Ian Louis Harris

Rabbi Morris Davidson, Bolingbroke “Field Trip” To Camber Sands, early 1970s

I started keeping diaries at the start of 1974, at which time my diaries are peppered with many mentions of “classes”, on Sunday mornings, plus Tuesday and Thursday evenings. By that time, my religious instruction had been transferred to Brixton.

I shall write up those Brixton cheder diary extracts and stories soon.

But my memory retains a few impressionistic memories of my earliest experience of cheder (Jewish Sunday School), which was Sunday mornings only at my family’s synagogue, South-West London, otherwise known as Bolingbroke.

I attended cheder at Bolingbroke from quite a young age (perhaps age 5 or 6 onwards) until the cheder closed in the early 1970s and the handful of us who were still of cheder age transferred, mostly to Brixton but some, I think, to Streatham.

I am only in touch still with one or two people who shared that Bolingbroke cheder experience. Mark Phillips (and through Mark, perhaps also his older brother Simon). Wendy Ornadel was there at Bolingbroke and I think switched to Brixton cheder afterwards. I also have a sneaking suspicion that Andrew (Andy) Levinson (and perhaps also Fiona) joined us, for a while, in a futile attempt to keep Bolingbroke cheder going by poaching friendly kids who would more naturally go to cheder at their parents’ own synagogues. For sure the Levinsons, like me, switched to Brixton rather than Streatham. I’m pretty sure Andy is with me in the cine film of our field trip to Camber Sands in the early 1970s, which is the only photographic relic I have of that era.

Two-and-a-half minutes of low-grade cinematography (not dad’s best day with the hand-held) but high-grade historic value follows:

Impressionistic Memories Of Bolingbroke Cheder

Here are my highly impressionistic memories of the cheder at Bolingbroke. I’m hoping that others might chime in with some additional memories in the comments or send me private messages to enable me to beef up this piece.

• There was a senior and a junior class. The former I think was for kids over 10 (or perhaps 11) who were preparing for bar mitzvah or bat mitzvah – my cohort never made it to that senior class at Bolingbroke. If I recall correctly, Rabbi Davidson instructed the senior class himself. The junior class was for us little ‘uns;
• Our teacher in the junior class was a bearded fellow named Mr Herman, imported from North London, solely for the purposes of our instruction on a Sunday.

• I remember wondering in my very young days whether the pop group Herman’s Hermits had something to do with our teacher, Mr Herman. I vaguely recall that Mr Herman had a northern accent and had some connection with Carmel College, as did Herman’s Hermits’ talent manager, Harvey Lisberg. So there might, coincidentally, have been something in my seemingly childish nonsense word association between the two…but probably not;
• Rabbi Davidson was a kindly and gentle man. I looked forward to a time when I would receive direct instruction from him, but it was not to be, as classes at Bolingbroke folded before I got to his level;
• When Mr Herman was unavailable and no relief teacher was sent as a direct replacement for him, which I think started to happen increasingly frequently towards the end of our time at Bolingbroke, our class was minded by the Rabbi’s son, Cyril Davidson;
• I say “minded” rather than “taught”, because I don’t think Cyril was willing and/or able actually to teach us. He would set us tasks from our work books, which (in my impressionistic memory at least) tended to be quite trivial such as colouring in pictures from the Bible or working through simple alphabet/language exercises, while Cyril sat at the desk in front of us drinking coffee and reading The Observer. Frankly, my guess is that he was a reluctant child-minder in these circumstances and I have some sympathy with his stance. When I was in my 20s, all I wanted to do on a Sunday morning was drink coffee and read The Observer.

While researching this article on line I managed to trace Cyril and I hope he doesn’t mind my having grabbed his thumbnail picture from the public domain. I am certainly granting him the right of reply when I send him a link to this article. I also hope he might add some thoughts and insights of his own.

Update: Correspondence With Cyril Davidson Through Facebook

Cyril Davidson writes:

I totally reject your recollections of my teachings at SW cheder l was and always have been a conscious and serious teacher who received a distinction in my teacher’s certificates at the university of London Institute of Education I never read the Observer in my life 

I responded:

I am sorry that our memories of the cheder are at such variance. We were very young and only there for a few years at the end of that cheder’s time. We must have mistaken the confident competence of your calm, relaxed demeanour (which was a relief when compared with the hard-scrabble educational method of some others) for indifference.

• TRIGGER ALERT: HEALTH & SAFETY & SAFEGUARDING ENTHUSIASTS MIGHT FIND THE NEXT PARAGRAPH DISTURBING
• I recall breaks being quite wild affairs. We were largely unsupervised and there was quite a sizeable area to explore and use for hide and seek type games. Further, there was a dumb waiter that connected the first floor kitchen with the downstairs public hall. Braver kids would liaise to use the dumb waiter as a mode of transport between the upstairs and downstairs. More timorous kids would be threatened with involuntary journeys in that device. I think the weaker of the timorous kids were occasionally transported against their will in that thing. From memory, I fell into the “timorous but sufficiently resistant” category, as I recall fearing getting inside the dumb waiter, but don’t recall having been encouraged/forced actually to do so.

Update: Subsequent Correspondence from Cyril Davidson After My Responses

Having cleared up the misinformation earlier did enjoy reading about the South W Cheder and the kind References about my revered father Rabbi Morris Davidson
I do remember pupils riding up and down the service lift in the hall and playtime in front area opposite the cemetery

I also remember having interesting chats with Mr Herman at play time

I had not seen the picture of my father at one of the great [Cheder] outings he used to arrange

Happy days

• I have one other memory, from an event put on for the parents, when the older children performed a play. It was about Pesach (the Passover story) but it might have been performed at Purim time. One of the boys was very heavily made up to be afflicted with boils (one of the ten plagues) and I found this look so startling that I couldn’t watch that bit and took cover in the arms of my parents. Later, when the boy had removed his make up, my parents tried to help me overcome my fear by pointing out that the boy in question, whose look was no longer frightening me, was in fact the boy with the boils. Just the mention of “the boy with the boils” again spooked me, even though the sight of the actual boy, now boil-free, did not. For years, my parents would threaten me with “setting the boy with the boils on me” if I didn’t comply with their instructions.

More About Bolingbroke Generally

The Jewish Community Records site has a short tombstone piece (stub) for that long-defunct synagogue (it closed in 1997) – click here to see that stub.

The Harris family were members there for most of that synagogue’s life, from when the Harris family moved to Clapham Common North Side (c1930) to the bitter end.

I have written a fair bit previously about the Harris family’s shul/community in Soho, roughly 1916 to 1930 prior to moving to South-West London:

The Only Known Relic Of Grandpa Harris Reaches Its Hundredth Birthday, October 2022

What I didn’t realise, before researching the current piece, is that the revered Rabbi Tzvi Hirsch Ferber, who instructed my father and Uncle Michael in their younger days, was the father-in-law of Rabbi Morris Davidson. That fact is there to be read in Rabbi Ferber’s Wikipedia entry if you bother to read that far.

I wonder whether this was a coincidence or whether there was a connection.

Did Rabbi Ferber possibly encourage the Harris family to move to a community where he knew that his son-in-law Rabbi was residing (or soon to reside). Or, if the South-West London community was looking for a new Rabbi soon after my family moved there, was it my family that connected Rabbi Ferber’s machaton with their new community?

Also interesting to me is to discover that Rabbi Ferber (and indeed Rabbi Davidson) subscribed to a movement known as the Musar Movement which, I paraphrase perhaps to a fault, focuses on contemplative and ethical matters, including commercial ethics, to a greater extent than theological absolutism and/or strict orthodoxy of practice.

Update: Further Correspondence With Cyril Davidson

We are direct decendents of Rabbi Yisrael Salanter founder of the Musser movement.

I replied:

I am fascinated to learn this about your family. My father was a great admirer of your Grandfather, Rabbi Ferber, who was revered at the West End Talmud Torah when my father was a small boy. I can see from the several Wikipedia articles on Rabbis Salanter and Ferber, and on the Mussar movement, that you are a direct descendant of the founder. I have added your comments to my piece in the interests of balance and to enable those interested to search further. One additional point that might interest you – in researching my family’s early years in the UK as part of the Soho community, I have acquired (but not yet read) a copy of your Uncle Chaim Lewis’s book “A Soho Address”. I am very much looking forward to reading it. With very best wishes to you and your family.

Although none of the religious stuff filtered through to me in adulthood, the ethical stuff most certainly did. That dynasty of Rabbis (Salanter, Ferber and Davidson) might have approved of my Gresham College Commercial Ethics lecture, for example, while probably not warming (or relating) to all the examples I used, nor to my extremely limited approach to religious observance.

Strangely, towards the end of researching this piece, I discovered a recent article on a Jewish website, ukjewshlife.com, about our old South-West London community – click here. If by any chance that site isn’t active once you get there, you could instead click here. That article has some lovely photographs of the old place including one of a wedding inside the shul. That wedding photo, if you look to the rear right of the shul, you can see the little block of four seats where the Harris family would sit. A place of honour but not prominence, I always considered it. In the early days, my grandfather and his four sons. Then just the four sons. Then Uncle Manny, Dad, Cousin Anthony and Me. Anthony until just before the place closed down, dad and I (once a year in my case) until the bitter end in 1997.

Memories from anyone else who shared these experiences would be most welcome through the comments section or private messages if you prefer.

Update: Cousin Angela Writes

My cousin Angela experienced the Bolingbroke Cheder in the 1950s. She writes:

I remember the cheder really well. We had Rev Davidson in the top class…I remember Cyril but he was older than me…Rev Davidson had a metal ruler and he used to rap the boys’ s knuckles if they were cheeky.

We had 3 years. The youngest one was a woman teacher (can’t remember her name) then the next class was the chazan (can’t remember his name either) and then Rev Davidson. I remember passing most of synagogue time either in children’s service or outside.

A good trip down memory lane…

Update: Mark Phillips Writes

I loved seeing the images of Cyril and Rev Davidson…I think your recollection of Cyril’s teaching was more accurate than his!

Names to add. Michelle Brown, who I still see, John Rosenthall and David Craig. David’s family owned a pen shop in Balham.

Cyril Davidson Recalls Yet More (FB postings 5 May 2024)

For many years there were three classes at S W L Cheder the beginners class which I attended was taken by the formidable Miss Kutner, the middle class by the synagogue shammas who lived in a flat above and the top class by my father the Headteacher which I originally attended three times a week

By the way Rabbis Ferber and Davidson were strictly observant Jews

The shammas was Mr Rosenbluth

It was large cheder in it’s heyday My fellow pupils included Joy Stein Ann Landsberg Harvey and stuart Katz Ronald and Alan Zeegan Sheldon Weitzman Michael Butler Raymond Davies Steven Freedman stamps Album and Michael Billig. Also Laurence and Steven Slater and Rodney Press