Patrick Comerford
Soho was once a notorious red light district, but it has been gentrified in recent years, and is known today for its theatres, restaurants, cafés and music scene. Soho Square is one of the prettiest and most unexpected open spaces in the West End, and in the past it was the home to many Jewish impresarios, producers, directors, and the locations of some now-lost synagogues, Jewish charities, schools and more.
Soho Theatre on Dean Street is one of London’s busiest theatre and comedy venues, with a year-round festival programme and a buzzing bar in the heart of the West End. The theatre, which opened in March 2000, is housed in a former synagogue, having raised the funds to buy and redevelop the building.
When I was in Soho last week, I searched for the stories of Jewish Soho. I visited this former synagogue and went in looking for some of its predecessors, including the former Beit HaSepher Synagogue on Soho Square and the former West End Talmud Torah and Bikkur Holim synagogue on Manette Street.
The West End Great Synagogue, which was known as the West End Talmud Torah and Bikkur Holim Synagogue until about 1950, was first formed in 1910 with the merger of the West End Talmud Torah, which had been founded at Green’s Court in 1880, and the former Bikkur Holim Synagogue, which had been at Brewer Street, off Golden Square. It also incorporated the Beit HaSepher synagogue on Soho Square.
Karl Marx and his family lived in abject poverty at 21 Dean Street from 1848 to 1856, until his wife inherited a legacy and they could afford to move to Haverstock Hill in Belsize Park. By the late 19th century, the Jewish community in Soho was made up of shopkeepers and immigrants who had moved into the West End.
The dominant local industry was tailoring, with people working in hard conditions in their flats and workrooms on bespoke suits and theatre costumes and supplying trimmings, and embroidery, from Saville Row to West End theatres.
Then in 1912, 1,500 skilled West End tailors, mostly immigrants from central and east Europe, went on strike, and 12,000 Jewish tailors in the East End also went on strike in support of them. The strikes were successful, and brought an end to the exploitation of sweated labour. Royalty Mansions on the site of the former Royalty Theatre on Meard Street, off Dean Street, were first built in 1908, and are a reminder of these skilled workers.
These highly exploited but low-paid workers were, by and large, members of Orthodox Jewish families that were immigrants from central and east Europe, and they needed small chevrot there, just as they were needed in the East End.
The Talmud Torah Synagogue first began above a shop at 9 Green’s Court, off Golden Square in Soho in 1880. The Bikkur Holim Synagogue was formed at 41 Brewer Street, also off Golden Square in 1910. They soon merged, and after a brief time in Berwick Street moved in 1916 to 14 Manette Street, between Greek Street and Charing Cross Road, and behind Soho Square, where it was known as Manette Street Synagogue.
Manette Street was originally known as Rose Steet, and takes its name from A Tale of Two Cities, in which Charles Dickens has Dr Alexandre Manette and his daughter Lucie living on Soho Square. Their house is said to have been modelled on the House of Saint Barnabas, which Dickens visited. Because of this association, Rose Street behind the House of Saint Barnabas was renamed Manette Street.
The Soho Square Beth HaSepher Synagogue was established in 1910 and in 1916 moved to 26A Soho Square, beside the Charity House or House of Saint Barnabas on the corner of Soho Square and Greek Street.
The building was once a workhouse associated with Saint Anne’s Parish and had a variety of religious uses from the 1830s for over a century. It was a church-run commercial school from 1839 to 1847. The it was part of the House of Charity until that moved around the corner to 1 Greek Street in 1862. It was then the Saint John the Baptist Mission House and Industrial School (1870-1899), followed by Saint Patrick’s Home for Working Boys (1903-1916).
The Beth HaSepher synagogueS founded in 1910, moved to 26A Soho Square around 1917. It was affiliated to the Federation of Synagogues.
The two synagogues on Manette Street and on the corner of Soho Square and Greek Street merged in 1948, and moved to 21 Dean Street, where the new synagogue was renamed the West End Great Synagogue.
For many years, Soho had a distinguished rabbi in Rabbi Tzvi Hirsch Ferber (1879-1966), the author of many books. He was the rabbi of the West End Talmud Torah Synagogue from 1913, established the Chesed V’emeth Burial Society in 1915, and consolidated the various activities and religious life of the community of Jewish working class immigrants in Soho into one institution.
He was described as a ‘man of saintliness and gentleness, loved and admired by all who came into contact with him’. He remained Rabbi of Soho for 42 years, from 1913 until his retirement in 1955.
The West End Great Synagogue owned its own cemetery, consecrated in 1915. Because of this, over the years, many smaller congregations affiliated with it and with its burial society. Some of them or their members still retain this affiliation, although many of these congregations are no longer active. They include Commercial Road Great Synagogue, Congregation of Jacob Synagogue, Ezras Chaim Synagogue, Fieldgate Street Synagogue, Great Garden Street Synagogue, Nelson Street Sephardish Synagogue, Sandy’s Row Synagogue and Teesdale Street Synagogue.
The original building on Dean Street had been damaged by German bombs during World War II and was rebuilt as a new synagogue in 1964. Rabbi Maurice Lew was appointed Rabbi of the West End Great Synagogue in 1963, and his official induction as rabbi also involved the consecration of the rebuilt building.
Maurice Lew was born in Siedlce in Poland, and his father, Rabbi Israel Joseph Lew, was the Rabbi of the Mile End and Bow Congregation. Rabbi Maurice Lew retired as Rabbi at Dean Street in 1979.
The West End Great Synagogue maintained a minyan or quorum for many years and generously donated to Jewish charities and student activities. The building on Dean Street included halls used for dancing and by the Labour Friends of Israel. The Ben Uri Gallery, founded in 1915 to support East End artists, relocated there in the 1970s and remained there until 1996.
When the synagogue at 21 Dean Street closed in the 1990s, the remaining members moved to the Western Marble Arch Synagogue. The synagogue still exists nominally as an independent congregation, with an address at the Western Marble Arch Synagogue but with its own burial society and cemetery and some affiliation to the Federation of Synagogues.
After the former West End Great Synagogue moved to the Western Marble Arch synagogue, the former synagogue on Dean Street became the Soho Theatre.
Shabbat Shalom, שבת שלום
