Islington’s “rich Jewish history” will be commemorated by a multimedia heritage project set to launch within a year.
The Islington Jewish Heritage Trail received nearly £25,000 in May from the mayor of London’s £1 million Untold Stories fund, which aims to highlight diversity in the city’s public spaces.
The project was conceived by charity Chabad-Lubavitch of Islington, which Rabbi Mendy Korer launched from his home in Canonbury in 2011.
He said: “Historically, there was a very large Jewish neighbourhood in London, classically known as the East End. As Jewish people started moving out of that neighbourhood, one of the first areas they came to was Islington. So, 150-200 years ago, Islington had this massive Jewish community.”
After the closure of Poets Road Synagogue in 1967, the borough was left without a permanent Jewish community centre until Chabad Islington opened a space in Elliott’s Place in 2021.
Rabbi Mendy said: “Islington’s got this very rich Jewish history which very few people know about, and what we’ve been given is an opportunity to go and share that story.”
The project will see plaques and artwork installed on Jewish heritage sites, as well as a mixture of guided and self-guided walking tours on subjects potentially including innovation, arts, culture and music.
These tours will take visitors around 10 sites, where they can use a QR code to access online descriptions and videos.
“This project is important in order to ensure that everyone that is walking down the street can feel that these streets have stories, these streets are alive,” said Rabbi Mendy, who will be giving some tours himself.
He added the tours would recognise the contribution Jewish people had to the neighbourhood and wider society.
Rabbi Mendy said the project had progressed through the consultation phase, collaborating with an expert historian, the public and other stakeholders to identify the sites.
“The next phase will be starting to film at the different sites. The idea is that we will have various famous or community people to go and talk about the stories, standing in front of that particular site,” he added.
“We’ve got a two-year timeframe for the entire project, and we’re a few months in, so we have still got a way to go. I think within the next year we will have a completed, developed project.”
