There are 145 synagogues out of a total of 4,722 houses of worship of all denominations in the Greater London area, according to an expert survey by Arthur Black, published here in the British Weekly.
Synagogues are now to be found in twenty-nine boroughs or districts that had none in 1904 when a similar survey of church facilities was undertaken. At that time, when the area of London was not so large, there were sixty-three synagogues in the London area. Today, in the same area, there are 143. Between 1904 and the present, while the number of churches in the area surveyed in 1904 increased only slightly, from 4,026 to 4,207, the number of synagogues more than doubled.
The growth in number of the synagogues is ascribed by the survey to the fact that the Jewish population which, thirty years ago was almost completely concentrated in the East-End, is spreading out. Jews are establishing businesses in favorable neighborhoods and moving into better houses and districts as fortune favors them, it is pointed out.
Several new synagogues are now under construction in outlying sections of London which a few years ago had few Jewish residents.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
