Toni L. Kamins
writer • content provider • editor
communications and project management

From the walking tour of London’s Jewish East End, the Complete Jewish Guide to Britain and Ireland

Podcast of Jewish London walking tours coming soon

Few synagogues and only a handful of Jews remain today in London’s East End. Parts of this ancient area (the original city of London) have been home to Jews for centuries - both before and after England’s official expulsion of its Jews in 1290. Early in the twentieth century, some 150,000 Jews lived here in places with names like Whitechapel, Stepney, and Spitalfields.

Not far from where the City of London ends and the East End begins, England’s first Jews built their synagogue in Creechurch Lane and later, the renowned Sephardic shul, Shar HaShamayim in a street called Bevis Marks.

Only scant remnants of that community can be seen today. In most cases only the names of some streets remind us that this area of old London was Jewish - Jewry street, Old Jewry further to the west, and the Church of St. Lawrence Jewry, so named because it was church in a Jewish quarter.

The several hundred Jews who remain here, who still call the East End home, now live among a Muslim population - a latter day immigration of Bengalis, Pakistanis, and assorted Arabs. Some synagogues have been converted into mosques; many of those, like the one at the corner of Brick Lane and Fournier Street, preach a fundamentalist Islam that has no use for outsiders and even less use for Jews.

Starting point: Aldgate Tube (Circle Line; Metropolitan Line) - not to be confused with Aldgate East.

When you come out of the tube station you will be on Aldgate High Street. This turns into Whitechapel High Street, the Whitechapel Road and then Mile End Road.

Our first stop will be the famous synagogue on Bevis Marks, then on to most of what is left of the Jewish East End.

With your back to the tube station turn right and walk to the Parish Church of St. Botolph’s Aldgate at the end of the block. Cross over to the traffic island and just across Aldgate High Street you’ll see a street sign that says Jewry Street. This area of London, known as the City, London’s financial center, was where Jews settled both before the expulsion and after the resettlement. Most of the buildings you see around you are fairly new as this section of town was almost totally destroyed by German bombs during World War II and precious little of old London town remains. Before the expulsion, in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, there were a number of synagogues a short distance to the west, on Old Jewry Street, just off Cheapside and on Leadenhall Street.

On the traffic island stay to your right, cross the street, and make an immediate right turn onto Duke’s Place, which is unmarked at this point. It was in this street that the first Ashkenazi synagogue of London was founded in 1690. Over the decades it underwent various changes, enlarging, reconstruction etc. Known as the Great Synagogue, or the Duke’s Place shul, it was not only a synagogue, but also the community’s center and its heart, and it was known throughout the world. It was completely obliterated by German bombs during World War II, as was old Duke’s Place itself.

Not far to the west, on Fenchurch Street was the Hambro synagogue. Founded by dissenting members of the Great Synagogue, it was built between 1721 and 1726 and stood on the same site until 1892. After that the congregation moved to a new building on Union Street, just off Commercial Road in Whitechapel, an area we’ll visit later. In the 1930s the membership decided to go back home, as it were, and merged with the Great Synagogue.

The New Synagogue was also nearby on St. Helen’s street just off Bishopsgate. Now located in Stamford Hill, it has been moved several times over the decades, but it’s in danger of disappearing. Here was the Survey of the Jewish Built Heritage has to say about it:

“An Edwardian replica of the historic Great St. Helen's Synagogue in the City of London, designed by John Davies in 1838 and containing some original fixtures from that building. These include the concave Ark, inspired by that of the now lost Great Synagogue of James Spiller (1760).

Sold in the late 1980s, the building standsvirtually redundant. It was recorded by the Survey in 1996 and, listed Grade II, was added to the English Heritage Listed Buildings at Risk register.”

As you walk along Duke’s Place, you will pass Creechurch Lane. This was the site of the first synagogue after the resettlement opened in 1656, services were held in the upper floors of a house at number 5. The building remained until it was torn down in 1857. The Sephardic congregation that worshiped here soon grew too large for its quarters and the synagogue at Bevis Marks was built.

At Creechurch Lane, Duke’s Place becomes Bevis Marks. The name Bevis is believed to be a corruption of the town Bury St. Edmonds, whose Abbot owned the land in this district. Marks indicates its boundary.

A few feet ahead, on your left is a small iron-gated entryway in the middle of a strip of modern buildings -this is the entry to the synagogue.

Bevis Marks Synagogue
(Shar HaShamayim, Gate of Heaven):
Contact information: The Spanish and Portuguese Jews’ Congregation, 2 Heneage Lane, London, EC3A 5DQ. Tel:020-7626-1274;
E-mail bevismarks@first-step.demon.co.uk.
Visiting hours are Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday 11:30AM-1PM.
Services are held Monday and Thursday at 7:30AM; Saturday at 8:30AM, and Sunday at 9AM.
No tourists will be admitted during services.

In addition to the actual synagogue there is a small museum in the administration offices at 2 Heneage Lane. It’s a good idea to make arrangements for a visit prior to your arrival.