Patrick Comerford
St Albans in Hertfordshire, with a population of about 60,000, is about 30 km (20 miles) north of London. Some years ago, the Sunday Times named it the best place to live in the south-east.
The cathedral city of St Albans dates back to Roman times. But it is also a modern cosmopolitan city that is known for its relaxed pace of life.
During my visits over the past weeks or so, I also wanted to learn about Jewish life in St Albans and about the city’s two synagogues – one United (or Orthodox) and the other Masorti (or Conservative).
The United or Orthodox synagogue, St Albans Synagogue, is the oldest extant Jewish congregation in Hertfordshire and the first and only purpose-built synagogue still in use in Hertfordshire.
Perhaps it is idle speculation to ask whether there were Jews in Verulamium, the Roman town immediately south-west of St Albans. Centuries later, Aaron of Lincoln (ca 1125-1186), the greatest financier in England, lent funds to almost all the great abbeys and monasteries, including St Albans Abbey, to finance their gothic building projects in the 12th century.
Matthew Paris, the historian of St Albans Abbey, records how Aaron of Lincoln would come to ‘the house of St Alban’ (Domum Sancti Albani) and jest with the monks ‘that it was he who made the window for our Saint Alban and that from his own money he had prepared a home for the homeless saint’ (Jactitabat se feretrum Beato Albano nostro fecisse, et ipsi, dehospitato, hospitium de pecunia sua praeparasse.)
Aaron’s jest referred to the great stained-glass window in the transept of St Albans Abbey and the large shrine created by Abbot Simon (1167-1183) for the relics of Saint Alban. This elaborately ornamented domus or home for the martyr’s remains an example of the larger-scale contributions Aaron made to cathedrals and abbeys throughout England.
The stories surrounding Saint Alban tell that his first good deed involved providing hospitality and a hiding place for a fugitive priest and religious refugee who arrived at Alban’s home during the time of the Diocletian persecutions. So, as far back as ca 300 CE, when Alban gave shelter to someone fleeing religious persecutors, we could say St Albans has been a place of welcome for a people with a diversity of backgrounds and family stories, including refugees and people fleeing persecution and discrimination.
The present Jewish community in St Albans dates back to Jewish families who were living and working in St Albans from the early 1900s. The census records in 1901 and 1911 show that many members of those first Jewish families in St Albans worked as tailors or machinists at Nicholson’s raincoat factory in Sutton Road, Fleetville, and lived in the nearby streets.
The small number of Jewish families in St Albans met for synagogue services in family homes in and around Royston Road and Hedley Road. There was an early attempt to establish a congregation ca 1910, but this continued only until about 1924.
The present organised Jewish community in St Alban dates from the mid-1930s. A small number of Jewish families move to St Albans from London at that time, and St Albans Hebrew Congregation was formally established in 1933, with services in members’ homes. Numbers were swollen by the beginning of World War II, as more families found refuge from London in the relative peace of St Albans.
The growing community raised funds to buy a large house at 54 Clarence Road in 1942. For almost a decade, this house was both a synagogue and a home for the rabbi. Well-attended High Holy Day services were also held in the Town Hall, now the St Albans Museum and Gallery.
The congregation increased in size during World War II, with the arrival of many evacuees from heavily populated areas of Central and Eastern London. After World War II, the community was affiliated to the United (Orthodox) Synagogue in 1948.
More than 300 people attended the laying of the foundation stone for a new synagogue on Oswald Road in March 1950. The building was consecrated a year later in March 1951. This is the first and only purpose-built synagogue still in use in Hertfordshire is inaugurated in Oswald Road, St Albans in 1951. The building has two rare and beautiful stained glass windows by the artist and Hebrew scholar David Hillman.
In the decades that followed, the size of the community fluctuated. More Jewish families move out to St Albans from London and the provinces in the 1960s, while older members died or moved back to London.
A new wave of young married couples moved into the area in the 1980s. Regular Shabbat morning services were reintroduced in 2001 on the eve of the shul’s 50th anniversary celebrations. As part of the celebrations of that golden jubilee in 2001, the then Chief Rabbi, the late Lord (Jonathan Sacks) visited the synagogue to open its biblical garden.
St Albans Hebrew Congregation became a full member of the United Synagogue in 2011. Two years later, in 2013, it elected Karen Appleby as the first woman to chair a United Synagogue community. The present chair of the council is Elissa Da Costa-Waldman.
In 2014, the synagogue appointed of a new minister after being without a minister or rabbi since 1967, almost a gap of 50 years. The arrival of Rabbi Daniel Sturgess, together with his wife, Rebbetzin Alli, ushered in a new lease of life for the shul.
At the end of 2021, despite the coronavirus pandemic, the synagogue celebrated – in person and livestreamed – the 70th anniversary of the opening of the synagogue building. The guests of honour included Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis, the Mayor of St Albans, Councillor Edgar Hill, and children and grandchildren of the founder members.
A recent exhibition in St Albans Museum and Gallery, ‘Arriving and Belonging – Stories from the St Albans Jewish Community’, illustrated how some Jewish people in St Albans belong to families who came to Britain as refugees.
The exhibition ran from 4 February to 15 May 2022, and attracted over 18,000 visitors during those 15 weeks. Some of the people in the Jewish community in St Albans whose stories were told include Darren Marks, is descended from Abraham Martinez, a Sephardi Jew, and one of the first wardens at Bevis Marks synagogue.
Many of the Jews settling back in England were Sephardi, originating from Spain and Portugal, and Abraham Joseph Nunes Martinez (1719-1781) was also a direct ancestor of the sisters Rosina Sarah Sipple (1881-1958), who married Harry William John Comerford (1874-1955), and Agnes Violet (Aggie) Sipple (1884-1965), who married his brother Albert (Bert) AG Comerford.
Another community member, Judy Davis, who traces her family back eight generations to Sarah Lyon (1703-1807) of Ipswich, who died at the age of 104. She was one of the earliest Jewish settlers in England in the modern period, and an engraving of her held by her descendants is based on a painting by John Constable in 1804, when she was 101. Her son, Rabbi Isaac Titterman (1731-1818), may have been the mohel who circumcised Lord George Gordon.
Ruth Goldsmith’s grandmother Cissy Miller, was present at the Battle of Cable Street in the East End in London in 1936.
Many members of the Jewish community in St Albans feel fortunate that their families were given sanctuary in Britain and hope that Britain will continue to welcome and offer safety to people fleeing violence and persecution.
The congregation is part of the 5+1 group, consisting of six small United Synagogue communities, five in Hertfordshire and one in Bedfordshire. The other five congregations are: Potters Bar & Brookmans Park United Synagogue, Shenley United Jewish Community, Watford and District Synagogue and Welwyn Garden City Synagogue in Hertfordshire; and Luton United Synagogue in Bedfordshire.
The 5+1 group has an intercommunal social programme intended to match those provided by large synagogues, while retaining the closeness of smaller communities.
Today, St Albans Synagogue is a thriving and growing community, with an array of lively services, social and educational activities and a warm and friendly community. Membership is about 300 at present, with an increasing number of young families.
St Albans also has a Masorti Synagogue and the Bedfordshire-Hertfordshire Liberal Synagogue, now Bedfordshire Progressive Synagogue, once met in St Albans, although it now meets in Luton. But, perhaps, more about these on another Friday evening.
Shabbat Shalom
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