Chevra Bikkur Cholim

Latest Name:

Chevra Bikkur Cholim  (Society for Visiting the Sick)

Probable Alternative or Former Names:

Bikkur Cholim Synagogue.

Fashion Street Synagogue (There was also a later Fashion Street Synagogue and this name was sometimes used to refer to Chevra Mikrah of Fashion Street).

Holy Calling Benefit Society (see below)

The congregation may also have been the New Court Chevra, also known as the Derech T'mima chevra, (referred to by V. D. Lipman's "Social History of the Jews in England 1850-1950", p.74, as existing in 1870).

The congregation appears also to have been known as the Fashion Court Chevra or Fashion Court Synagogue although these names may also sometimes have referred to Chevra Mikrah of Fashion Street.

Address:

16 Fashion Street, New Court, London E1.

(Location: Fashion Street (some 600 feet long), in London's East End, runs east from Commercial Street to Brick Lane, parallel with Fournier Street (300 feet to the north). (Flower & Dean Street used to run parallel 200 feet to the south but this no longer exists.) New Court was a courtyard within the block on the south side of Fashion Street, north of Flower & Dean Street.)

Fashion Street takes its name from the Huguenot family, Fossan, who developed this area.

Foundation:

1858.

Affiliation::

Affiliated with the Federation of Synagogues.

The "chevra Bikur Cholim ... in Fashion Street"  (founded in 1858) was named by Geoffrey Alderman in his history of "The Federation of Synagogues 1887-1987" as one of the 16 synagogues that attended a foundation meeting on 16 October 1887 to form the Federation.

The Federation was formed on 6 November 1887 by 21 or 22 synagogues, listed by V. D. Lipman in his "Social History of the Jews in England 1850-1950" (pp. 120-121), which list did not include a congregation designated as the Bikkur Cholim, Fashion Street, but did include a "Holy Calling Benefit Society, New Street (sic), Fashion Street". It is assumed that this was a different name for this congregation.

Chevra Bikur Cholim was represented at the first meeting of the Federation on 4 December 1887 (Daniel Appleby - "Service and Scandal: the life and times of an immigrant Jewish Clergyman", p. 86).

Current Status:

Merged with Fieldgate Street Synagogue in May 1899 (source)

Source: Daniel Appleby - "Service and Scandal: the life and times of an immigrant Jewish Clergyman", p. 86

Ritual:

Orthodox - Ashkenazi

Membership Data:

1896  -  54 members (source)

Source: Jewish Year Book 1896/7

Local Authority Districts:

Fashion Street is in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, created on 1 April 1965, within the administrative area of Greater London.

Previously, Fashion Street and New Court were in the Metropolitan Borough of Stepney (established 1900) in the County of London (established 1889), both of which entities were abolished in 1965.

The locality was also within the civil parish of Spitalfields (which was in the former County of Middlesex until 1889) and which, from 1856 to 1900, was a constituent of the Whitechapel District.

The civil parish of Spitalfields was abolished in 1921, being absorbed into the civil parish of Whitechapel, which itself was abolished in 1927 to be absorbed into Stepney Borough parish (until that parish's abolition in 1965).

Registration Districts:

From 1 July 1837 - Whitechapel
From 1 January 1926 - Stepney
Since 1 January 1983 - Tower Hamlets (which would now hold the registers, if any)