Jewish East End Celebration Society
P.O. Box 57317, London E1 3WG
[email protected]

East End Jewish Cemeteries: An Oasis in Whitechapel, a superb collection of photographs of the Brady Street and Alderney Road cemeteries in the East End by JEECS member Louis Berk, is being published on June 15.

Barnet Ruderman’s bookstore and publishing house at 71 Hanbury Street, off Brick Lane, was a key address for a generation of East End radicals.

 

DAVID WALKER hails a book that is both a riveting read and a fitting memorial to the many brave Jewish members of Britain’s wartime fire services

See below for great book offer, valid until April 28

The City of London Corporation is creating a new square next to St Botolph's, Aldgate. The drinking fountain in memory of Frederick Mocatta, the notable Jewish financier and philanthropist, has now been fully restored and put in the square.

JEECS is working with an American film company making a feature film on the life of Daniel Mendoza, known as the father of scientific boxing.

The historic Still and Star public house in Aldgate has been saved from demolition and site redevelopment after a campaign by the Victorian Society, supported by JEECS. 

The organisers of this event are  seeking information from Jews who have World War One connections.  The London Jewish Cultural Centre has been awarded a substantial lottery grant to establish a website dedicated to the role London Jews played in the First World War.

If Lewis Altman is remembered today other than by immediate family it is as a leading character in two City scandals of the 1970s. But he has quite another claim to fame; he was one of over 540 British, Dutch and Empire prisoners of the Japanese during the second world war. Many, including Altman, were East Enders.

Do you have memories, or stories from your families, of going to the dogs or the races? Or what about popping down the pub in the days of the old East End? If so, JEECS member Isabelle Seddon would like to hear from you.

Bernard Kops’s place in the canon of English writers is probably assured. And anyone with doubts will have had them dispelled by the May 17 event at JW3, the Jewish cultural centre in north London.

We have to declare an interest; Bernard is JEECS life president. He is also the last of that band of writers, including Emanuel Litvinoff and Sir Arnold Wesker, who, coming from the Jewish East End, have used consummate artistry to capture its ethos and atmosphere.

HAROLD POLLINS investigates an old headline and discovers a forgotten project to give East Enders the opportunity of less crowded living in a new development.

A US resident wonders whether a photograph on an East End blog might be of someone to whom she is related. The subject of the photograph, a Mr Ralph Burns, bears a striking resemblance to the writer’s grandfather, who went to the US as a child. She thinks they might be relatives. Can you help her contact Mr Burns?

Latest news

  • East End Jewish themes at Hackney Festival

    Andrew Whitehead, whose new book on the Siege of Sydney Street, an iconic event in the Jewish East End, has just been published, is one of many fascinating speakers at the Hackney History Festival in May. Read More
  • East End playwright, novelist and poet Bernard Kops dies aged 97

    Bernard Kops, the great East End playwright, novelist and poet, and honorary president of JEECS, has died at the age of 97 The son of Dutch-Jewish immigrants, Bernard was born in 1926 and brought up in Stepney Green Buildings in a world whose frontier was Aldgate East tube station, a world in which clothing from the Jewish Board of Guardians Read More
  • Seeking the human being within, behind the cloak

    Bernard Kops, the great East End playwright, poet and novelist has died at the age of 97. Honorary life president of JEECS, he was an astute observer of both the old Jewish East End and the modern world. The interview below is from the JEECS magazine The Cable in 2006 and is being republished as a tribute to a great Read More
  • A fresh look at the Siege of Sydney Street

      The Siege of Sydney Street is the subject of a new book published on March 1 that provides a thrilling account of this iconic East End event. Read More
  • From Polish immigrant to East End artist: the lost Whitechapel boy

    Morris Goldstein, a near forgotten member of the remarkable group of artists and writers that flourished in the East End in the early part of the last century, deserves wider recognition. RAYMOND FRANCIS, his son, gives us a taste of his story in this extract from his book about his father's life. This article was published in JEECS's magazine The Read More
  • East End Brady days

    An exhibtion devoted to the history of the Brady Girls' Club opens in London on October 6. So it seemed a timely moment to republish these reminiscences of an iconic East End organisation originally published in our magazine The Cable in 2010. Read More
  • Exhibition celebrates the Brady Girls' Club

    The history of a seminal East End organisation, the wonderful Brady Girls’ Club, is being celebrated in an exhibition at London Metropolitan University opening next month. Read More
  • Sikh peddlers in the Jewish East End

    The role of Jewish East Enders in working with early Sikh arrivals in the UK is set to form part of a new documentary film whose creators are seeking people who can talk to them from a Jewish perspective about the partnerships that developed. Read More
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For the old Jeecs site, visit www.jeecs.org.uk/archive