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 pub, now listed as a community asset, has strong Jewish connections.
The star supposedly refers to the Star of David, reflecting the population mix of the Aldgate area in the 19th century.
In the early 20th century, it was run by the mother and stepfather of L/Cpl Abraham (Alfred) Posener, RCOS, who is one the people featured in Martin Sugarman's book about Jewish POWs of the Japanese which we write about in the most recent Cable.
He was born on Oct 15 1915. His father died when he was 18 months old and his mother remarried and became Mrs Ike (Isaac) Klein. The family ran the pub. He joined up as an electrician in 1941, was captured by the Japanese in Java, had a horrific time (6 feet tall, he eventually weighed only 7 stone), and witnessed the bombing of Nagasaki. One of only four survivors of the 200 with whom he enlisted, he lived after the war in Hackney and was chairman of the local Association of Jewish Ex-Servicemen and Women (AJEX).
Meanwhile, our report, including on this website, that the Blind Beggar pub in Whitechapel had been made a listed building was wrong. We apologise for this mistake.
The information came from the Victorian Society, which based it on a London newspaper report.
Back in 1896 the Blind Beggar had a Jewish landlord while, turning to more recent times, it became infamous as the pub in which George Cornell was murdered by Ronnie Kray in 1966. The adjoining former Albion Brewery and Engineer's Residence are both Grade II listed.