Memory Map of the Jewish East End

Welcome to the Memory Map of the Jewish East End, a new digital resource where you can explore former sites of Jewish memory in East London.
By 1900 around a hundred thousand Jewish migrants had settled in East London, after fleeing their homelands in Russia and Eastern Europe, following pogroms and economic hardship. Many disembarked at the Port of London and settled in London’s East End, where there was an already established Jewish community and cheap lodgings to be found. Whitechapel and Spitalfields became the heart of a thriving Jewish quarter, Yiddish was the language on the streets and in places such as Petticoat Lane over 95% of the population were Jewish.
By the outbreak of the Second World War the community had already started to dwindle, although there was still a visible Jewish presence in the area until the 1980s. Today, the bustling Jewish street life, commercial and trade centres, social, political, religious and entertainment hubs that dominated the area for over a century have all gone. The Jewish East End has become a lost landscape, which is in danger of slipping out of living memory.