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

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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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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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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.

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The beautiful East London Centre Synagogue in Nelson Street (30-40 Nelson Street, E1 2DS) now features on Wikipedia, with an entry that draws in part from an article in JEECS magazine, The Cable.

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From Clive Bettington, JEECS chairman

       1. Email address change

Clive Bettington’s new email address is This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Please change your contacts lists if necessary. The previous email addresses no longer function.

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Back issues of JEECS’s magazine The Cable are still available at bargain prices. Over the years The Cable has provided a unique account of the people, culture, places and events that made the Jewish East End so vibrant.

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JEECS member Vivi Lachs’ new book, Whitechapel Noise: Jewish Immigrant Life in Yiddish Song and Verse, London 1884–1914 is published this month (May).

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1. Vanished works by a famous Japanese artist. 
2. A quick reminder about the Rosenberg walk on Sunday April 1, now to be accompanied by a BBC journalist. 
3. Jewish events in Tower Hamlets.  

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Michael Greisman, whose wonderful historic photograph compilations have featured in our magazine The Cable and on our website, has done it again with a collection of portraits of Jewish Servicemen and Servicewomen – many from the East End – who served with the British armed services during World War Two.

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Barry Davis, the renowned Yiddish actor and scholar, who was a very good friend of JEECS, has died.

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Many of you are probably puzzled that you have not heard from us for some time and that the latest issue of our magazine The Cable is the first in nearly a year. I am afraid that the committee has decided that, because of illnesses and other reasons, it has decided to wind up JEECS at the end of 2018.The latest issue of The Cable will be the last although emails will continue to be sent until the end of 2018. In short the committee feels that it just cannot continue running JEECS.

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It will soon be time for one of the East End’s most spectacular events, the Great Yiddish parade, and you are all invited.

The date is Sunday November 19, when East End streets will echo with the sound of songs once sung there and forgotten for more than a century, as a marching band with singers and klezmer musicians bring Yiddish Victorian songs of protest back to the London of today.

  1. Gensheroff premises found
  2. Tales from a physician's life
  3. A Hessel Street memory
  4. A film about your family

Keep in touch

Follow us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/pages/The-Jewish-East-End-Celebration-Society/176990939962?fref=ts 

Email us at [email protected]

 

 

Latest news

  • Asleep through the Battle of Cable Street

      The distinguished Oscar-winning film director and illustrator Arnold Schwartzman OBE has sent us the following fascinating reminiscences. I may take the claim to be the sole survivor of the Battle of Cable Street! Aged 9 months, I was fast asleep upstairs in my grandfather Michael Finkleson’s boot repair shop at 292a Cable Street as the battle raged along the… Read More

  • Escape from the East End Blitz

    On September 7 1940 I was four years old living with my parents in Sidney Street, in London's East End, on the first day of the London Blitz. I recall that it was a hot evening and my mother had set three salads on the kitchen table when I noticed out of the window that on the neighbouring flat roof there was a man stripped to the waist washing his… Read More

  • East End Jews: Secret tales from the London Yiddish Press

    Join Vivi Lachs historian and Yiddish speaker on Thursday 26 March from 7pm-8.30pm at Finchley Church End Library, Finchley, Barnet showcasing the book 'East End Jews: Secret tales from the London Yiddish Press’ it offers an unparalleled view into the life, labour, and the joys of London's Jewish East End, from its heyday in the 1890s until the 1950s. Drawing… Read More

  • Oral history of the Jewish East End

    Professor Jason Shela MBE recently contacted us about a research project he is currently conducting to collect the oral histories of people who grew up in London’s East End (which include his father, grandparents and great grandparents). Read More

  • Cinema book author needs your help

      Do you or your family have connections with the cinema in the East End? If so, Isabelle Seddon would love to hear from you. Read More

  • Do you know the Gramophone Man?

    JEECS has been asked if anyone knows the name of the Gramophone Man, pictured here, his back story, when he retired, and the sort of music he played. 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
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For the old Jeecs site, visit www.jeecs.org.uk/archive