Catalogue description SPITALFIELDS GREAT SYNAGOGUE

The collection consists of deeds which trace the ownership and tenancies of the former synagogue from 1714 to the early twentieth century.

The archives have been arranged in chronological order.

Spitalfields Great Synagogue, 1898 - 1975, London

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Spitalfields Great Synagogue was situated on the corner of Brick Lane and Fournier Street in Spitalfields. The Synagogue occupied the site of a former church built by French speaking Huguenot refugees in 1843. The building was leased in 1809 to the London Society for Promoting Christianity among the Jews. In 1843 the French Church leased the building to a community of Methodists, it then became a Wesleyan Chapel and was known as Spitalfields Chapel. In 1898 the Trustees of the French Church leased the building to the London Hebrew Tamud Torah Classes who in turn sub-let it to the Jewish Machzikei Hadath community.

The Machzikei Hadath community were particularly concerned to preserve strict orthodox standards of religious worship and observance: the congregation was largely made up of newly arrived Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe who found the established practices of the Anglo-Jewish community did not match their standards of orthodoxy. Spitalfields Great Synagogue was consciously modelled on synagogues found in Eastern Europe. The congregation flourished in the early twentieth century and became known as an important centre for the local Jewish community. As the community moved from the area however attendance declined and the synagogue was closed in 1952: a new Machzikei Hadath Synagogue was opened in Golders Green in the 1980s.

The building was sold in the 1970s to a community of Muslims from Bangladesh and converted to use as a mosque.

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