Willesden Immigrants Trail

Born to immigrant parents from Russia, Israel Zangwill (1864-1926) was a prolific and successful writer, social reformer and political activist.  His father Moses Zangwill (1839-1908) came alone to England, as a youth, to escape Jewish child-conscription instituted by the Tsar. 

Israel Zangwill went to school in Bristol and later the Jewish Free School (JFS) in London. With his parents, he moved out of the East End to 24 Oxford Road in Kilburn.

He was a scruffy bohemian, part of an intellectual group called 'The Wanderers of Kilburn' and has been described as the Dickens of the Ghetto, celebrated world-wide for his famous book the Children of the Ghetto, describing Jewish immigrant life in the East End of London and for his play The Melting Pot, describing the immigrant experience in America (he coined the phrase melting pot). 

Alongside Theodor Herzl he was a massive figure in the early Zionist movement to find a Jewish homeland and he favoured exploring options far beyond Palestine.

Later, he was associated with David Jochelman (1868-1941) and the Galveston Movement which proposed funnelling Jews fleeing Russia to southern America via Texas. Jochelman also lived in Kilburn, at 22 Mapesbury Road.

A block of flats, Zangwill House, on the South Kilburn Estate is named after him - but it is due to be demolished by 2027.

Zangwill is buried in the Liberal Jewish Cemetery (see No.10)

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LOCATION (24 OXFORD ROAD)

One of the first prominent Jews to settle in Willesden was property developer Solomon Barnett (1844/5 – 1920).  

After growing up in poverty in the East End of London, he became a successful builder and built many houses around Kilburn, Queens Park and Willesden. Many of the streets he built were named for places in the West Country, where his wife Florence (nee Joseph) came from.

He had 4 children, and lived at 19 Brondesbury Road for many years and later in a lavish mansion at 1a Brondesbury Park which was known as Restormel.

The later home was described as having large entrance hall, an oak staircase and a large conservatory at the back as well as an extensive two acre garden with tennis, croquet and a kitchen garden.

It was sold in 1910 as a base for Catholic Missionaries. When the war broke out in 1914 it was lent to the War Office and served as Brondesbury Park Military Hospital from 1915 to 1919.  

In a meeting at Solomon Barnett's family house in October 1900 it was decided that a synagogue should be built for the growing Jewish population in the area.

Solomon facilitated the project by offering a plot that he owned in Chevening Road below its cost price. He also lent a corrugated iron building which could be used as a temporary synagogue and Hebrew classes before the synagogue opened in 1905. For more, see No.06.

Immigration story: Solomon Barnett was born in 1844/5 in Vilnius/Vilna, and came to England as a child with his parents, He was naturalised in 1872. He was apprenticed in the East End to a glass and lead merchant and later moved to Kilburn and into the building trade. He became a successful housing developer and community leader.

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LOCATION OF RESTORMEL

(The large house on this site no longer stands (it is now the site of Avenue School - but the original front walls remain)

Salusbury School was built in 1899 and today has over 600 primary-age children on the roll. 

In 1938-39 it admitted children from Nazi-occupied Europe who were housed in refugee hostels dotted around the area. 

23 Jewish refugee children enrolled in one class alone in 1939 which was more than half of all the pupils in that form. 

Some of the children were housed at The Home For Jewish Refugee Children at 5 The Avenue, hostels at 39 Christchurch Avenue, 125 Walm Lane, 40 Teignmouth Road, 9 Brondesbury Road, 175 Willesden Lane and 243 Willesden Lane (see Nos 17 & 24), as well as local foster homes. 

The child refugees arrived under a scheme by the British Government that allowed entry to the UK of children up to 17 years old, organised by the Refugee Children’s Movement and the Jewish community. Around 10,000 children were rescued and the scheme is now better known as the Kindertransport. 

The charity Salusbury World operates from the school today continuing to give help to refugees and asylum seekers from many countries.

Immigration story:  Brothers Bernhard (10) and Walter Muhlgay (8) arrived as child refugees from Poland in 1939 as part of the Kindertransport and were housed at a hostel on Christchurch Avenue.  They remained in north London, both becoming dental technicians. Other refugee children enrolled at the school in 1938 included Traute Friedman, Eve Tolczyner and siblings Henna and Josef Zajac (from Queen’s Park - A History by Steve Crabb).

This sculpture in the quiet garden in Queen's Park is by Fred Kormis (1897 – 1986).

Fred 'Fritz' Kormis was a German Jewish artist who became well-known for his bronze portrait medallions of Edward VIII, Winston Churchill and Charlie Chaplin.

Over his lifetime he exhibited over 40 works at the Royal Academy. 

In 1945, Willesden Council commissioned a sculpture for the new Church End redevelopment - this was Angels’ Wings.

In 2006 local Councillor and Fred’s friend Reg Freeson (see No. 05) donated it to a new site in Queen’s Park. 

His other major work in Brent is the Prisoner of War Memorial (1969) in Gladstone Park, which was restored in 2003 after severe damage by vandalism. 

Immigration story: Fred Kormis was born in Germany. He and his wife emigrated to England in 1934, to escape Nazi Germany. He took a studio in Kilburn and became a successful artist. As a younger man, he fought in the Austro-Hungarian army, and spent years as a Russian prisoner-of-war in Siberia. His experiences inspired much of his artwork.

Reginald Yarnitz Freeson (1926-2006) was raised in a Jewish orphanage in West Norwood. He joined the Labour Party after the war and was editor of the anti-fascist magazine Searchlight in the 1960s.

He was locally elected in 1952 and was Willesden’s Council Leader (1958-65). In 1964 he became a Labour MP for Willesden & Brent and was the longest serving Housing Minister in history, serving under Prime Ministers Wilson & Callaghan.  He was 'ousted' from government by Ken Livingstone in 1988.

He was a socialist Zionist, supported the Irish Nationalists, opposed the Korean and Vietnam Wars and co-founded the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. 

Freeson lived on Chevening Road and was a serving Brent Councillor when he died in 2006. He is buried at Liberal Jewish Cemetery in Willesden (see No.10).

Immigration story: “His maternal parents [came] from a very strict Jewish community in Tsarist Russian and fled to Britain during the pogroms. His paternal grandparents came from the borders of Poland and Russia (his grandfather was one of the craftsmen who worked on the Anglican Cathedral in Liverpool).” He considered himself by origin to be a Polish Jew. (Independent, obit., 12 Oct 2006)

Originally called the Stone Hall Synagogue, this impressive building opened in 1905. It was built in grand oriental style, with Moorish domes and towers. 

The land for the synagogue was acquired at a discount from local Jewish property developer Solomon Barnett (see no.2).

The building was consecrated by Chief Rabbi Hermann Adler (see no.11) on 9 April 1905 with a memorial stone laid by Sir Marcus Samuel (later Viscount Bearsted). Lionel de Rothschild declared the building open.  These were important figures in both British society at the time, and the Jewish community.

As the local Jewish population expanded, the heart of the community shifted from Kilburn and Queens Park towards Willesden Green and in the 1930s several newer synagogues opened in Willesden to serve the growing community. 

In 1965 the synagogue on Chevening Road suffered an arson attack and in 1974 the building was sold to the Imam Al-Khoei Foundation.

Today the exterior of the building is mostly unchanged, and is a well-used mosque, Islamic community centre and school.

Immigration story: One of the founders of Brondesbury Synagogue, Sir Marcus Samuel was born into a family of Iraqi Jews who came from Baghdad in the 1800s.  In the 1930s, his son gave £2 million to help Jews leave Nazi Germany. See also, stories of Rabbi Hermann Adler and Solomon Barnett (No. 11 and No.02)

The Jewish community of Harlesden first started to gather for prayers at the home of Samuel Weinstein, and as the community expanded, they relocated to a scout hut in the grounds of a convent on Crownhill Road.

The community was originally called the Harlesden Hebrew Congregation and changed to Willesden District Synagogue later.

When the community outgrew the scout hut, the United Synagogue bought a substantial site in College Road for the community. 

However, local people objected to plans for such a large synagogue with flats and shops attached, and plans had to be scaled down to only a communal hall.

The synagogue opened in 1934, with the charismatic Reverend Spira as the first minister, but in only a few years the synagogue closed as the congregation outgrew these premises.

The Heathfield Park, Synagogue (also known as Willesden Synagogue) then became the focal point for the growing community (see No.14). 

Immigration Story: Rev. Elimelech (Marks) Spira, born in 1903 in Galicia, was the first appointed community leader - and first Hassid in the United Synagogue. His marriage in 1951 to Rachel, daughter of the Trisker Rebbe, introduced the exuberance of a Hasidic wedding to the community. He remained the rabbi of the Willesden community at Heathfield Park until his retirement in 1968. 

A growing community had been meeting for prayers at 23a Chamberlayne Road and in 1945/6 moved to a larger site at 263 Chamberlayne Road, near Sidmouth Parade (see No.09).

The new synagogue, was under the Federation of Synagogues (separate to the more mainstream United Synagogue).

It was a big site, incorporating Hillel House School and a nursery. The school opened in 1947 and in 1978 still had approximately 130 children enrolled.

By 1985 the community had become much smaller, and the remaining members took the decision to merge with the Heathfield Park/Willesden United Synagogue (see No.14). The synagogue closed permanently in 1988.

Immigration story: Two of the community leaders were child refugees. Reverend Bernard Koschland (born near Nuremberg, Germany in 1931) and Rabbi Mordecai Singer (born in Vienna). As a child, Rabbi Singer was brought to England in 1939 by Rabbi Doctor Solomon Schonfeld, a ‘British Hero of the Holocaust’ who worked tirelessly to bring many child refugees to safety during and after the war years.

This parade of shops was built in the 1930s to serve the rapid expansion of new family housing in the area.

For fifty years or so it was mainly occupied by Jewish shopkeepers.

The shops included a kosher butcher, fishmonger and a delicatessen. 

There was also Mendoza Estate Agent, Maison Andre Hairdressers (Morry & Alf Kleinman), Frank’s Fruits and Braham’s Delicatessen.

With the exception of Richard & Curtis pharmacy, which remains on the parade today under new owners, most of the Jewish-owned shops closed in the 1980s.

Ingrid Sellman remembers: “Mr Coleman, the kosher butcher, used to have chickens hanging by their feet. You pointed at the chicken you wanted and he brought it down and using a hatchet, cut and cleaned it for you. You koshered it yourself. Nothing was pre-packed!”

Immigration Story: Ladislau Virag, from Hungary, and his wife Annie, born in Russia, ran a popular Hungarian style patisserie/bakery on Sidmouth Parade between 1960 and 1985. Mr Virag was the baker and Mrs Virag was front-of-shop. 

The Liberal Jewish Cemetery opened in 1914 next to the older United Synagogue Cemetery.

The prayer hall was built in the 1920s by Ernest Joseph OBE, a successful architect - and son of Nathan Joseph, the architect of the grander Willesden Jewish Cemetery next door (see No.11).

Notable graves:

Sir Albert (formerly Abdullah) Sassoon
In the 1870s, Sir Albert came to London to continue his father's commercial success in trading textiles, cotton, tea, spices - and notoriously, opium. His father had left Baghdad and settled in Bombay some years earlier and built a very successful global business. Sir Albert's son Edward Sassoon - who served as a British MP - is also buried here. The Sassoon family were known as the "Rothschilds of the East”.

Conchita Supervia
Spanish mezzo-soprano opera singer Conchita Supervia whose tombstone was designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens is buried here. Conchita converted to Judaism to marry Benzion Rubenstein in 1930. 

Other well-known characters (and immigrants) interred here include Israel Zangwill (see No 1) TV man Sir Lew Grade and tobacco mogul Bernhard Baron.

Sir Lew Grade was born Louis Winogradsky in Tokmak, Ukraine in 1906. He arrived in London with his parents in 1911. 

Bernhard Baron was director of the Carreras Tobacco Company (known for Craven A & Rothmans cigarettes) and was born in Brest Litovsk in 1850. He emigrated to America aged 17, and later, as a businessman to England in 1895.

Note: the cemetery grounds are closed on Saturdays

Described as the “Rolls Royce" of London's Jewish cemeteries when it opened in 1873 on former sheep-grazing land outside the 'village' of Willesden, it was founded by the new ‘United Synagogue’ board to serve well-to-do Jews living in central and west London. 

The cemetery was designed by architect Nathan S. Joseph (1834-1909), who is buried here. He was the founder of the Liberal Jewish Movement and his son is buried in the Liberal Jewish Cemetery next door. His grandfather (also named Nathan Joseph) had moved to London from Amsterdam at the end of the eighteenth century.

The cemetery is a final resting place for many Jews who shaped social and economic life in London.

Rabbi Nathan Adler (1803-1890), a German Jew who was appointed Chief Rabbi of the British Empire in 1844 and was responsible for unifying the Jewish community under the umbrella of the 'United Synagogue'. He also championed both religious and secular education; he was the first Chief Rabbi to have a university education.

His son Hermann Adler followed in his footsteps and became Chief Rabbi - and is also buried here.

Several generations of the German Jewish banking family the Rothschilds are also laid to rest here. The English branch of the Rothschild family was founded in 1798 by Nathan Mayer Rothschild and the first of the dynasty to buried at Willesden was Baron Mayer Amschel de Rothschild who died in 1874. The Rothschild burial enclosures are Grade II listed monuments.

Two notable men who arrived in the 1800s as poor refugees included Herman Landau OBE (1849-1921) originally from Poland, who became a rich philanthropist and established the Jews’ Temporary Shelter in the East End for Jewish refugees (see No.25), and Reverend Benjamin Schewzik (1853-1915) originally from Russia, a rabbi who was the proprietor of the famed Russian Ritual and Vapour Baths in Brick Lane. 

Fascinating tours of the cemetery are available. For more information about the history of the cemetery and other notable burials see:

https://www.willesdenjewishcemetery.org.uk

Note: the cemetery grounds are closed on Saturdays

Between 1921 and 1968 the Post Office Research Station was located in Dollis Hill and it was here that technicians developed the first electronic computers. One notable technician, during the 1950s, was Dame Stephanie ‘Steve’ Shirley (b.1933).

In 1959 she founded her own software programming company, which grew into a large consultancy (now part of a multinational).

She employed mainly women programmers and was a pioneer for flexible working which was unusual, particularly in the very male-oriented field of technology.

Her team worked the programme for Concorde's black box flight recorder, among many other projects.

She was also the first female President of the British Computer Society.

Dame Shirley retired in 1993 and focused on philanthropy, donating most of her wealth to charity.

Immigration story: Dame Stephanie was born Vera Buchthal in Dortmund, Germany in 1933. She was just five years old when she was sent with her nine-year-old sister Renate on a Kindertransport train from Vienna to London in 1939. She was raised by foster parents in the West Midlands.

The building on Park Side was designed, on the site of a smaller synagogue building, by Sir Owen Williams - the architect of the original Wembley Stadium.  Dollis Hill Synagogue opened in 1938.

It was fashionably built of concrete, in dazzling white, and accommodated 324 men at ground level and 316 women at gallery level.

The unusual window patterns of the new building included a hexagon, echoing the Star of David, and an inverted arch, inspired by the outline of a seven-candle menorah.

The building was targeted by vandals 1947, linked to uprisings in Palestine.

In 1995 the building was sold to Torah Temimah Primary School.

Services continued for the ageing congregation in the school hall, until the numbers dropped too low. The congregation was disbanded in 2011.

Immigration story: The second rabbi of Dollis Hill Synagogue was Rabbi Harry ‘Tzvi’ Rabinowicz, born in Poland in 1919 into a dynastic Hasidic family. His family moved to London in 1927 and he was raised in the East End.  He authored several books, including The Story of The Hasidim in Britain (1994). Obituary in The Guardian, 1 Feb 2002.

This site spans the roads of Heathfield Park and Brondesbury Park.

In 1936/7, a new synagogue was constructed in Modernist style on the site of a house on Heathfield Park.

The building was extended in 1939 to provide a hall and classrooms and an entrance from Brondesbury Park, the road at the rear of Heathfield Park. 

For decades this synagogue was a vibrant hub of Jewish Willesden but the community changed and the main building eventually became too big to maintain.

It was sold off in 1998. The hall and classrooms on Brondesbury Park were retained and became the main synagogue building. 

Since 2004 the community has grown again under the direction of Rabbi Baruch Levin and in Spring 2022 a brand new building for the community opened on the Brondesbury Park site, incorporating a prayer hall, nursery, function room and offices.  It is now known as Brondesbury Park Synagogue.

Immigration Story:The original building was designed by modernist architect Friedrich ‘Fritz’ J Landauer, born in 1883 in Augsburg, Germany.  He moved to London in 1933 to escape Nazi-occupation and was given permanent resident status in 1937.

His son Walter (Landor) emigrated to the US and became a big name in advertising, creating the iconic Levis, Marlboro and Del Monte brand logos among others. Here's a wonderful account of life at Landor Associates.

In 1935, Grodzinski Bakery opened in Willesden as part of a rapid suburban expansion by the third generation of Grodzinskis.

By the mid 1960s, Grodzinski was the largest kosher bakery in Europe, with 24 shops around London and wholesale distribution to Selfridges, Marks & Spencer and Harrods.

The Willesden store closed permanently around 1988 but many still remember the baked goods (particularly the doughnuts) very fondly.

The Grodzinski family no longer own the UK bakeries - but the name survives, and the family baking tradition continues in Toronto, Canada, where a great grandson of the founders, Daniel Grodzinski opened a bakery business in 1999. 

Immigration story: In 1888, Harris and Judith Grodzinski fled Varonovo, a shtetl in the Pale of Settlement in the Russian Empire. In London’s East End they started a business that grew from a trading barrow on the street to a well-known bakery chain (source: repast_2022_spring)

There were many Jewish-owned shops on Walm Lane in the 1950s and 1960s. Here are a few that were well-loved and remembered by the local community:

Damazer Delicatessen & Kosher Butchers, 1-3 Walm Lane
Ingrid Sellman remembers: ‘Mr Damazer offered barrels of pickles and herrings in the continental manner. He would cut smoked salmon whilst you waited. Two robbers came into his shop but he picked up his knife and using skills learned in the Irgun, he threw them out. Mr Damazer was very small and he stood on a box behind the (marble) counter, so he could serve his customers. His wife was considerably taller! They served German sausages alongside kosher Frohwein ‘worsht’ (sausage) - which we can laugh at now - but people still bought a selection of meats from them. Many people who came from German/Austrian backgrounds wished to eat the foods they remembered: a hechsher (a kosher certification) was not important.’ The shop closed around 1987.

Greens Kosher Butcher opened on Walm Lane in the 1950s, and was succeeded by Michael Herman in the 1960s, then Sonny Gitlin took the reins in the 1970s/80s. From 1980 to 1991, Symmons Kosher Butcher was listed in Thomsons directory at 1F Walm Lane.

Pollacks Deli,12-13 Walm Lane
Ingrid Sellman remembers: ‘Pollacks Deli was run by Mr K Shechter. He was a Hassid. There was a long marble counter and he would serve you, always saying, “Yes, what else”, so you spent far too much money, not to disappoint him! I used to go to him for my Pesach (Passover) order each year but it was a long and laborious process, as he collected one item after another from the shelving behind him, on the other side of the counter to the customer.’ The shop closed in the mid 1980s.

A building on this site at 243 Willesden Lane (there is no longer a building here) featured in Mona Golabek’s book The Children of Willesden Lane, which describes her mother, Lisa Jura’s experience, as one of many refugee children from Nazi-occupied Europe who lived here.

Cricklewood Synagogue’s community raised funds and guaranteed the childrens’ safety. The hostel was managed by Lucie Cohn from Berlin and Irene Cossman from Cologne who were also refugees.

The girls went to Chamberlayne Wood Road School, and those who could not speak English struggled.

Regular visits to Cricklewood Synagogue gave them an opportunity to mix with other refugee children, including those from the Yavneh hostel at No. 1 Minster Road (see No.24). 

Immigration story: At 14, Lisa Jura was sent to London from occupied Vienna. Her parents were killed in Auschwitz. After the war she left England for America, where she married, raised a family and became a pianist.

Artist Leon Kossoff (1926-2019) was born to Ukrainian-Jewish refugee parents Wolf and Rachel in Islington, and raised in the East End, where his parents ran a bakery*.

During the Second World War he was evacuated to King’s Lynn in Norfolk and his host family encouraged his passion for drawing.

Later he attended life classes at Toynbee Hall in the East End, and Saturday classes at St Martin’s School of Art. 

He became one of the most acclaimed figurative painters of modern times known for portraits, life drawings and cityscapes of London.

From the 1960s he lived in Willesden and completed many paintings of the local area over his lifetime.

Read more about his work, his family background, and his strong connection to fellow Jewish artist Frank Auerbach here.

*The family baking tradition continues today, with Kossoff's contemporary patisserie opening in 2021 under the direction of Wolf & Rachel Kossoff's great-grandson Aaron.

Between 1960 and 1987 a kosher-style Salt Beef Bar was run by Leon Cantor, together with his brother-in-law Leon Cogan, who was the uncle of 1950s chart-topping singer Alma Cogan.  One supported Arsenal, and the other Tottenham Hotspur football club.

As well as salt beef sandwiches, people have fond memories of their chopped liver and chicken soup. 

Comedian David Baddiel says: “Before I was 15 or 16, the only restaurant I went to was the Beeferiein Willesden Green, which served salt beef. The windows were always steamed up, whatever time of year it was.” (interview to The Guardian, 25 February 2018)

Immigration Story: While both the Leons came from Russian-Polish immigrant families, here is a different kind of immigration story: the tale of Salt Beef, a staple of Ashkenazi Jewish food.

"Salt beef emigrated to the East End in the 1800s, sold by Russian and Polish street vendors in the East End and later in Jewish restaurants such as Blooms.  A wider range of cured meats, including duck and goose, were popular back in Russia, Poland and Germany - but beef was more readily available in England in the mid 1800s and quickly became synonymous with Jewish food.

Salt beef is traditionally made from brisket (a cheap and plentiful cut of beef) which is first cured in salt and spices (which stopped it going off), and then boiled for hours until it is very tender.

This slow method of preparing beef worked well for Jewish festivals, where religious laws forbade any kind of work, including cooking.

This cheap immigrant dish is now seen on menus all over the world."

When it opened at 92 Walm Lane in 1935 the West London Star described this venue as: ‘new, luxurious and spacious’ and ‘packed to capacity’. The review adds: ‘Dance music was supplied by a melodious combination known as the Bugle Call Ragamuffins. Outstanding among the attractions held in these ultra-modern surroundings was the demonstration of the latest ballroom dances (including) the new Charleston.’

It was a popular venue for meetings of political party associations, weddings, bar mitzvahs, - even as an ‘overflow’ for synagogue services as needed.

The adjacent French hairdresser Maurice was very popular between the 1950s and 1980s, with Jewish ladies booking appointments before functions at the Grosvenor Rooms.

The building no longer stands. It was located close to the site of the Sainsbury's local store, next to the railway.

Immigration story: Many people from immigrant families celebrated lifecycle events here over the years. One story we found is this: “Bella Davidson and Joseph Goltman were married on the 8th December 1946…with a reception after at the Grosvenor Rooms. Joseph (b.1888) was born in Russia, his parents had been deported to Siberia and died by the roadside. The couple lived in Ilford and had two daughters, Barbara and Beverly.”

(story taken from www.eastendvintageglamour.org.uk)

The foundation stone of a new synagogue on Walm Lane was laid by Chief Rabbi Dr Joseph Hertz in September 1930. Prior to this, the congregation met in a hut on the same site. The building cost nearly £40,000 and had capacity for 1,100 worshipers.

The synagogue was designed by architect Cecil Eprile and over 50 magnificent stained-glass windows on Jewish themes were installed, designed by David Hillman, who lived locally. The windows were created by him over a 30 year period.

He also designed stained glass windows for several other London synagogues, including Great Portland Street, St John's Wood and St Albans.

Cricklewood Synagogue on Walm Lane was much loved and hosted countless weddings and bar mitzvahs - but it closed in 1989 due to declining membership. The building was converted into flats.

For some years the community continued to meet in a smaller synagogue in the refurbished hall next door (where 28 of the Hillman windows were installed).

When the community shrank, and eventually merged with Willesden Synagogue, the Walm Lane synagogue closed.

Some of the windows went into storage, some to other synagogues.

Twelve of the windows are incorporated into the new building of Brondesbury Park Synagogue (formerly Willesden Synagogue, see No.14) , which re-opened in 2022.

Immigration story: David Hillman (1894-1974), an artist famous for his stained glass windows, was born in Lithuania. He was the son of a renowned rabbi, Rabbi Shmuel Hillman, who was appointed Chief Rabbi of Glasgow in 1908. Against his father's wishes, David won a scholarship to Glasgow School of Art, aged 15, and began his career as an artist, becoming well known for his stained glass windows in the post war period.

Rebbe Finkelstein's Minyan

Also known as the Keser Torah D'Radzin Synagogue, this 'shteibl' met at 62 St Gabriel's Road from 1947.

Followers of Rabbi Finkelstein followed a distinguished Hasidic sect.

The minyan (a prayer group of at least ten men) continued to meet some years after the death of Rabbi Finkelstein and officially closed on Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement) in 1988.  

Immigration Story: Rabbi Beresh Dov Finkelstein (1887-1877) was born in Radom, Poland. He arranged to bring his family to Britain in 1935, aware of the rising threat of Nazi occupation to Jews in Poland. He urged others to do the same. He became Rabbi at Carlisle, Gateshead and Leeds before settling in this part of London after the war ended.

The building at 37 Mapesbury Road is home to the British Psychotherapy Foundation today, but until the 1990s it was home to the Sacks’ family. 

Samuel Sacks and Muriel Elsie Landau raised four sons here, three of whom became doctors.

One of them, Oliver Sacks (1933-2015) became a world famous neurologist and author, who wrote the best-selling books, ‘Awakenings’ and ‘The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat’.

Samuel Sacks (1895-1990) was, for most of his life, a much loved local Jewish doctor, while his wife, Muriel (1895-1972) had an extraordinary career as one of the first female surgeons in England & the first Jewish woman to be a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons. 

Immigration story: Oliver Sacks’ grandfather (his mother Muriels’ father) was born in Belarus in 1837. He left Belarus for London, married twice and raised a total of 18 children in London’s East End. He encouraged his daughters to pursue careers and two of his daughters set up and ran schools, and Muriel became a pioneer in medicine. This was quite unusual for the time.

The hostel at 1 Minster Road was specifically for children arriving on the Kindertransport from Nazi occupied Europe. 

The first group of 30 boys arrived in January 1939 from the Jawne School in Cologne which was Rhineland’s only Jewish secondary school.

They travelled from Germany via Harwich, accompanied by the young Rabbi Dr Rudolf Seligsohn from Bonn, who became the director of this hostel, together with his wife Gerda. Dr Seligsohn led three further transports from the school to safety in Britain.

Immigration story:  Rabbi Rudolf Seligsohn, was born in 1909 in Berlin, Germany.  He brought over 100 children from Germany to safety in Britain. In 1940, he enlisted, becoming a Sergeant in the Pioneer Corps in the British Army and died of meningitis in 1943.

Ernst Kohlmann (1926-2021) came to England on the first Yavneh-transport led by Dr Seligsohn. Before the Minster Road hostel was evacuated at the outbreak of war he lived there with some of his classmates from the fourth form including Kurt Marx, Julius Weil, Fritz Penas and Hans Walter. He later anglicised his name to Ernest Kolman.

Also see the story of Kurt Marx (https://www.ajrrefugeevoices.org.uk/RefugeeVoices/kurt-marx)

The Poor Jews' Temporary Shelter opened in Leman Street in the East End in 1885 providing accommodation for destitute refugees from Russia and the east.

By 1937 the shelter had met 1,183,000 people at the docks and housed 126,000 people. 

During and after the Second World War the shelter provided beds for both Jewish refugees and local people made homeless by bomb damage.

After the war, the need for the shelter gradually lessened and in 1973 the shelter moved to 5 Mapesbury Road.

This was better, but smaller, accommodation in Kilburn – it had only 25 beds.

In the 1990s the building became a Hillel House, accommodation for Jewish university students and when the lease expired it was sold. It is now a private home.

The Poor Jews’ charity continues to help Jewish people in need through support services and small grants.

Immigration story: Hermann Landau was a founder of the shelter and was born in 1849 in Poland. He arrived as an immigrant and made his fortune on the London Stock Exchange. He became a philanthropist and donated much of his wealth to charity. He is buried at Willesden Jewish Cemetery (see No. 11).

If you would like to find out more, there is more information here.

This school is one of the oldest Jewish day schools in London and continues to operate today with around 280 primary age boys and girls on the roll.

It originally opened for boys-only on Minster Road in 1945 and moved to its current location in 1958. The original site at Minster Road was a boys refugee hostel and was also registered for worship between 1928 and 1954.

The school was originally a grammar school, founded by Rabbi Margulies, the Premishlaner Rebbe and run by Rabbi Maurice Landy, also the Rabbi of the Cricklewood Synagogue, for over 40 years until his death in 1996.

Yavneh Grammar School was situated on a site opposite in 1966-68. When it closed, its assets were transferred to North West London Jewish Day School.

Immigration story: Charlotte Lang nee Diamant (1935-2022) was born in Vienna, Austria in February 1935. Following the Anschluss in 1938 her father was arrested and the family sent to live in the ghetto but they were fortunate to get sponsorship from an English farmer and left Austria together in May 1939. Many members of her family were not so fortunate and perished in the camps. Charlotte attended North West London Jewish Day School on Minster Road. She remembers “They agreed to have this poor refugee girl without charge. It must have been quite expensive.”  She was one of the first pupils both there and later at the newly opened North West London Jewish Grammar School in Willesden Lane, which again took her without charge. (www.ajrmystory.org.uk)

In addition to the synagogues in the Willesden area, there were a number of ‘shtiebels’ in the area. These were prayer gatherings, often in homes, of more orthodox groups following the teachings, or style, of a particular rabbi.

Rabbi Yerucham Leiner’s minyan at 183 Willesden Lane (1935-1947) went under the official name Cricklewood and Brondesbury Beth Hamedrash Kehal Yisroel and the unofficial name of ‘Leiners Minyan’. 

A block of council-owned flats named Beechworth, stands on the site of the original house. Next door is Young Court, which provides sheltered accommodation for elderly Jewish people.

Immigration Story: Rabbi Leiner was born in Radzyn, Poland in 1888. He lived out the war years in London and moved to New York in 1947.

The building at 196 Willesden Lane was constructed in 1929 as the parish hall for the church of Christ Church with St. Laurence. In the 1960s, it became the Majestic Rooms, a banqueting hall and function room.

For over 40 years it was managed by the family of Richard and Helen Goide (nee Cohen) and was a popular venue for Jewish weddings and bar mitzvahs.

It closed in 2015, when the owner, Mrs. Helen Goide, who was in her 80s, decided to retire. The building was demolished to make way for a block of flats. 

Immigration story:  The Goide family were bakers, immigrants from Vilna, now Vilnius in Lithuania. They had a shop on Wentworth Street in the East End. They later became caterers and took on the Royal Majestic. They are connected to the Grodzinski family through marriage (source: repast_2022_spring).

Sarah D’Israeli (1802-1859) was the sister of twice British Prime Minister Benjamin D’Israeli (1804-1881). He was the only British Prime Minister of Jewish descent. His sister Sarah was an intellectual, supporting her brother’s political career from the sidelines. 

They even wrote a book together in 1834: A Year at Hartlebury or The Election. Hartlebury was a synonym for Bradenham, near High Wycombe where Benjamin twice stood for election to parliament, unsuccessfully.

Despite being baptised as a Christian as a child, her parents were both of Italian-Jewish descent and her grandfather, also named Benjamin D'Israeli, was a Sephardic Jewish merchant who had immigrated to England from Cento, Italy, in 1748.

It is said the the D’Israeli children were baptised to help remove the social and economic barriers for Jews.

At the time non-Anglicans were barred both from membership of parliament and university degrees. Even though he was often referred to as a 'Jew', his childhood conversion meant Benjamin D'Israeli could become prime minister, and his sister Sarah could move in high society circles.

Len Snow, former Labour Councillor for Brent, and well-known local historian, remembers his brief encounter as a pioneer of the Jewish press:

“In April 1936, my father, a professional journalist, ventured into the dangerous waters of publishing and brought out the North West Jewish Mirror. Published first from Kilburn High Road and then from Priory Park Road (now the site of Ryde House), it provided a news and feature service for the large Jewish communities of Willesden, Golders Green, Edgware and the rest of the north-west segment of London. It warned strongly against German Nazism and British Fascism, reported on the deteriorating situation between Jews and Arabs in Palestine and announced weddings, the opening of the North London Jewish Boys’ Club in Ashford Road and other local news. A budding but frustrated journalist with the initials LS or pseudonym ‘N.Lennards’, he wrote on stamp-collecting. Sadly, it did not maintain its circulation, advertisers began to withdraw support and its last issue went to press exactly a year after the first.’

(recounted in Willesden Past by Len Snow).

To gather information for this trail we have spent months trawling the internet, scouring books and finding out more than we expected to about this amazing neighbourhood. We have made surprising discoveries, as well as fallen under the spell of fascinating tales of individual immigrants.

Tales of immigrants are always filled with ups and downs - some came here to seek their fortune, others came as penniless refugees - but their stories don't end. Immigration stories continue with the following generations, as the wheels of time keep turning.

We wish to thank all those who contributed their personal stories and memories as well as the staff at the Brent Archives, Willesden Jewish Cemetery (House of Life) and Willesden Local History Society.

The ancestry.com website has been helpful in nailing down biographic information on the individuals we sought out as has findagrave.com. There are gaps in information where names have been changed and records are not available.

Old maps and telephone directories have also proved invaluable in finding out about the past - and they are often more fun to look at than they sound!

An excellent place to start with local research is the local Brent archives based at Willesden Library (and also online). It is a fantastic free resource and open to all.

If you are interested in the sources of our research, here are some of the materials we used:

Books:

Queens Park: A History by Steve Crabb

Queen's Park, Kensal Rise, Brondesbury and Harlesden by Len Snow

Willesden Past by Len Snow

The Lost Synagogues of London by Peter Renton

The Children of Willesden Lane by Mona Golabek

Melting Point by Rachel Cockerell

Websites:

https://www.ajr.org.uk

https://www.nicholaswinton.com

https://www.wienerholocaustlibrary.org

https://www.jewishgen.org

https://www.jta.org/archive/all-jewry-mourns-death-of-israel-zangwill-famous-writer-and-defender-of-his-people

For historic maps, bomb damage and more: www.layersoflondon.org