A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 6, Friern Barnet, Finchley, Hornsey With Highgate. Originally published by Victoria County History, London, 1980.
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A P Baggs, Diane K Bolton, M A Hicks, R B Pugh, 'Hornsey, including Highgate: Judaism', in A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 6, Friern Barnet, Finchley, Hornsey With Highgate, ed. T F T Baker, C R Elrington( London, 1980), British History Online https://prod.british-history.ac.uk/vch/middx/vol6/p189 [accessed 16 November 2024].
A P Baggs, Diane K Bolton, M A Hicks, R B Pugh, 'Hornsey, including Highgate: Judaism', in A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 6, Friern Barnet, Finchley, Hornsey With Highgate. Edited by T F T Baker, C R Elrington( London, 1980), British History Online, accessed November 16, 2024, https://prod.british-history.ac.uk/vch/middx/vol6/p189.
A P Baggs, Diane K Bolton, M A Hicks, R B Pugh. "Hornsey, including Highgate: Judaism". A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 6, Friern Barnet, Finchley, Hornsey With Highgate. Ed. T F T Baker, C R Elrington(London, 1980), , British History Online. Web. 16 November 2024. https://prod.british-history.ac.uk/vch/middx/vol6/p189.
JUDAISM.
Defoe found Highgate a favourite retreat of wealthy Jews, who lived there 'in good figure', served by their own butchers and other tradesmen. He also heard that there was a private synagogue, (fn. 1) which presumably was part of a house. Jewish residents, such as the Da Costas, (fn. 2) probably led Hyman Hurwitz to open his school by 1802. (fn. 3) A synagogue adjoined Hurwitz's buildings (fn. 4) but did not survive the school's closure. (fn. 5)
Public worship was confined to neighbouring parishes until a temporary building was opened by Hornsey and Wood Green affiliated synagogue in 1920. A new building on the same site in Wightman Road, seating c. 200, was founded in 1958 and opened in 1959. (fn. 6) In 1976 the congregation remained a local synagogue, affiliated to the United Synagogue in Upper Woburn Place, St. Pancras. (fn. 7)
Highgate district synagogue, so called from 1947, (fn. 8) originated in a community which bought no. 88 Archway Road in 1929. A synagogue for c. 400 was opened in 1937 (fn. 9) but superseded by no. 200, on the corner of Wembury Road, in 1950. The building, a converted Baptist chapel partly refaced with yellow bricks, was damaged by fire in 1975. (fn. 10) Services thereafter were held in a room attached to St. Augustine's church and in the former Congregational church in South Grove, while new premises were sought.
Muswell Hill Jews at first worshipped in hired halls and a house in Methuen Park. (fn. 11) In 1946 they registered a hall on the ground floor of the Athenaeum (fn. 12) and in 1962 they bought a site at no. 31 Tetherdown, for a synagogue to hold 500. The congregation formed a district synagogue of the United Synagogue by 1962 (fn. 13) and a constituent synagogue from 1976. (fn. 14)