Muslim group in London raises funds to purchase historic synagogue founded in 1923

Leon Silver, the 76-year-old former president of the synagogue, said his family has served in that capacity for three generations.

By Dinah Bucholz, Jewish Breaking News

Signs of London’s historic Jewish community are slowly disappearing, as cultural landmarks of Jewish life in the city are sold off to be turned into new, modern structures or repurposed into something else.

The latest example is the sale of the historic 1923-built synagogue in London’s East End.

After the roof of the East London Central Synagogue collapsed six years ago, leaving the interior vulnerable to the elements, the synagogue closed its doors.

It’s now fetching a handsome price of more than £2 million, and bidding will begin at an auction scheduled for Feb. 12.

A local Muslim group is scrambling to raise funds to repurpose the Jewish house of worship into a mosque and Islamic center.

Only two other synagogues remain in the area. Dr. Sharman Kadish, who leads the community’s committee for the preservation of Jewish heritage sites in England, said she was “sad to see it go. This was the last purpose-built Ashkenazi synagogue in the East End.”

“I hope the Federation will use some of the proceeds for looking after their historic cemeteries,” she added.

Leon Silver, the 76-year-old former president of the synagogue, said his family has served in that capacity for three generations.

“It is so upsetting,” he said. Although “we were struggling to get a minyan,” the building is a “historic treasure,” he added.

“The outside is very plain, but people say the inside is beautiful, which I think so too. I hope it can be saved and restored. It is so essential for interfaith harmony and education.”

Advocates seeking to preserve the Jewish heritage of Tower Hamlets in the East End are heartbroken.

Once, thousands of Jewish immigrants turned the East End into a bustling, vibrant center of Jewish life in London.

As Jews moved to northwest London, Jewish presence in the East End diminished to the point that the sale of this synagogue seems to represent the final end of a long chapter of Jewish history.

The East End is now home to a predominantly Muslim population. There is no way to fight the demographics: London is about 12 percent Muslim and 1.7 percent Jewish.

Nevertheless, despite the fact that many synagogues in the area were converted into churches and mosques, Jewish heritage advocates have resisted the sale of this particular synagogue, saying it should be converted into a museum rather than being sold off and losing its historic significance.