Westminster Jews’ Free School closed 80 years ago, but the building remains a landmark

The former Westminster Jews’ Free School on Hanway Place, off Tottenham Court Road and Oxford Street(Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

I posed, in jest, a conundrum the other day, asking why there are no Greek cafés or restaurants on Greek Street in Soho. But, of course, in my discussion of the cultural diversity of that one street in Soho – from Greek and French to Italian and Irish, all contributing to the mosaic of life in England today – I ought to have referred too to the Jewish school that was on Greek Street for many years.

The Westminster Jews’ Free School was established by the independent Western Synagogue in 1811, before the government provided any funds for education. The school was founded under the auspices of the Western Synagogue to teach Hebrew, English, writing and arithmetic.

Originally, the aim of the school was ‘that male children of the Jewish persuasion (whose parents are unable to afford them education) be instructed in Hebrew and English reading, writing and arithmetic; that the principle of religion be carefully inculcated, and every exertion used to render them good and useful members of society.’

The school was formalised in 1820, it was funded by voluntary contributions and classes were held at the teachers’ homes. By 1837, the school committee had decided to rent a premises in Stanhope Street but by 1843 this was too small and a new school was opened at 59-60 Greek Street, opposite the Pillars of Hercules, which I was writing about earlier this week.

The children were admitted from age 5 to 12 and discharged at 13. As well as teaching, the boys received gifts of clothing and on his bar mitzvah each boy was given an entire new outfit was provided.

The equivalent girls’ school opened at Richmond Buildings, 21 Dean Street, in 1846. Shortly after, it too moved to 59-60 Greek Street. Its aims were ‘For the diffusion of religion and knowledge of moral and social principles among the young and ignorant.’

The two schools were amalgamated in 1853 and named the Westminster Jews’ Free School. By the time education was made compulsory and school boards were set up in the 1870s, it was a large, successful establishment.

The school moved from Greek Street to Hanway Place in 1883 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The school remained at 59-60 Greek Street for 40 years. But by 1882, it was obvious the school was no longer big enough. A new school that could accommodate 500 children was built on the north side of Hanway Place, a narrow lane near the corner of Tottenham Court Road and Oxford Street, and it was consecrated in July 1883.

Because the school was located between Bloomsbury and Soho, it brought together an economically diverse Jewish community. The school charged fees to attend, but many scholarships were available. The school management committee included members of the prominent and wealthy Montefiore and Rothschild families and wealthy local businessmen and investors who saw the school as both a charitable and religious undertaking.

The wages and resources for teachers were much better than schools of comparative size in similar areas, staff turnover was low, teachers stayed for years, wages were increased regularly.

School prizes were endowed by prominent figures, including Sir David Salomons was the first Jewish Lord Mayor of London, one of the first Jewish MPs and a founder of the London and Westminster bank, and his nephew, Sir David Lionel Salomons. Yet, despite this, many of the children came from families that still lived in poverty well into the early 20th century.

At its peak, the school had 700 children on its rolls. But attendance was falling off by the 1930s, and the last pupil enrolled in 1939. A famous pupil was Harry Ehrengott, the only fireman during World War II who was awarded the George Cross for bravery, the highest honour that can be awarded to a civilian.

After the end of World War II 80 years ago, Westminster Jews’ Free School finally closed on 31 December 1945.

The former Westminster Jews’ Free School was converted into flats and offices in the late 1990s. But the name of the school is still to be seen in the beautiful terracotta decoration and lettering.

Shabbat Shalom, שבת שלום

Westminster Jews’ Free School closed 80 years ago on 31 December 1945 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2025: 118, Friday 5 September 2025

The banquet with Levi included the questions and answers – and the drinking – associated with a Greek symposium … pottery in a shop in Rethymnon in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar and the week began with the Eleventh Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XI, 31 August 2025). The Season of Creation began on Monday (1 September 2025), and continues until 4 October.

Later today, we are travelling to York. But, before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, for reflection, prayer and reading in these ways:

1, today’s Gospel reading;

2, a reflection on the Gospel reading;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.

After the symposium … an end-of-term dinner with the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Luke 5: 33-39 (NRSVA):

33 Then they said to him [Jesus], ‘John’s disciples, like the disciples of the Pharisees, frequently fast and pray, but your disciples eat and drink.’ 34 Jesus said to them, ‘You cannot make wedding-guests fast while the bridegroom is with them, can you? 35 The days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast in those days.’ 36 He also told them a parable: ‘No one tears a piece from a new garment and sews it on an old garment; otherwise the new will be torn, and the piece from the new will not match the old. 37 And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise the new wine will burst the skins and will be spilled, and the skins will be destroyed. 38 But new wine must be put into fresh wineskins. 39 And no one after drinking old wine desires new wine, but says, “The old is good”.’

‘You cannot make wedding-guests fast while the bridegroom is with them, can you?’ (Luke 5: 34) … preparing for a wedding in Southwark (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflection:

Jesus has called the tax-collector Levi, and then dines with him in his house that evening (Luke 5: 27-31). Levi celebrates not just with dinner, or even a lavish dinner, but a ‘great banquet’ in his house that is attended by a large crowd.

Banquets were not merely lavish meals but also a setting for teaching and instruction, and the word for banquet here δοχή (dochē) suggests a formal Greek banquet known as a symposium (συμπόσιον, sympósion, from συμπίνειν, sympínein, ‘to drink together’).

In classical Greece, the symposium was the part of a banquet that took place after the meal, when drinking for pleasure was accompanied by music, dancing, recitals, or conversation. Literary works that describe or take place at a symposium include two Socratic dialogues, Plato’s Symposium and Xenophon’s Symposium, as well as a number of Greek poems.

If we read Levi’s banquet as a symposium, then, of course, it is going to be associated, culturally, in those days with drinking, and with questions and answers.

Some people ask why Jesus eats and drinks with tax collectors and sinners. Now, in this morning’s Gospel reading (Luke 5: 33-39), the same people ask why, unlike John’s disciples or the disciples of the Pharisees, who frequently fast and pray, the disciples of Jesus eat and drink.

Similar complaints were made about Socrates. In Plato’s Symposium, Alcibiades claims that Socrates, despite allegedly drinking heavily just like the others, never got drunk and that alcohol never has any effect on Socrates: ‘Observe, my friends, said Alcibiades, that this ingenious trick of mine will have no effect on Socrates, for he can drink any quantity of wine and not be at all nearer being drunk.’

Christ responds to his detractors by comparing the invitation into the Kingdom with an invitation to a wedding, and speaks of his followers as guests at a wedding banquet. The feast is in progress, so this is a time for joy, while after his death it will be a time for fasting.

He insists that the old way of being and the new way he brings are separate, even if both are to be valued. New material stretches more than old. When wine ferments, it expands. Soft new wineskins expand with the wine, but old ones do not.

And so, in a way, I find myself thinking this morning of two other banquets where the wine must have been flowing freely.

The first of these is the Wedding at Cana, the banquet before Christ’s ministry begins. There the wine runs out, and then the wine runs freely.

The second banquet is at the end of Christ’s ministry, the meal at the Last Supper. Not only must the wine have been flowing freely at that meal, it is the meal of the New Covenant, in which bread and wine are freely given, just as Christ gives himself freely, body and blood.

In this in-between time, this Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar, ordinary meals offer a promise of what the heavenly banquet is like. And constantly, as in this morning’s Gospel reading, Jesus uses the image of the wedding banquet to convey how sacred, how loving, how caring, how beautiful, how full of promise, is the heavenly banquet.

Just as the wedding banquet is not the wedding itself, but a celebration of the wedding and the promise of the wedding, the meals in the Gospel in the in-between times are foretastes of, promises of, the great heavenly banquet.

And, at those banquets, Christ dines with tax-collectors like tax-collectors like Levi, Pharisees like Simon, those who are rejected by polite society like Zacchaeus, just as he is going to dine at the Last Supper with those who are going to betray him like Judas, those who are going to deny him like Peter, just as he is going to insist on dining with those who fail to recognise him after the Resurrection, like the disciples at Emmaus.

No matter how wayward others may think we are, no matter how wayward we may think we have been, Christ calls us back to dine with him, to have a new and intimate relationship with, wants to dine with us, so that, as we say in the Prayer of Humble Access, so that ‘that we may evermore dwell in him and he in us.’

Levi’s banquet has parallels with the symposia associated with Socrates, including the drinking and the questions … Socrates bar in Piskopianó in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Friday 5 September 2025):

The theme this week (31 August to 6 September) in Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘A Faith that Listens and Grows’ (pp 34-35). This theme was introduced on Sunday with reflections from Soshi Kawashima, Seminarian, Diocese of Chubu, Nippon Sei Ko Kai (Anglican Church in Japan). Soshi took part in the Emerging Leaders Academy (ELA), a cross-cultural learning opportunity for young people across the Anglican Communion.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Friday 5 September 2025) invites us to pray:

Heavenly Father, thank you for the mentors who faithfully support the ELA cohort through online 1-1 meetings. May they be strengthened and equipped to encourage others.

The Collect:

O God, you declare your almighty power
most chiefly in showing mercy and pity:
mercifully grant to us such a measure of your grace,
that we, running the way of your commandments,
may receive your gracious promises,
and be made partakers of your heavenly treasure; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post Communion Prayer:

Lord of all mercy,
we your faithful people have celebrated that one true sacrifice
which takes away our sins and brings pardon and peace:
by our communion
keep us firm on the foundation of the gospel
and preserve us from all sin;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

God of glory,
the end of our searching,
help us to lay aside
all that prevents us from seeking your kingdom,
and to give all that we have
to gain the pearl beyond all price,
through our Saviour Jesus Christ.

Yesterday’s reflections

Continued tomorrow

‘No one tears a piece from a new garment and sews it on an old garment’ … colourful new fabrics in a shop in Seville (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org

Socrates is regarded as the founder of western philosophy … a street name in Koutouloufári in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)