The Spanish and Portuguese Jews’ Congregation of London was founded in 1657 following a petition by Rabbi Menashe Ben Israel of Amsterdam to
Oliver Cromwell from six Jews living in London who sought permission to worship freely and to acquire land for a cemetery. Cromwell provided a verbal guarantee and it was the first time that Jews were able to profess their faith openly since their 1290 expulsion by
Edward I.
A move across London The history of Lauderdale Road synagogue is history of the move across London by the Sephardi community. Until the mid-nineteenth century there was only one Sephardi synagogue in London,
Bevis Marks Synagogue, in East London at the edge of the
City of London. Poorer community of families originally from
Spain and
Portugal, many of them
crypto-Jewish refugees from the Spanish and Portuguese
inquisitions, had originally congregated in this area in the eighteenth century. However, by the mid-nineteenth century, the single synagogue meant that members of the Sephardi community resident in wealthier West London had no Sephardi place of worship or were forced to walk across town on the
Sabbath for prayers. The drift of Sephardi Jews away from East London gathered pace leading to diminished presence at Bevis Marks and the need for a new synagogue. As the community rose in prosperity and West London emerged as the capital’s most desirable district, this movement accelerated. The community’s first West London Sephardi synagogue was established in Wigmore Street in 1853; in 1867 it moved to Bryanston Street, near Marble Arch. The synagogue building was constructed in the
Byzantine Revival style by architects Davis & Emanuel. Its interiors reflect the success of its membership in the late nineteenth century in global commerce across the
British Empire and beyond. It has a large domed ceiling, grand stained glass windows set in arched recesses, tapestry carpets across the polished wooden floors, as well as a large ark. The nineteenth century history of Lauderdale Road is wrapped up with the Sephardi families of what the chronicler of Jewish life in Britain
Chaim Bermant called "the Cousinhood" or the Victorian Anglo-Jewish gentry. Many of the most esteemed families of Victorian Anglo-Jewry were associated with Lauderdale Road synagogue such as the
Sassoon,
Montefiore and
Mocatta families. Prominent figures who attended Lauderdale Road in the nineteenth century included the sons of
David Sassoon of Bombay, such as
Sassoon David Sassoon,
Reuben David Sasson and
Arthur Sassoon. Their arrival marked the start of a growing number of members who were not by heritage Sephardi Jews from Spain and Portugal but Mizrahi Jews originally from communities across the Middle East.
The Jewish National Home Lauderdale Road also played a key role in both the emergence of
Zionism in the United Kingdom and the worldwide effort to compile Sephardi heritage. At the turn of the century the Sephardi community was led by Haham Rabbi
Moses Gaster, from 1887 to 1917, who played a major role in the promotion of Zionism in the British Jewish community. The first meeting to plan the
Balfour Declaration was held in the home of Haham Rabbi Gaster. The role of senior rabbi was filled by the Sephardi scholar Rabbi
Shem Tob Gaugine 1920–1953, who led a large scale ethnographic effort to compile the full diversity of Sephardi and
Mizrahi customs and approach to Jewish law, compiled in the multi-volume
Keter Shem Tob. During this time another prominent member of the community
Leslie Hore-Belisha served first as
Minister of Transport from 1934–1937 and then as
War Secretary from 1937–1940. Gaon also served as chief rabbi to the Sephardi communities of the British Commonwealth. A program at Montefiore College, a Jewish educational organisation associated with Lauderdale Road, welcomed young Jewish men to pursue Jewish studies in London principally from Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria as those communities emigrated en masse to
Israel and France in the decades following the creation of the state of Israel, opening up the community further. Perhaps the most notable figure who partook in the program at Montefiore College was Rabbi Israel Elia who came to London from
Djerba, Tunisia as a young boy in 1971 to join the scheme. He later qualified as a rabbi at Jews’ College London and served the Lauderdale Road community alongside
Rabbi Abraham Levy and later on alongside
Rabbi Joseph Dweck until his passing in 2024. Meanwhile prominent members of the community in the twentieth century included
Alan Mocatta. Both Charles and Maurice Saatchi have donated to the Lauderdale Road Jewish community. The writer
Simon Sebag-Montefiore received his Bar Mitzvah at Lauderdale Road. == Today ==