This book does not pretend to be a history of the Federation of Synagogues in London. It is what it says it is – extracts from the first 25 years of the minute books.
On Sunday, 16th October 1887 a meeting took place at the Spital Square Synagogue, presided over by the Liberal Member of Parliament for Whitechapel, an orthodox Jew, Samuel Montagu. Representatives of eighteen synagogues met on Sunday November 6th, and Delegates of sixteen synagogues met on Sunday December 4th, and so the Federation of Synagogues was born. A rival to the more anglicised United Synagogue with a small membership (at the time) drawn mainly from orthodox new immigrants.
The author, Joseph E. Blank, the Secretary of the Federation, was described by Cecil Roth as running the Federation with an iron hand. He was born in Whitechapel in 1866, the son of a sponge merchant, Emanuel Blank, and educated at the Jews Free School. Within a few years he had moved from the East End to 119 Farleigh Road, Stoke Newington, which was also the address of the Federation until 1925. There were suspicions over Blank’s handling of the Federation and it’s Burial Society money, and in 1925 Joseph Blank was ousted and new officers took over the running of the Federation.
My copy is signed by Joseph Blank, who gave it to Moss Avrom Amias, probably some years after the original publication, as M. A. Amias was born in 1903.
Moss Amias was a community activist. His brother was Rev. Saul Amias from Edgware United Synagogue. He moved from Cricklewood to Hammersmith in 1960, and was an Honorary Officer and of the Hammersmith and West Kensington Synagogue until his death in 1993.
Jewish Miscellanies 