Brixton Synagogue site in 2023, photo by Pinhas stern, CC BY-SA 4.0
If you want to see the 1970s look of Brixton Synagogue, together with the hall behind the synagogue, in which we had our cheder classes, click this link to the Lambeth archive.
In my infancy, I went to cheder at South West London (Bolingbroke) Synagogue. I have written a piece about that experience, click here or below.
I’m not sure when the Bolingbroke cheder folded, but it will have been at some point between 1971 and 1973, I suspect it closed in the summer of 1972 or 1973. We survivors form that experience were scattered – some went to Streatham while others of us went to Brixton.
Andy and Fiona Levinson for sure came to Brixton. I’m pretty sure Wendy Ornadel also. Jonathan Davies was there too – I’m not sure whether or not he was a fellow refugee from Bolingbroke. I’m pretty sure Mark and Simon Phillips switched to Streatham not Brixton – hopefully Mark will recall.
Other people I remember from Brixton were the Laikin brothers (Richard and Graham) and Lloyd Green, whom I knew from Rosemead, with whom I wrote/edited a cheder magazine later in our time there and who was at Keele University, overlapping with me for a couple of the years there too. Sandra Corbman was there at Brixton whereas Natalie Calvert was not. In Sandra’s case, she needed to remind me, in Natalie’s case I was pretty sure she’d been at Brixton but I was wrong – I remembered her from Rosemead School. not Brixton cheder. Were you at Brixton or Streatham, Liza Abrahams? (“Neither”, says Liza, she went to West London Reform in Seymour Place). Also I recall knowing Karen Eagles before the BBYO years and suspect that was probably through Brixton cheder. Linda Phillips I think went to Streatham, although she had, a year or so earlier, been at the same Brixton kindergarten as me and Sandra – the latter evidenced in the press as well as Ogblog:
For those of us with bar or bat mitzvah approaching, in addition to Sunday morning classes, we were expected to attend additional classes on Tuesday and Thursday evenings. This started around the time I started secondary school at Alleyn’s. In retrospect, I now realise that my chances of becoming good at any school sport were thus nixed. My limited talent at sport added to the minimisation of my chances at sporting glory.
I started keeping a diary in 1974, although I took a break between April and November that year – needing an early sabbatical before hunkering down to write pretty much daily between late 1974 and 1988.
This piece is an attempt to dredge my thoughts about that 1974 period at Brixton, with the help of my diary mentions and also, hopefully, a little help from my friends who read this piece and chime in with their own memories.
The First Quarter of 1974 Diary Says…
Actually the first mention of “classes” is an absence of them. “Missed” must mean that there were classes that day but I didn’t attend. No reason given. We went out with Grandma Anne after classes regularly. Perhaps I’d had an epiphany after Christmas…or am I reading too much into the above image.
My midweek diary references only refer to my attendance, never with any detail about the session. But my Sunday morning notes are quite informative.
Miss Aaron away. Mr Ragshaw gave teaser. I was right…
In truth I don’t remember Mr Ragshaw. He might have been the “headmaster” of the cheder or he might have been a locum. I do recall that the headmaster fellow, if you went to see him, always seemed to be eating surreptitiously in his office. He was probably just a greedy guts who couldn’t wait for his lunch, but the scoundrel rumour amongst us pupils was that he must have been surreptitiously eating bacon sandwiches. (No way!)
Note the comments in ink by a slightly older juvenile version of me, who went through those early diaries at one time, kibitzing on my own past in a cocky manner.
As January progressed into February, I sense that I was itching to get away from Miss (Ruth) Aaron and into the hands of Mr Freed. Clearly this class change (presumably a promotion) had been promised but was late coming. See the next few entries:
20 January 1974 – Bechat [sic] Hamazon [grace after meals] went well. Aaron not Freed. Boo…
27 January 1974 – Still no Mr Freed…
3 February 1974 – Classes, Freed in March
Miss Aaron Remembered
Part of my reason for frustration at the delayed move to Mr Freed’s class was presumably a sense of promotion deferred. But part of it was probably a desire to escape the clutches of Miss Aaron, whom I recall as being a rather shrill-voiced woman who used a sharp tongue in her attempts (not always successful) to maintain discipline.
“Were you born in a barn?” or “were you born on a bus?”
,,,I recall her asking people if they entered the room without closing the door behind them.
“Shut up” or “shechet” [shut up in Hebrew]
…she would often screech.
She insisted on calling us by Hebrew names, but with some of us she chose the name (or part name). My Hebrew name is Avram Leb ben Yitzhok. For some reason, she didn’t want to call me Avram, claiming that there were too many Avrams already. In fact, I think the others were all Avraham (the more Godly version of the name) and her insistence on calling me Leb merely shifted the confusion because Lloyd Green, for example, was also a Leb.
But you didn’t argue with Miss Aaron.
In Miss Aaron’s larynx, “Leb” is a four-syllable name:
Le-ay-eh-buh
She would call out a name in that style, when she thought a pupil was not paying attention, asking them an awkward question and then chastising the child if, as she had suspected, the child had let their mind drift. I got quite good at looking as though I was listening when I wasn’t and making it look as though I was drifting when I thought I could tackle any question that might result from the piercing cry:
Le-ay-eh-buh!
I seem to recall that Mr Freed was a gentler sort, although I’m not sure he was any more effective as a teacher.
I find it hard to assess how much or how well I learnt at cheder.
One impediment to my learning was my scepticism about the whole project.
“Ginsbury Talk”
It seems we were preparing for some sort of exam at that time.
Lots of papers from Aaron. Ginsbury talk.
I’m not 100% sure that my note “Ginsbury talk” here refers to a conversation i remember having with Rabbi Ginsbury on one occasion, but I think it might well be and I might as well write up that conversation here.
Soon after starting at Alleyn’s School I became wracked with doubt about religion. I wanted to attend the religious education classes at school, which were Christianity-oriented at Alleyn’s. My parents were content for me to do so.
But it wasn’t Christianity per se, nor confusion between Christianity and Judaism, that started to trouble me. It was extreme doubt about the whole God business. At one point (I think subsequent to speaking with Rabbi Ginsbury), I took a book out of the public library about religions of the world. Each religion in turn seemed like a fascinating and really good idea to me at first, while the basic moral tenets and social mores were set out. But once it moved on to creation and God and the like, my scepticism would always return.
Anyway, I remember fretting to myself, it must have been around this time, that I quite possibly shouldn’t have a bar mitzvah, which is basically the Jewish form of confirmation, if I didn’t believe in God. So I decided to share my doubts and this moral paradox with Rabbi Ginsbury.
Rabbi Philip Ginsbury died in 2023 – here is a link to his Jewish Chronicle obituary. He was a strictly orthodox Rabbi. Mostly kind and gentle – certainly in his manner towards children at cheder or certainly at least towards me.
It must have taken some courage at that age to raise my moral conundrum with the Rabbi, but it is probably also a testament to Rabbi Ginsbury’s approachable manner that I felt able to do so. How I articulated my question is lost in the mists of time. Probably not brilliantly. But a paraphrase of Rabbi Ginsbury’s answer has stayed with me ever since.
Do you really think that God cares a jot whether you believe in him or not? The Torah instructs you as a Jew on how you should conduct your life. God’s only concern is that you conduct your life in that way.
I remember sensing that this answer did not really get to the nub of my problem, but it did give me a very clear steer on what to do about the bar mitzvah. I needed to put my head down, do the tests, learn my passage and get the bar mitzva done. Which I did.
And So It Goes On…Yes, There Was An Exam
17 February 1974 – Aaron gave even more prep.
24 February 1974 – 10X usual classes.
3 March 1974 – Exam, went well.
10 March 1974 Classes party.
I’m guessing that “10X usual classes” is a slight exaggeration. I can only wonder at the classes party and how wonderful that might have been. It will have been a Purim party – hamantashen will have been involved for sure.
10 March 1974 was a double-party day for me and I note, once again, that I claim to have got drunk at cousin Mark Briegal’s bar mitzvah party. What a disgrace.
…Soon After That, We Are Freed At Last
No classes for two weeks due to Pesach, then:
…after which the diary falls silent until November.
My memories of that time are scratchy, yet it was a significant part of my life those years. If I spent a whole morning and a couple of evenings a week doing anything, even now, I’d consider that to be a substantial chunk of my time.
If others have memories to share about this time, I’d love to house those memories with this piece.
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