This walk commences at the corner of Whitechapel High Street and Commercial Street next to Aldgate East tube station (on the north side of the street). Look across to the rather dreary building in brown brick belonging to Lloyds TSB. On this site until the 1960s stood a beautiful department store called (1) Gardiners, the “Harrods of the East”. On the 4th October 1936 this site was involved in one of the most important political events in the history of the Jewish East End - the Battle of Cable Street. The leader of the British Union of Fascists, Sir Oswald Moseley had planned to invade the East End with his blackshirts to intimidate the Jews. Moseley was stopped at Royal Mint Street by the police and the Battle of Cable Street actually took place between the anti-fascist demonstrators (mainly Jewish) and the police. Walk eastwards down Whitechapel High Street and just before the Kentucky Fried Chicken go up a dirty little alley called Angel Alley. At the end of the alley is a book shop called the (2) Freedom Book Shop, which stocks a great deal of left wing and anarchist literature reflecting the political history of the area. On the wall of the alley is a mural containing the portraits of prominent anarchists. The most important for the purposes of our walk are Prince Peter Kropotkin and Rudolf Rocker. Go back to the High Street and head eastwards along Whitechapel Road past Whitechapel Art Gallery and Whitechapel Library (discussed in walk 1). Stop opposite a green space (Altab Ali Park) and look across to a modern brick building in Adler Street. The building previously on this site, for a brief period, housed the (3) Jewish National Theatre, which put on plays in Yiddish, virtually the lingua franca of the area for many years. The most famous play in Yiddish performed at this theatre was Shakespeare’s “The Merchant of Venice” starring the legend of the Yiddish Theatre Meier Tzelniker as Shylock. Proceeding along the north side of Whitechapel Road, stop at the modern building called Black Lion House. This was, until relatively recently, the site of the so-called (4) ‘Hatton Garden of the East End’, as the yard contained some 18 jewellery shops. Women who bought their engagement rings there probably had their wedding photographs taken at the shop over the road (number 14 – the Victorian building with the Art Deco frontage) where the legendary photographer Boris Bennet (trading as “Boris”) specialised in wedding photographs of an extremely high standard. Go on a few yards, cross the road at the traffic lights and turn right into Fieldgate Street. Follow this street round to the left until you come to the (5) Fieldgate Street Synagogue, one of the few active synagogues left in the area. It is now dwarfed by one of the largest mosques in Britain and will shortly be almost totally surrounded by the Islamic Centre, which is now being constructed. It is a typical small “stiebel” built in 1899 and rebuilt after bombing in the Second World War. To the left of the Synagogue, notice a plaque on the wall commemorating the founding of the Jewish bakery Grodzinskis in 1888. Go on for about 200 yards and you will see a decaying former doss house called (6) Tower House or Rowton House which is destined to be turned into an expensive block of flats. In 1907 Joseph Stalin and Maxim Maximovitch Litvinov (a Jew who was subsequently to become Stalin’s Commissar of Foreign Affairs) lived in this doss house sharing a bed at sixpence a night, whilst attending the 5th conference of the Russian Social Labour Democratic Party. It has also been a temporary home to numerous other impoverished anarchists who came to London. Walk until you get to New Road and turn left and walk till you get to the traffic lights on Whitechapel Road. Look across to the bill boards to the right of the Andrew Sketchley Theatre and you will see the site of the most famous of all the Yiddish Theatres (7) The Pavilion, which closed in 1936 and was demolished in the 1960s. It had been a great Victorian theatre doing melodramas and pantomime but in 1906 it became an exclusively Yiddish theatre. Walk eastwards along Whitechapel Road until you get to the (8) Royal London Hospital. This institution was founded in 1750 and has always had close links with the Jewish community. The Sophia, Talbot and Raphael wards catered for Orthodox Jews and kosher food was provided. The hospital also received substantial support from wealthy Jewish businessmen including the Rothschilds, Samuel Lewis, Basil Henriques and Samuel Montagu. Over the road from the hospital you will see a monument to Edward VII erected in his honour (in 1911) by the Jewish community of the area. It is by the famous sculptor W.S. Frith and is crowned by a winged angel. It contains a medallion portrait of the King. Continue walking along Whitechapel Road and turn right into Sidney Street, keeping to your right. Stop at the gates, opposite Elrich Cottages, next to an ugly brown building and look up the street to a block of flats with blue balconies. On this site there stood at (9) Number 100 Sidney Street a house in a terrace (which has long disappeared) which was the scene of the most notorious siege in London’s history. In January 1911, two Jewish immigrant anarchists, who were wanted for several murders, were discovered hiding in this house. The police arrived but realised they could not deal with such desperadoes. Troops were summoned from the Tower of London and eventually the house caught fire and the bodies of two anarchists were found inside. One of the great myths of the East End arose here as it was suspected that Peter Piatkov, (also known as Peter the Painter, a famous anarchist) had been in the house but had escaped. Nothing has ever been proved. Several films have been made about the siege including two by Alfred Hitchcock. The irrepressible Home Secretary of the time, Winston Churchill, insisted on being present throughout the siege. Turn left into Lindley Street and walk as far as Jubilee Street. On the south west corner of the junction of the two streets there used to stand the (10) Workers’ Friends Club and Institute founded in 1906 by a non-Jewish German immigrant, Rudolph Rocker. He learned Yiddish, organised the Jewish workers into unions and staged the 1912 Tailors’ Strike, which led to improved working conditions for workers in the notorious sweatshops. Turn left into Jubilee Street and go through O’Leary Square. Stop at (11) Rinkoffs for a beigel or a slice of delicious cheesecake at the last Jewish baker left in the East End. Go on through O’Leary Square and onto Mile End Road. The green space on the other side of the road known as (12) “The Waste” is where many political demonstrations took place. Theodor Herzl, the father of Zionism, addressed a meeting there in 1898 and during the Tailors’ Strike in 1912 the tailors met there. In 1914 the so-called Schneiders Battalion (composed of Jewish tailors) was formed there. Go east along Mile End Road passing the Genesis Cinema on your left. At one stage this was known as the (13) Paragon Theatre of Varieties and among the people who performed there was the young Charlie Chaplin (he billed himself as the “Hebrew” comic) and the young Barnet Winogradowsky (later Lord Delfont). Keep walking and turn right into Stepney Green. You will come to a Victorian block of flats called (14) Dunstan Dwellings where Rudolph Rocker lived at no.33 in what was virtually an anarchist commune. Go on and come to the (15) Leonard Montefiore Drinking Fountain next to a clock tower. This dilapidated fountain was erected in the 19th century in memory of Leonard Montefiore, whose family was one of the great philanthropic families in the East End. Go on and cross at the next zebra crossing. Turn left immediately and walk for about 50 yards until you come to some small black railings on your right. Turn right into the grassed area and walk up to the black gates at the rear. This is the (16) East London Synagogue, built in the 1870s, but converted into flats fairly recently. Designed by the Jewish architect Barrow Emmanuel, it was one the only synagogue in the East End planned as a great Cathedral Synagogue. It had a beautiful Byzantine interior, and magnificent furniture, most of which has disappeared. Retrace your steps. Turn right at the black railings and follow the narrow road to the right of the small park ahead of you along Stepney Green. Go past Stepney Green Court (formerly Stepney Dwellings) one of the so-called Rothschilds 4% dwellings. The Rothschilds raised the money from wealthy Jewish businessmen, and guaranteed them a 4% return on their money. Famous former residents of this block included Bernard Kops (author of the “Hamlet of Stepney Green”) and Lord Delfont. Continue on past the (17) Stepney Green Jewish School, which has now moved to Ilford. Step back and admire the catouche with the name of the school inscribed in the pediment of the building. Continue on past the Rosalind Green Hall, which used to be the (18) Orthodox Synagogue on the Green. Walk past the site of the Stepney Green Jewish Hospital where there is now a modern block of flats. Finally, pause outside one of the most beautiful houses in the East End (19) Number 37 Stepney Green. From about 1870 until 1913 it was a home for elderly Jews, but is now being restored as a family home.