Jewish East End Celebration Society
4A Cornwall Mews South, London, SW7 4RX
[email protected]
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- Written by Jean Liddiard and Jean Moorcroft Wilson
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.
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- Written by David Walker
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.
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- Written by David Walker
The revitalisation of Petticoat Lane, London’s oldest Sunday street market still in operation, continues apace with the unveiling next week of the community banners, commemorating many aspects of market life, along Wentworth Street and into Middlesex Street.
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- Written by David Walker
Petticoat Lane, on the edge of the East End, is London’s oldest existing Sunday street market. Over many decades, it played an important part in the life of Jewish London.
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- Written by David Mazower
The Temple of Art aimed to bring high culture to the East End. But it was an adventure that would end in tears, as cultural historian David Mazower reveals in a book of essays in memory of Bill Fishman, JEECS’s late honorary president.
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- Written by David Walker
Where would be the appropriate site for the planned memorial bust to Isaac Rosenberg, the great World War One poet and artist?
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- Written by David Walker
We've had a request for help from local historian Siri Christiansen, whose letter to JEECS chairman Clive Bettington is below.
She would love to hear from people with ideas that she might follow up on. Send any messages to me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and we will forward them.
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- Written by David Walker
The ceiling collapse at the East London Central Synagogue in Nelson Street on January 10 is a big blow to the East End's Jewish legacy.
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- Written by David Walker
A gleaming green and gold clock on the side of Electric House in Bow Road forms a fine tribute to Minnie Lansbury, one of the most remarkable women to emerge from the East End, whose life and achievements are the subject of a recent book from Five Leaves Publications.
It was a life cut tragically short at the age of only 32. She had been a leading suffragette, a fighter for decent pensions for those widowed or orphaned in the first world war, an alderman on Poplar council, and a leader of the councillors’ rates strike in protest over the levy on one of London’s poorest boroughs that took money away from people who really needed it – a strike that became a cause célèbre, brought about her imprisonment, but resulted in reform of local government finance.
She worked as a schoolteacher and in 1914 married Edgar Lansbury, whose father, George, was to be Mayor of Poplar, editor of the Daily Herald, a Labour MP, and in due course Labour Party leader.
The clock was restored to its former glory in 2008 thanks to the efforts of the Heritage of London Trust in conjunction with JEECS. We featured her story in issue 9 of our magazine, The Cable, in 2009.
Now author Janine Booth examines her life and achievements in detail in Minnie Lansbury: Suffragette, Socialist, Rebel Councillor, a book that is also the story of Eastern European immigrant Jews in Cockney London, of the fight against poverty and for enfranchisement, of opposing war while defending its victims, of embracing revolutionary possibilities and of defying bad laws. She argues that Minnie Lansbury’s experiences and struggles are directly relevant to today’s labour movement, and to today’s campaigns against antisemitism and for women’s equality.
Janine Booth is a writer and activist who lives in Hackney, east London. She is a well-known figure in her trade union (RMT), in the wider labour movement, and in disability rights and feminist circles. She writes and performs poetry, which has been widely published. She has researched, written and spoken on the subject of Minnie Lansbury for several years, including writing a book about the Poplar rates rebellion.
Minnie Lansbury: Suffragette, Socialist, Rebel Councillor. ISBN: 9781910170557. £12.99. Also available as an e-book. Five Leaves Publications, 14A Long Row,Nottingham, NG1 2DH. 0115 8373097. Email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Website: Five Leaves Publications
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- Written by David Walker
People have been asking us about the top picture on our Facebook page (JEECS Facebook). It is the East London Synagogue in Rectory Square, Stepney Green, long closed and now turned into flats, some of which retain features of the synagogue..
The picture (see above) dates from August 1948
The synagogue’s fascinating history has been told by Marc Michaels in East London Synagogue: Outpost of Another World. Marc is the grandson of Jack Michaels, the synagogue’s life president.
He recounts the synagogue’s establishment in 1877 as a “deficit synagogue”, against the stated policies of the United Synagogue whose policy had been to support only those synagogues that would be self-financing, and explores the background to its establishment and subsequent history, illustrated with many rare photographs.
You can read an excerpt from the book, and enjoy some of its superb illustrations, by clicking here.
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- Written by David Walker
News that a change of use application to turn the historic Whitechapel Bell Foundry into a boutique hotel has been submitted to Tower Hamlets Council has prompted us to resurrect this interesting short article by the late Philip Walker z"l, revealing a mysterious Jewish link, from our magazine The Cable, originally published in 2013. To find out more about the plans for this historic site -- and how to register an objection -- go to http://spitalfieldslife.com/2019/02/03/a-bell-themed-boutique-hotel/ See also our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/jewisheastendcelebrationsoc/
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- Written by Clive Bettington
From Clive Bettington, JEECS chairman
1. Isaac Rosenberg Statue
I continue working on the above project as I want to ensure that the statue commemorating Rosenberg, the acclaimed East End artist and poet who is recognised as one of the finest poets of the Great War, is erected this year. JEECS has to continue until the project is completed. We have reverted to the original sculptor, Etienne Millner, one of Britain's foremost figurative sculptors who, among other project, has completed two statues of the Queen.