Hanbury Street and some East End synagogues with names recalling Holocaust massacres

At one time, Hanbury Street off Brick Lane had up to seven synagogues, many tucked away in courtyards behind the street (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

Patrick Comerford

Purim this year begins on Monday evening (6 March 2023) and ends on Tuesday evening (7 March 2023). Purim recalls the story of Esther and of the near-destruction of the Jewish people plotted by Haman, a courtier of King Ahasuerus of Persia.

On the Friday evening before Purim it is interesting to visit the locations of some East End synagogues that have connections with towns in present-day Poland, Lithuania and Belarus where the Jewish communities were almost annihilated during the Holocaust.

During my recent walks around the East End, I visited a number of synagogues and former synagogues, and plan to continue writing about them in the coming days and weeks. In my blog postings in recent days, I have written about the Spital Square Poltava Synagogue at 2 Heneage Street, the former Artillery Lane Synagogue, near Liverpool Street Station, the former Gun Street Synagogue, near Spitalfields, and the East London Central Synagogue, also known as Nelson Street Synagogue.

Hanbury Street in the East End was an important part of the Jewish area off Brick Lane at the beginning of the 20th century. A blue plaque at 12 Hanbury Street recalls Bud Flanagan who was born there as Chaim Reeven (Reuben) Weintrop in 1896. He was a member of the ‘Crazy Gang,’ whose most famous song was ‘Underneath the Arches.’ In his early days, he also sang as a part-time cantor (hazzan) in a synagogue.

At one time, Hanbury Street had up to seven synagogues: the Konin Synagogue at 48 Hanbury Street; the Glory of Israel and Sons of Klatsk Synagogue at No 50½, followed in time by the Poltava Synagogue also at No 50½; the Brethren of Suwalki Synagogue at No 56; Hanbury Street Synagogue at 60 Hanbury Street; the Lovers of Peace Synagogue and the Voice of Jacob Synagogue, both as 183/185 Hanbury Street; and Saint George’s Settlement Synagogue, at 192/196 Hanbury Street.

Many of these small, short-lived synagogues were founded by people who came from larger Jewish communities in Poland, Lithuania and present-day Belarus that were almost totally annihilated during the Holocaust and World War II.

The Konin Synagogue, once at 48 Hanbury Street, took its name from Konin in central Poland (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

The Konin Synagogue, once at 48 Hanbury Street, was also known as the United Brethren of Konia or Brothers of Konin.

This synagogue took its name from Konin, a town in central Poland, and until the 1930s Jews were 30% of Konin’s population. During the Holocaust, the Nazis many of the town’s Jews in the surrounding forests, and in mass executions 95% of Konin’s Jews were killed or sent to concentration camps. In August 1943, the Jews at the labour camp at Konin, led by Rabbi Joshua Moshe Aaronson, burned down the huts in the camp and tried to escape. Almost all were killed.

The synagogue at 48 Hanbury Street was founded between 1881 and 1887, and it was one of the congregations involved in the formation of the Federation of Synagogues in 1887. At one time, it had 45 members. It had closed by 1906.

The B’nai Klatsk Synagogue was at 50½ Hanbury Street … about 4,000 Jews were murdered in a massacre in Kletsk on 6 October 1941 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

The B’nai Klatsk Synagogue, also known as the Glory of Israel and Sons of Klatsk Synagogue, was at 50½ Hanbury Street. The Poltava Synagogue had been at this address from 1915 before moving short distance to Heneage Street.

This synagogue was almost hidden from view and was accessed through a small passage or alleyway through the buildings on Hanbury Street.

The B’nai Klatsk Synagogue seems to have taken its name from Kletsk, a city now in the Minsk Region of Belarus, but part of Poland in the 1920s and 1930s. Kletsk had a population of about 8,000 in 1903, of whom about 6,000 were Jews. During the Holocaust, about 4,000 Jews were murdered in a massacre in the town on 6 October 1941. The remaining 2,000 Jews were sent to concentration camps in 1942, and the Holocaust brought an end to a vibrant Jewish life.

The Glory of Israel and Sons of Klatsk Synagogue was at 50½ Hanbury Street from the late 1920s until it closed in the mid-1930s, when it was incorporated into the Mile End Town Synagogue.

The Mile End Town Synagogue, which was founded in 1880, was also known as Great Mile End New Town Synagogue or Dunk Street Chevra. It was at 39 Dunk Street, Whitechapel, and it too was one of the congregations involved in the formation of the Federation of Synagogues in 1887.

The Mile End Town Synagogue closed around 1956, the neighbourhood around Dunk Street was redeveloped and Dunk Street no longer exists.

The Brethren of Suwalki Synagogue was once at 56 Hanbury Street (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

The Brethren of Suwalki Synagogue was once at 56 Hanbury Street. Suwalki is in north-east Poland, close to the provinces of Kovno, Vilno and the city of Grodno, and about 30 km from the border with Lithuania. It was in of Lithuania until 1386, when it became part of Poland. It was absorbed into the Tsarist empire in 1815, and remained under Russian rule until after World War I, when the area was divided between Poland and Lithuania.

Jewish life in Suwalki began only in the early 19th century, and by 1862 the city had a Jewish population of 7,165.

During the Polish uprising in 1863, the Jews of Suwalki suffered at the hands of both Poles and Cossacks. Yet, by 1908 there were about 13,000 Jews in Suwalki, and 10,000-11,000 at the beginning of World War II, with about 27 synagogues and Jewish congregations, as well as a Jewish-run hotel, hospital and schools. Avraham Stern, founder of the ‘Stern Gang,’ was born and raised in Suwalki.

When the Nazis invaded Poland, they changed the name of Suwalki to Sudauen, and incorporated it into East Prussia. They forced the city’s Jews to live in a new ghetto until most of them were murdered in the Holocaust.

Today, Suwalki has the highest unemployment rate in Poland, and the only memory of the Jewish community who lived there for 130 years is the empty silent cemetery where 32,000 Jews are buried

Hanbury Street Synagogue was at 60 Hanbury Street in the early 20th century (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

Hanbury Street Synagogue was at 60 Hanbury Street for about two or three years in the early 1900s. This too was a synagogue that was almost hidden from view and it was reached through a small passage or alleyway through the buildings on Hanbury Street.

It was founded by 1905, when it had about 70 members. It was an affiliated synagogue of the Federation of Synagogues and closed after 1906.

The Lovers of Peace Synagogue, also known as the Voice of Jacob Synagogue, was at 183/185 Hanbury Street, and also included the Great Garden Street Talmud Torah.

The congregation may have been founded in 1890, although it was only at Hanbury Street in from the 1920s or 1930s. It too was an affiliated to the Federation of Synagogues, and it closed around 1951.

Today, the Montefiore Centre is at 183/185 Hanbury Street. But the stories of the Montefiore Centre and the Saint George’s Settlement Synagogue, formerly at 192/196 Hanbury Street, and the stories of Robert Sebag Montefiore and Sir Basil Henriques, are stories for another day.

Shabbat Shalom, Chag Purim Sameach!

Hanbury Street was once at the heart of an East End Jewish community with origins in Poland (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

Gun Street Synagogue: forgotten in the streetchanges in Spitalfields

Gun Street, looking towards Artillery Lane … the Warsaw Synagogue or Gun Street Synagogue was at 37A Gun Street (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

Patrick Comerford

During my recent walks around the East End, I visited a number of synagogues and former synagogues, and plan to write about them in the coming days and weeks.

In my blog postings in recent days, I have written about the former Poltava Synagogue on Heneage Streetthe, and the former Artillery Lane Synagogue, now Dome House at 48-50 Artillery Lane, near Liverpool Street Station.

The Warsaw Synagogue or Gun Street Synagogue, was at 37A Gun Street, off Brushfield Street, in Spitalfields.

Gun Street was within the historic Liberty of the Old Artillery Ground, and from 1856 to 1900, the Liberty of the Old Artillery Ground was part of the Whitechapel District. Later it was part the Borough of Stepney, and since 1965 it has been absorbed into Tower Hamlets.

The old and the new seen in one building on the corner of Gun Street and Artillery Lane (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

Gun Street was originally 600 ft long, running north-south from just south of Spital Square to Artillery Street, which is now part of Artillery Lane, and parallel with both Steward Street, to the west, and Crispin Street, to the east.

Gun Street Synagogue was founded at 37A Gun Street in 1895. The lease of 37A Gun Street ran from 25 March 1895 and was dated 31 July 1895.


The synagogue was also known as the Warsaw Congregation and Benevolent Society, and the New Warsaw Synagogue, and had a membership of 76-84. It closed in the 1920s.

Today only the southern 200 ft of Gun Street remain: the section south of Brushfield Street; the northern section was redeveloped and is now part of Spitalfields Market.

Gun Street Synagogue should not be confused with the story of another neighbouring synagogue dating back to 1792, which began as the Gun Yard Polish Synagogue or the Gun Square Polish Synagogue in Gun Square, off Hounsditch.

It was one of the three minor congregations established in London in the 18th century. The other two were the Rosemary Lane Congregation and the Cutler Street Polish Synagogue.

That congregation relocated from Gun Yard or Gun Square, sometime before 1870, initially to Mansell Street, and then to become the Scarborough Street Synagogue, which closed in the 1920s.

Today only the southern section of Gun Street remains (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

Artillery Lane Synagogue: a former chapel restored as offices in Spitalfields

The Artillery Lane Synagogue opened in 1896 and closed in 1948 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

Patrick Comerford

During my recent walks around the East End, I visited a number of synagogues and former synagogues, and plan to write about them in the coming days and weeks.

In my blog posting on Friday, I was writing about the former Spital Square Poltava Synagogue at 2 Heneage Street, and its assoications with people whose origins can be traced to Poltava in present-day Ukraine.

Dome House is an office block at 48-50 Artillery Lane, Spitalfields, near Liverpool Street Station, and was once Artillery Lane Synagogue.

Artillery Lane runs east from Bishopsgate for about 450 ft and then turns south-east for a further 200 ft and then east for a further 150 ft, where it meets the junction of Crispin Street and Bell Lane, almost opposite White’s Row. Originally, only the first 300 ft at the west end was known as Artillery Lane; the central section was Artillery Street; and the last 150 ft at the east end was Raven Row.

The Artillery Lane building was leased to a Jewish congregation in 1896, and opened shortly afterwards as a synagogue. It remained a synagogue until 1948, when the freehold was sold and the building was converted into a warehouse. It is now an office building known as Dome House.

The exact date of the erection of the chapel and its full history are uncertain. Many Nonconformist congregations met in Artillery Lane, and it is often uncertain which one used this building.

There was a French Charity House in Artillery Lane in 1695. However, the Artillery Lane Chapel probably did not begin as a French church. In a deed of 1729, two chapels are mentioned in or near the Artillery Ground, one a French chapel, the other a dissenting meeting-house. The first was l’Eglise de l’Artillerie in Parliament Court, which later become Sandy’s Row Synagogue; the other may have stood on the site of Artillery Lane Synagogue, now present Dome House.

A Baptist congregation with the Revd Nathaniel Hodges were in Artillery Lane in 1707 and remained there until 1739, when their afternoon service moved to Pinners’ Hall, Broad Street. However, a Baptist meeting in Artillery Lane is recorded until 1757.

An Independent congregation moved to Artillery Lane with the Revd Mordecai Andrews in the late 1740s. His successor, Edward Hitchin, built a new chapel in White’s Row ca 1755, and it was in use by 1759.

Hitchin’s congregation may have moved to White’s Row partly because of the dilapidation of its chapel in Artillery Lane. It may then have been rebuilt by a congregation of Independents under the Revd John Richardson. By 1760, they were worshipping in Artillery Lane, and they remained there until at least 1773.

There was a Calvinist, possibly Independent, meeting in Artillery Lane in 1810, and a short-lived Baptist church was on the street in 1811-1813. Another Baptist congregation moved into Artillery Lane in 1833, and it was led by the Revd George Moyle until 1847. Later, this became the Ebenezer Baptist Chapel led by the Revd James W Massie or Messer, and there was a succession of Baptist and Congregational chapels throughout the 19th century.

The building on Artillery Lane was leased to a Jewish congregation in 1896 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

The building on Artillery Lane was leased to a Jewish congregation in 1896, and opened shortly afterwards as a synagogue. This was an affiliated synagogue of the Federation of Synagogues, and at its height it had up to 250 members.

When the synagogue closed in 1948, it was incorporated into the Ezras Chaim Synagogue in Heneage Street nearby, and the old building was converted into a warehouse.

The site of the building is irregular, roughly a truncated triangle, so that the front wall on the north- east side lies obliquely to the back wall at the west which is, more or less, at right angles to the side walls, the north being only half as long as the south.

It seems the two storeys of rooms on the south side were formed within the original meeting-room, reducing its width and probably eliminating one side of the gallery, of which the north-east and north sides survived until 1950. This gallery of four steppings was supported by widely spaced Doric columns of wood, and approached by staircases in the north-east and south-east angles. The preacher's desk was placed against the windowless west wall. The ceiling had a flat expanse broken in the centre by a large saucer dome rising to an octagonal lantern.

The front, of brick with a later face of stucco, had seven bays, two storeys high, dating from the mid-18th century. From the left, the first, fourth and sixth bays contained doorways, each of the three doorways having a wooden doorcase and a triangular-pedimented.

Each of the other bays had a segmental-headed window of squat proportions. Above was a range of seven arch-headed windows, those in the fourth and sixth bays being blind recesses.

The freehold of the building was sold in 1948 and the front was demolished in 1950 and replaced. The present frontage of Dome House is a replica of the original.

Dome House is effectively formed of two interlinking buildings that sit ‘back to back’ known as 48 Artillery Lane, which is two-storey over ground and first floors and 2 Parliament Court, which is four-storey and with a basement.

The entrance foyer is from the Artillery Lane frontage with a feature spiral staircase leading to the first floor, all of which sits beneath a domed roof light that floods this section of the building with daylight and that gives its name to the building. The entrance from Parliament Court provides access to a second stair and lift core that serves all floors in the building.

Dome House is a four-minute walk from Liverpool Street station and a 10-minute walk from Shoreditch High Street and Aldgate East.

Dome House takes its name from the domed roof light that floods the building with daylight (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

Finding elephants, shops and old houses in Spitalfields on Chinese New Year’s Eve

Gillie and Marc’s ‘Herd of Hope’ is a family of 21 life-sized bronze elephants in Spitalfields (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

Patrick Comerford

This evening is Chinese New Year’s Eve, ushering in the Year of the Rabbit. Charlotte and I pre-empted the New Year’s Eve celebrations last night, having dinner in Gerrard Street in London, and strolling around Chinatown, off Shaftesbury Avenue.

Earlier in the day, we had lunch in Dirty Dicks, a well-known pub on Bishopsgate, close to Liverpool Street Station and on the edge of the East End.

We were meeting Dan Culbertson, an ordinand in the Diocese in Europe who we met a few weeks ago in Budapest when we were visiting Saint Margaret’s Church on behalf of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel).

After Dan caught a train to High Leigh for a residential weekend with the Eastern Region Ministry Course, we enjoyed a few hours strolling around Spitalfields and this part of the East End, including Brushfield Street, Folgate Street, Brick Lane, Princelet Street, Fournier Street, and the area around Truman’s Brewery.

The area has an eye-catching collection of modern sculptures, including the ‘Herd of Hope’ – a family of 21 life-sized bronze elephants embarking on the journey of a lifetime as they migrate across London – and ‘Together Forever on Wheels’ incorporating two of Gillie and Marc’s most popular sculpture themes, Rabbitwoman and Dogman, Vespas and coffee.

No 18 Folgate Street is an eccentric and fascinating house made over by the artist Dennis Severs (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

No 18 Folgate Street is an eccentric and fascinating house made over by the artist Dennis Severs to resemble the home of an 18th century Flemish weaver.

Visitors are invited into a re-creation of the life the Jervis family, Huguenot weavers, and the house is an artwork itself. David Hockney once said that it was like experiencing a great opera.

No 5 Fournier Street an antiques, art and modern ceramics shop opened by Fiona Atkins in a town house in Spitalfields in 2002. The building is part of some of London’s most beautiful Georgian architecture and this too was home to Huguenot silk weavers until about 1820.

No 4 Princelet Street is one of the most photographed houses in Spitalfields (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

No 4 Princelet Street, with its fading pink and red colours, its shabby façade and charming shutters, is probably one of the most photographed houses in Spitalfields. It is regularly rented out for events or as a filming location.

Princelet Street, off Brick Lane, was once known as Princesse Street or Princes Street, and may have been renamed in the 1890s. When No 4 Princelet Street was built 300 years ago in 1723, it was actually numbered No 2 Princes Street. Together with No 1 Princes Street (now No 2 Princelet Street), the pair were the last houses to be built on the street.

The house was once the home of another weaver, Joseph Vaux, and his family. By the late 19th century, Huguenot families had mostly moved on and large numbers of Jewish refugees fleeing Russia and Poland began arriving in Spitalfields. One of these was a Polish bootmaker Solomon Franklin and his wife Goulder, who were living there in 1881. A decade later, the house was shared by two families. Polish tailor Solomon Shaw, his wife Rachael, and their eight children, and the Hyams family.

No 6 Princelet Street was once numbered as No 3 Prince’s Street and was home to a 19th century Yiddish theatre.

The synagogue at No 19 Princelet Street closed in 1983. Today, the former synagogue is home to the Museum of Immigration and Diversity, Europe’s first museum of immigration and a unique cultural institution.

The house next door at 17 Princelet Street is the birthplace of Miriam Moses (1886-1965), who became the first woman mayor of Stepney in 1931 and the first Jewish woman mayor in Britain.

Sandy’s Row Synagogue, the oldest surviving Ashkenazi synagogue in London and the last Ashkenazi synagogue still functioning in Spitalfields (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

Before arriving back at Liverpool Street Station and bustling Bishopsgate, with its towering glass towers of finance, we stopped at Sandy’s Row Synagogue, the oldest surviving Ashkenazi synagogue in London and the last Ashkenazi synagogue still functioning in Spitalfields.

This is a small, historic Ashkenazi shul on a quiet street, but it is still a thriving synagogue. Unlike other shuls in the old Jewish East End that have been lost due because of a dwindling resident Jewish population, Sandy’s Row synagogue is experiencing an upsurge in membership.

After dinner in Gerrard Street, we strolled back through Chinatown into Charing Cross Street, and took a diversion into Cecil Court, lined with second-hand bookshops, antique and coin shops and shops displaying theatre posters. The famous Foyles bookshop had its humble beginnings on Cecil Court.

We strolled down to Trafalgar Square and Saint Martin in the Fields, caught a train from Charing Cross to Euston, and we were back in Milton Keynes and Stony Stratford late into the night.

No 5 Fournier Street an antiques, art and modern ceramics shop opened by Fiona Atkins in a town house in Spitalfields in 2002 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

Praying in Pentecost 2021: 102, Christ Church, Spitalfields

Christ Church, Spitalfields, one of London’s outstanding baroque churches, was designed by Nicholas Hawksmoor and built in 1714-1729 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

During the Seasons of Lent and Easter this year, I took some time each morning to reflect in these ways:

1, photographs of a church or place of worship that has been significant in my spiritual life;

2, the day’s Gospel reading;

3, a prayer from the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel).

Sunday was the Day of Pentecost (23 May 2021), and I am continuing with photographs for this week are from six churches in the ‘Major Churches Network,’ churches once known as the ‘Greater Churches’ in England.

The Major Churches Network was founded in 1991 as the Greater Churches Network. It is a group of Church of England parish churches with exceptional significance, that are physically very large, listed as Grade I, II* or exceptionally II, open to visitors daily, have a role or roles beyond those of a typical parish church, and make considerable civic, cultural, and economic contributions to their community.

These churches are often former monastic properties that became parish churches after the English Reformation, or civic parish churches built at a time of great wealth.

Inside Christ Church, Spitalfields, designed by Nicholas Hawksmoor (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

This morning (29 May 2021), my photographs are from Christ Church, Spitalfields, on the corner of Commercial Street and Fournier Street in the East End of London. This church also has links with the old Jewish community in the East End, because the memorial plaques from the Jews Chapel in Palestine Place, Bethnal Green, were moved there in 1897 when the chapel closed.

Christ Church, Spitalfields, one of London’s outstanding baroque churches, was built in 1714-1729 to a design by Nicholas Hawksmoor. The church is on Commercial Street, on the western edge of Tower Hamlets and facing Spitalfields Market and the City of London. This is one of the first and one of the finest of the so-called ‘Commissioners’ Churches’ built for the Commission for Building Fifty New Churches, established by an Act of Parliament in 1711.

The Act aimed to provide 50 new churches to serve the new populations on the fringes of London. The commission members included Sir Christopher Wren, John Vanbrugh and Thomas Archer, and Nicholas Hawksmoor and William Dickinson were appointed as Surveyors to carry out the programme.

In 1710, the roof of Saint Alfege, Greenwich had collapsed, and its parishioners petitioned the commission to provide money for rebuilding the church. It became the first of the series that Hawksmoor designed. When the programme expired in 1731, only 12 of the proposed 50 churches had been built.

Nicholas Hawksmoor (1661-1736), a former assistant of Sir Christopher Wren, designed six of the 12 new London churches. He was a leading figure in the English Baroque style of architecture in the late 17th and early 18th centuries. He worked alongside the principal architects of the time, Christopher Wren and John Vanbrugh, and contributed to the design of some of the most notable buildings of the period, including Saint Paul’s Cathedral, Wren’s churches in the City of London, Blenheim Palace and Castle Howard.

The parish for Christ Church, Spitalfields, was carved out of the huge mediaeval parish of Stepney parish for an area then being populated by Huguenots or French Protestant refugees.

At first, some Huguenots used Anglican church for baptisms, marriages and burials, though not for everyday worship, preferring their own chapels. But increasingly they assimilated into English life and the liturgical life of the Church of England.

Work on building Christ Church, Spitalfields, began in 1715, when the foundation stone was laid by Edward Peck. Edmund Gibson, Bishop of London, consecrated the church on 5 July 1729.

Hawksmoor’s design for Christ Church shows his usual abrupt architectural style. His very plain rectangular box of the nave is surmounted at its west end by a broad tower of three stages topped by a steeple that is more Gothic than classical. The magnificent porch with its semi-circular pediment and Tuscan columns is attached bluntly to the west end: it may indeed be a late addition to the design intended to add further support to the tower.

As with Hawksmoor’s other London churches and many of Wren’s churches, the central space consists of the nave and two axes, the shorter originally emphasised by two entrances of which only that to the south remains. It has a richly decorated flat ceiling and is lit by a clerestory.

The aisles are roofed with elliptical barrel-vaults carried on a raised composite order, and this order is also used for the screens across the east and west ends. The Venetian window at the east may show the growing influence of the revival of Palladian architecture, or it may be a rhyme with the arched pediment of the entrance portico, repeated in the wide main stage of the tower.

The east window is a double window, one inside, one outside, the effect now obscured by the Victorian stained-glass window between the two.

The organ installed in 1735 was built by Richard Bridge, a celebrated organ builder of the time, and Handel once played on the organ. With over 2,000 pipes, it remained the largest organ in England for over 100 years.

Following a fire in 1836, Wallen Son and Beatson, local architects and surveyors, provided a substantial estimate to repair the church.

The church was altered in 1850 by Ewan Christian, the architect of the National Portrait Gallery. He removed the side galleries, blocked in the windows at the corners of the central space, and combined upper and lower aisle windows to make tall, thin windows. The stained-glass windows were fitted in 1876 by Ward and Hughes of Soho.

When the Jews Chapel in Palestine Place, Bethnal Green, ten plaques were moved from the chapel and hung in the vestibule of Christ Church in 1897.

The London Jews Society, now the Church’s Ministry among Jewish People (CMJ), was formed in 1809. It first worked among the poor Jewish immigrants in the East End, but soon spread to Europe, South America, Africa and Palestine.

In 1811, the society leased a five-acre field on the Cambridge Road in Bethnal Green. A school, training college and the Episcopal Jews’ Chapel were built there, and the campus was named Palestine Place. In 1813, a Hebrew-Christian congregation called Benei Abraham (Children of Abraham) started meeting at the chapel in Palestine Place.

The missionaries associated with CMJ include the Revd Joseph Wolff (1795-1862), a German rabbi’s son, who was baptised by a Benedictine abbot in Prague in 1812 and was ordained priest in the Church of Ireland in 1838 by Richard Mant, Bishop of Down and Dromore, and the Revd Moses Margoliouth (1820-1881), a former curate of Glasnevin, Dublin (1844-1847), who was born to Jewish parents in Poland and had a rabbinical education. Both had degrees from Trinity College Dublin.

Many of the plaques moved to Christ Church bear inscriptions in Hebrew and include the names of evangelical Anglicans and converted Jews who were ordained. Those named include Jane Cox, who endowed Christ Church, Jerusalem, which still remains outside the jurisdiction of the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem – some critics say it is a thorn in the side of the Anglican presence in Jerusalem.

In response to changing attitudes towards proselytising work by Christians among the Jewish people, CMJchanged its name several times over the years, first to the Church Missions to Jews, then the Church’s Mission to the Jews, followed by the Church’s Ministry Among the Jews, and finally to the current name of the Church’s Ministry Among Jewish People, which was adopted in 1995.

The missionary focus of CMJ attracts criticism from the Jewish community, which sees these activities as highly detrimental to Jewish-Christian relations, and many rabbis and Jewish organisations have called for CMJ to be disbanded. In 1992, George Carey became the first Archbishop of Canterbury in 150 years to decline to be the Patron of CMJ, a decision that was praised by Jewish leaders and reported as front-page news in the Jewish Chronicle.

During World War II, the crypt of Christ Church was used as an air raid shelter. By 1957, the church was declared unsafe, and Sunday services were moved to Hanbury Hall, a former Huguenot chapel in Hanbury Street.

Christ Church was almost derelict by 1960, and the roof was declared unsafe. The then Bishop of Stepney, Trevor Huddleston, proposed demolishing the empty building. But the Hawksmoor Committee staved off the threat of demolition.

The roof was rebuilt with funds from the sale of the bombed-out shell of Saint John’s, Smith Square, now a concert hall. The Friends of Christ Church Spitalfields was formed in 1976 as an independent charity, was formed to raise money and project manage the restoration of this Grade I listed building so it could be brought back into use.

As part of the restoration programme, the burial vaults were cleared. The Friends of Christ Church raised funds for the employment of an archaeological team, and almost 1,000 burials were excavated in 1984-1986.

The portico at the west end was repaired and cleaned in 1986, and Ewan Christian’s rearrangement of the aisle windows was replaced by a recreation of the originals, scrupulously researched.

Church services returned to the partially restored building in 1987. The 202 ft tower and spire were consolidated and cleaned in 1997, the south façade was cleaned and repaired in 1999, and Hawksmoor’s double flight of steps on the south side, removed in the 19th century, was rebuilt.

Regency style railings to the churchyard, removed in World War II, were replaced. The north and east façades were repaired and cleaned in 1999-2000.

A rehabilitation centre for homeless alcoholic men was housed in part of the crypt from the 1960s until 2000, when it relocated to purpose-built accommodation above ground.

The restoration of the interior began in 2000, and the building was finally complete in 2004, enabling a wide range of uses to run alongside the primary function of Christ Church as a place of worship.

In 2015, the crypt restoration was completed, restoring much of Hawksmoor’s original walls as well as providing a café area. In 2016, the restoration of the crypt was shortlisted in the RICS Awards.

Today, thousands of people visit Christ Church, Spitalfields, some to pray, some to marvel at its restoration and its beauty, some to soak up its history.

The richly decorated flat ceiling in Christ Church, Spitalfields, is lit by a clerestory (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Mark 11: 27-33 (NRSVA):

27 Again they came to Jerusalem. As he was walking in the temple, the chief priests, the scribes, and the elders came to him 28 and said, ‘By what authority are you doing these things? Who gave you this authority to do them?’ 29 Jesus said to them, ‘I will ask you one question; answer me, and I will tell you by what authority I do these things. 30 Did the baptism of John come from heaven, or was it of human origin? Answer me.’ 31 They argued with one another, ‘If we say, “From heaven”, he will say, “Why then did you not believe him?” 32 But shall we say, “Of human origin”?’—they were afraid of the crowd, for all regarded John as truly a prophet. 33 So they answered Jesus, ‘We do not know.’ And Jesus said to them, ‘Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things.’

The organ installed in Christ Church, Spitalfields, in 1735 was built by Richard Bridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Prayer in the USPG Prayer Diary:

The Prayer in the USPG Prayer Diary today (29 May 2021) invites us to pray:

May we work together across denominations in an ecumenical spirit. Let us recognise our differences and collaborate over shared values.

Yesterday’s reflection

Continued tomorrow

Many of the plaques from the former Jews’ Chapel bear inscriptions in Hebrew (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

A forgotten synagogue on Princelet Street, London, and the missing caretaker

No 19 Princelet Street, first built as Huguenot weaver’s house, also housed Princelet Street Synagogue for almost a century (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2020)

Patrick Comerford

Princelet Street in the East End of London was first known as Prince’s Street. Originally it was just 100 metres (300) ft long, running from Wilkes Street at the west to Brick Lane at the east. It is parallel to the east end of Hanbury Street to the north, and Fournier Street to the south.

Today, Princelet Street stretches for another 170 metres (500 ft) east of Brick Lane, along what was originally known as Booth Street. The synagogue building is at No 19 on the north side of Princelet Street, half-way between Wilkes Street and Brick Lane.

The story of Princelet Street and Spitalfields in general is one of immigration. From Huguenots to Irish and Jews to Bengalis, a wide variety of people have made the street their home and left traces or relics of their lives here.

The Huguenots were French Calvinists who fled persecution in France after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. Many were weavers, and the rooflines of some of these houses still have attic rooms with wide windows first designed to flood the interiors with light. These Huguenot refugees and weavers set up their weaving looms in houses in the Spitalfields area.

Huguenot weavers and their families built the houses on Princelet Street in the first decades of the 18th century (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2020)

No 19 Princelet Street was built in 1718 and is believed to be the oldest house on the street. By 1719, this was the home of Peter Abraham Ogier, a Huguenot silk merchant. The bobbin on the wall depicts that it was once the premises of a Huguenot weaver.

In time, other poor weaver families followed the Ogier family. Gradually they assimilated with the local population and by the end of the 19th century the Huguenots had virtually disappeared as a distinct cultural minority.

Later, 19 Princelet Street was home to Irish and Polish immigrants. Then, in the second half of the 19th century, the former Huguenot houses on Princelet Street became the homes of large Jewish families, with each family living in one or two rooms each.

The family home at No 19 changed dramatically in 1869, when a group of Polish Jews formed the Loyal United Friends’ Friendly Society and leased the house with hard-earned financial contributions from the local community and built their own small synagogue in the back garden of the house.

Prince’s Street Synagogue opened in 1870. It was long and narrow, with a women’s gallery on the first floor, and delicately-coloured tinted glass in the skylight. This shul was typical of the many small Orthodox synagogues in the East End that depended on donations from wealthy patrons. They held cheap or free marriage ceremonies for poor couples who could not afford the fees charged by the United Synagogue.

At the end of the 19th century another group of refugees fleeing persecution arrived in these streets. Many were fleeing pogroms in the Russian empire following the assassination of Tsar Alexander II in 1881.

This was one of the congregations that attended the meeting of 16 October 1887 to form the Federation of Synagogues, and it became one of the original federated synagogues on 6 November 1887.

The roof was so dilapidated by 1891 that Lewis Solomon (1848-1928), architect to the Federation of Synagogues and a former apprentice and later clerk of works in the office of http://www.patrickcomerford.com/2018/04/the-wyatt-family-of-weeford-lichfield.html (1820-1877), declared the building unsafe.

But the building was soon refurbished and redecorated, and the synagogue was re-opened in 1893 by Sir Samuel Montagu. Later, Lewis Solomon also redesigned the Congregation of Jacob Synagogue on Commercial Road.

The United Friends Synagogue or Fashion Street synagogue, in New Court, Fashion Street, amalgamated with the Prince’s Street synagogue in 1898.

The street was known as Prince’s Street until 1916, and with the change of name the synagogue became Princelet Street Synagogue.

Princelet Street Synagogue was at the heart of resistance to Moseley’s march through Cable Street (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2020)

A basement was created downstairs, below the synagogue. This community space hosted antifascist meetings in the 1930s, including meetings to plan the ‘Battle of Cable Street’ and resistance to the march Oswald Moseley’s blackshirts in 1936.

Princelet Street synagogue finally closed its doors in the 1963, when the congregation merged with Bethnal Green Synagogue.

For two decades, the synagogue was forgotten, and David Rodinsky, a reclusive Jewish scholar, continued to live in lodgings in the attic or top floor of the premises as a much-forgotten caretaker. He seems to have disappeared from memory along with the forgotten and neglected synagogue.

When the Spitalfields Housing Trust bought No 19 in 1983, along with neighbouring No 17, the new owners were astonished when they turned the key and found the forgotten synagogue much decayed but intact.

The caretaker was missing, but his room in the attic was filled with books, papers, gramophone records and atlases, the table was set for dinner, there was a half-finished cup of tea, a pot of porridge was on the stove, and there was an unmade bed.

The evidence showed that the missing caretaker knew at least 15 languages, many of them dead, and had a strong interest in the Kabbalah. There was an A-Z marked with obscure journeys into the London suburbs, and scraps of paper and sweet wrappers were covered with indecipherable scribblings in many languages.

But where was David Rodinsky?

The mystery of David Rodinsky and where he had disappeared to quickly became folklore in Spitalfields and the East End. In their book, Rodinsky’s Room, Rachel Lichtenstein and Iain Sinclair,tell the story of their search for David Rodinsky.

Perhaps, as Ian Sinclair points out, there are shades of the Golem myth here. But Rodinsky had died in March 1969, at the age of 44, in the Long Grove Asylum in Surrey and was buried in a pauper’s grave in Waltham Abbey.

When Rachel Lichtenstein found his grave, she said Kaddish for David Rodinsky.

No 19 Princelet Street is now home to the Museum of Immigration and Diversity (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2020)

No 19 Princelet Street is now the home of the Museum of Immigration and Diversity. This is Europe’s first museum of immigration and it is a unique cultural institution.

The synagogue still covers the back garden, but due to its fragile condition it is rarely open to visitors, although group visits may be booked in advance. It is looked after by the Spitalfields Centre charity and is a Grade II* listed building on English Heritage’s ‘Buildings at Risk’ register.

The house next door at 17 Princelet Street is the birthplace of Miriam Moses (1886-1965), who became the first woman mayor of Stepney in 1931 and the first Jewish woman mayor in Britain. A blue plaque says:

Miriam Moses OBE JP, social reformer and first woman mayor of Stepney 1931-1932, was born here in 1886.

Miriam Moses was a Labour politician and a heroine among local people in the East End. She founded the Brady Girls’ Club that aided the children of impoverished East End Jews. The club gave food, clothing, recreation and education to those in need and was funded by wealthy ‘West End’ Jews.

Miriam Moses was also involved with the Jewish section of the Children’s Country Holiday Fund, a charity providing holidays to children who would otherwise never have seen an open field. She famously never left the East End during the Blitz in World War II.

Meanwhile, Princelet Street and its environs have become increasingly gentrified. Most of the Huguenot houses have been restored and some of them are the homes of artists and writers.

The plaque to Miriam Moses at 17 Princelet Street Synagogue (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2020)