Jewish East End Celebration Society
4A Cornwall Mews South, London, SW7 4RX
[email protected]

Iconic East End water fountain can quench your thirst again after JEECS campaign

A major Jewish East End landmark is to have its post-restoration unveiling on Sunday February 26, with a series of events and distinguished speakers following a JEECS campaign that has safeguarded its future.

The highly regarded Watford Palace Theatre wants your family stories about the Battle of Cable Street for an education programme linked to its forthcoming production of the Merchant of Venice, 1936, which is being set against the backdrop of Oswald Mosley’s thugs’ attempted invasion of the East End and the heroic efforts to keep the Blackshirts out.

We have had an appeal for information about the ‘Committee of the Linchitzer Benevolent Society’, which was known to exist at least in 1938 and which may have had some links to the New Road synagogue in Mile End.

Harry Landis, who has died at the age of 90, was a highly regarded actor whose long career brought him widespread acclaim, not least for his glorious portrayal of the horrible Mr Morris in the brilliant television series Friday Night Dinner. In 2013, he wrote a wonderful account of his early life and career for the JEECS magazine The Cable. Here it is below, just as it appeared in the magazine, as a tribute to a great East Ender who will be much missed.

The remarkable story of Jewish East Ender and war hero Jack Nissenthall deserves to be more widely known.  And, thanks to a recent book by his daughter Linda Nissen Samuels and an exhibition put on by Hillingdon Council, it will be.

For over 70 years the Brady Boys’ and Girls’ Clubs provided community, friendship and mentoring to thousands of Jewish youth in the East End of London. It was a place where life-long relationships were made, where young people stepped out of underprivileged and often difficult circumstances and were supported to follow their dreams.

Do you have information about the former Commercial Road synagogue or Israel Cohen, one of its founders?  Joshua Jacobs, one of Israel's descendants, would love to hear from you.

Can you help in uncovering information aboiut Adam Zahn, who lived in Bethnal Green in the early 1900s and owned a bakery?

The saga of England’s so-called Jew Law of 1753, made law and then repealed within six months, is a little known episode in Anglo-Jewish history that nonetheless has considerable resonance today.

It has now been brought into sharp focus in the latest book by East End born and bred Yoel Sheridan, (whom East End contemporaries may remember as Julius Shrensky, the name he was known by in his earlier years).

Born in Bristol but brought up in the East End, the multi-talented Isaac Rosenberg has been unduly neglected. Two of his biographers, Jean Liddiard and Jean Moorcroft Wilson, wrote articles for The Cable, the JEECS magazine, in 2006 and 2008 respectively aiming to redress the balance. Both are fascinating reads, and are now here on our website to mark the anniversary of his birth in 1890. 

We have a fascinating guided walk on Sunday November 21 commemorating the great East End war poet and artist Isaac Rosenberg. The date is the closest Sunday to the anniversary of his birth in 1890.

Latest news

  • Stories from the Jewish East End

    What should be a fascinating evening is coming up next Tuesday (December 10) at Sandy’s Row Synagogue when the celebrated writer Rachel Lichtenstein presents Stories from the Jewish East End: an illustrated talk exploring a lost landscape. Read More
  • More emerges about H Lotery and Co

    A while back, we had a reader asking if anyone had any information about a company his mother had worked for in the East End and which she remembered as being called Lottries. The inquiry sparked some fascinating replies, which identified the company as H Lotery and Co, and we've just had a response from the grandson of the company's Read More
  • Project seeks material and memories from the legendary Yiddish poet A.N. Stencl

    Did you know or do you have material from the Polish-born Yiddish poet Avrom-Nokhem Stencl (also known as A. N. Stencl) who was once famous in east London for selling his celebrated Yiddish magazine Loshn un lebn (Language & Life), for running his Friends of Yiddish Saturday afternoon literary society and for his many acclaimed publications of Yiddish poetry? Stencl Read More
  • Two great East End events

    Two great East End related events take place next month. First, Tower Hamlets Local History Library in Bancroft Road, Mile End, has what should be a fascinating free talk on Thursday, 5 September (18.30 - 20.00hrs) entitled “The Petticoat Lane Foxtrot”. The next day, September 6, sees the opening of a great exhibition at the Brady Arts and Community Centre, 192-196 Hanbury 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
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For the old Jeecs site, visit www.jeecs.org.uk/archive