Jewish East End Celebration Society
4A Cornwall Mews South, London, SW7 4RX
[email protected]
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/
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.
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.
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.
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.
JEECS member Vivi Lachs’ new book, Whitechapel Noise: Jewish Immigrant Life in Yiddish Song and Verse, London 1884–1914 is published this month (May).
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.
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.
Barry Davis, the renowned Yiddish actor and scholar, who was a very good friend of JEECS, has died.
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.
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.
You published this photo of my father, Sholem Shrensky, and (it is assumed) of L. Gensheroff in issue 24, 2014 of The Cable in the hope that someone might know the location of the Gensheroff premises. Retired Detective Inspector Terry Abrahams astutely found, through the 1911 census, that the family of Isaac Gunscheroff (a close enough re-spelling of the name) resided in London at 9, Union Street, Mile End Old Town, and he kindly informed me of this fact.