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

Details

 

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.

Details

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

Details

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.

 

Details

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/

Details

 

 

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.

Details

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.

Details

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.

Details

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.

Details

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

Details

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.  

Details

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.

Details

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

  1. Farewell to JEECS
  2. A Great Yiddish Parade to make Whitechapel sing
  3. Gensheroff premises found
  4. Tales from a physician's life

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

  • Nelson Street shul, the last purpose-built Synagogue in the East End

    When papers reported that East London Central Synagogue’s (ELCS) building was the target of alleged arson, they struggled to name it. Most, including the Slice, chose to name it a ‘former synagogue on Nelson Street’. The struggle with naming the synagogue is that, in many ways, it’s not really just one place of worship. Read More

  • Grodzinski bakery memories sought

      A request from noted historian Pam Fox, author of several brilliant books on Jewish social history, for information on and anecdotes about the East End's famous Grodzinski bakery business. If you can help, please contact Pam via her Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/pam.fox.108 or email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.  Read More

  • 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
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
› ‹

For the old Jeecs site, visit www.jeecs.org.uk/archive