zyl, was the Senior Rabbi in 1958-1968. He was followed by Rabbi Hugo Gryn (1930-1998), a survivor of Auschwitz who became a celebrated broadcaster and a leading voice in interfaith dialogue. He has been described as ‘probably the most beloved rabbi in Great Britain’.
The building has expanded in every generation, and now includes classrooms for the children’s Hebrew school, lecture halls and libraries, as well as offices for the rabbis and the administrative staff.
Dublin-born Rabbi Jackie Tabick, the first woman ordained a rabbi in 1975, was an associate minister in West London Synagogue in 1975-1999. Rabbi Julia Neuberger, the second woman to be ordained as a rabbi in Britain, was the Senior Rabbi from 2011 to 2020, was the first to lead a synagogue in Britain. She became a life peer in 2004.
After a long-running dispute, West London Synagogue suspended its membership in the Movement for Reform Judaism (MRJ) in 2020, and that affiliation lapsed in 2023.
The co-senior rabbis are Rabbi Dr Helen Freeman, who was appointed in 2020, and Rabbi David Mitchell, who has been there since 2011. The staff also includes Assistant Rabbi Matthew Turchin and Associate Rabbi Emily Reitsma-Jurman.
West London Synagogue is committed to social action and interfaith activities (Photograph: WLS)
Today, West London Synagogue has about 3,000 members. WLS is committed to social action, and runs a drop-in for asylum seekers once a month, and works closely with local churches and other community organisations, and is committed to interfaith activities.
The synagogue has live broadcasts of its services, and its calendar includes varied Shabbat and festival services, formal and informal services, interfaith events, community groups, once a month drop-in sessions for asylum seekers and a night shelter for homeless people once a week.
Services follow the prayer books of the Movement for Reform Judaism, with material from both Sephardi and Ashkenazi traditions. Men and women have sat together since the 1920s, and a choir and organ are part of service except for the aleinu and the Kaddish.
There is a traditional Reform choral service in Hebrew and English at 6 pm each Friday, with a sermon and music. The weekly Shacharit services on Saturday mornings begin at 11 am, and include the choir, Torah readings, and usually a sermon. There are services marking lifecycle moments, including a bar/bat mitzvah, baby blessing, pre-marriage celebration or birthdays and anniversaries. Morning services are preceded by coffee and cake after every service there is a kiddush or a blessing with wine, and light reception.
Shabbat Shalom, שבת שלום
