Sandys Row Synagogue: the East End shul undergoing a revival

A few minutes walk away from bustling Bishopsgate, with its looming glass towers of finance, Sandys Row Synagogue, a small, historic Ashkenazi shul on a quiet street, is thriving. Unlike other shuls in London’s old Jewish East End which have found themselves lost due to a long since dwindling local Jewish population, it is witnessing an upsurge in membership.

If Sandys Row can not only survive but thrive, there are lessons for other synagogues with similar profiles — at risk, historic, small shuls within neighbourhoods that were formerly inhabited by a much larger Jewish population than exists today.

Walking into Sandys Row for the first time last spring, I felt a warmth emanating from the place. The sanctuary is painted in shades of orange, yellow, white and gold — it seems to almost glow. I was taken by the sense of longevity that it sustains as well as the welcoming manner of those who run it: a small team of devoted volunteers, including Harvey Rifkind, the shul’s current president.

Rifkind told me: “Today there are just three shuls left in the heart of the East End and Sandys Row is now the last functioning shul in Spitalfields.”

In 1854, fifty Dutch Jewish families from Amsterdam established a friendly society that later became the Sandys Row community. They were ordinary working people — carpenters, bootmakers, cigar makers, diamond polishers. There was a larger Jewish presence in the East End following this earlier migration that kept growing and the shul flourished for decades. The synagogue operated throughout both world wars and, says Rifkind, in the 1950s and 60s you couldn’t get a seat on High Holy Days. But soon after, Jews started to leave the area and so the population decreased.

In the late 1980s, when Stella and Jimmy Wilder, who’d been running Sandy’s Row, died, the members and descendants decided that if they didn’t do something about running the place it would go the same way as most of the 150 shuls that were in the East End from the 1800s until now.

Identifying the projected outlook for a synagogue early enough to change its fate is crucial. So many shuls in the East End, lost now, ran out of time and resources. A passionate few members at any one endangered shul can’t alone save it from developers or repurposing — the several who try don’t always make up enough of a critical mass or hold enough monetary power to change a shul’s direction. But Sandys Row is one of the fortunate ones and the foresight and dedication of its members continues.

A few years ago, it took itself into the digital age — a website, a Twitter page and a Facebook page are manintained by volunteers. Social media presence has made the shul much more accessible to younger generations and gone a long way towards attracting and retaining new members — something important for smaller synagogues with previously predominately elderly populations.

With the loss of so many shuls within one area, there comes a real risk that the stories unique to the community will be lost or forgotten. Rachel Lichtenstein, a part time historian and archivist at Sandys Row, told me: “During the time that I’ve worked in the East End, I’ve watched many synagogues and places of Jewish importance shut down. There is very little tangible Jewish heritage left in the area now and there’s nowhere locally where you can currently go and learn about its Jewish history.

“I recently took a walk around the former Jewish East End with the marketing director of the Jewish Cultural Quarter of Amsterdam. He has walked around the former Jewish immigrant quarters of many of Europe’s cities; he was amazed how few blue plaques or remaining evidence of former Jewish habitation was left in London’s East End.

“Without an expert guide, most visitors to the area would have no idea that there was, at one time, over 100,000 Jewish people living there, which is one of the reasons Sandys Row has now become so very important.”

Eldridge Street Synagogue in New York City has a similar profile to Sandys Row as an early Ashkenazi synagogue. It has successfully raised millions of dollars to restore its building to former glory and develop a museum and educational centre within its walls that share the stories of the old Jewish Lower East Side of Manhattan.

Sandys Row is on a similar path — its members have a plan to turn its basement into a permanent heritage space that explores both the unique story of the building alongside the wider social history of the Jewish East End.

Lichtenstein says “We’re working with architecture and interior design students from London’s Cass School of Art to come up with ideas for the development of this space. We’ve got all sorts of ideas to ensure the longevity of Sandys Row well into the 21st century — not just as a place of worship but as a place of learning, an educational centre and a heritage space that celebrates the wider history of the area, for all sections of the community to come and learn.”

In recent years, there have been several weddings at Sandys Row. Louisa and Dominic Rose, in their thirties from Kentish Town in North London, were married there last year.

“We loved Sandys Row the minute we stepped inside,” said Louisa. “It has so much character and charm — its doors were so open to us that we couldn’t have dreamed of anywhere better to be married. Every creaky floorboard and old photograph in Sandys Row means you are in a very atmospheric place.”

Sandys Row has done well recruiting new members. Yet, of course, once a prospective member finds a synagogue, whether online or through just stopping by, there needs to be enough on offer in the shul to keep them coming back regularly. Beyond Shabbats, weekday minyans and bar and batmitzvahs, Sandys Row has called upon members, local residents and special visitors to run a variety of cultural events at the shul.

On one of my most recent visits I attended a special afternoon of Jewish storytelling as part of the European Day of Jewish Culture. It was standing room only; people were dancing in the aisles to klezmer tunes. I saw babies in arms alongside retirees. It was very clear that despite the fate of other local shuls, Sandys Row is a living, breathing institution.

Says Lichtenstein: “It is very important to us that Sandys Row is a success story.

“As part of our recent archive project we have minute books dating back to the 1870s that have now been digitised. People can check through the marriage records, and see photos of the judaica. The National Library of Israel has recognized this collection as a unique piece of history and copies of this material have been deposited in their archives for scholars globally.

“There are many wonderfully celebratory aspects of Sandys Row: it has become a really important part of British Jewish heritage.

“As the last Ashkenazi synagogue still functioning in Spitalfields, we all have a responsibility to ensure that this continues to be a vibrant place of worship well into the future.”