It started life in 1732 in Spitalfields, in the Jewish quarter of the East End of London, as a Talmud Torah attached to the Great Synagogue. Eighty-five years later, on 13 April 1817 a school, for boys only, was opened in Ebenezer Square close by Dukes Place, Petticoat Lane and Brick Lane, then the heart of a poverty-stricken, unhealthy, and unwholesome district, a dense web of courts and alleys. On the first day 102 pupils enrolled, aged from seven years upwards.



Click here to view the JFS Gallery


The numbers rapidly increased, and pressure grew for the School to admit girls also, so in 1822 a move was made to nearby larger premises in Bell Lane where the School remained until 1945. By 1900, the School roll had increased to 4,250 - it was the largest school in Europe and probably the largest in the world. Between 1880 and 1900, JFS educated more than one-third of all London's Jewry of school age.

Its achievements were many. For more than a hundred years, the majority of its pupils arrived at the School unable to speak English. It provided them with a refuge, educated them in both secular and religious studies, anglicised them, and sent them out into the wider community prepared to contribute to the well-being of society. Its ex-pupils played an honourable part in the Boer War and the First and Second World Wars.

At a time when it was difficult for a religious Jew to obtain teacher training experience, JFS operated as a teachers' training college, providing qualified teachers not only for itself but for almost every other Jewish school in England and, indeed, for schools throughout most of the British Empire. It produced more recruits for the Jewish ministry than Jews' College. It played a significant role in countering the efforts of Christian missionaries seeking to convert the East End Jews, and made an important contribution to the fight to attain emancipation for English Jews. It furnished thousands with an escape route out of poverty. 'JFS is an honour not alone to English Judaism' said the visiting Chief Rabbi of France in 1891, 'but to Jews throughout the entire world'.