Elias Cohen

Elias Cohen, a cigar manufacturer, was born in Sheerness, Kent, to parents who lived most of their lives in Aldgate, where they worked in the grocery trade. Elias was to become a prime mover in the establishment of the Dalston Synagogue, usually known by its last address in Poets Road, near Newington Green.

He was living at 15 Marquess Road, Canonbury, in the 1870s. The newly founded North London Synagogue in Lofting Road, Barnsbury, might have been an obvious fit for him but, for whatever reason, he set his sights on opening a separate synagogue, nominally in Dalston, whose expanding population undoubtedly needed a shul of their own. Temporary accommodation was found there in 1874, in Birkbeck Road, about 2½ miles from Barnsbury, but after 18 months the congregation moved across to Islington, initially worshipping in a ‘tin tabernacle’ at 120 Mildmay Road, then in Poets Road, Highbury, now in a purpose-built synagogue designed by the eminent synagogue architect Nathan Solomon Joseph.

The officers and congregation of the North London Synagogue, meanwhile – who were highly committed financially from their own building works – were suspicious that the whole ‘Dalston’ venture was designed to poach congregants from prosperous Canonbury and Highbury. The new project was thus born amid a great deal of rancour, drawing in the Chief Rabbi. Within quite a short time, however, the Jewish populations of both Islington and Hackney had grown at such a pace that the need for both shuls was beyond doubt, and in practice there was never much overlap between their catchment areas.

Cohen, who was Chairman and President from 1874 to 1878, was clearly a very determined and perhaps not always diplomatic man. He can, however, be credited with driving through an ultimately very successful project in the face of bitter opposition. The synagogue stood proudly for more than 80 years but was finally demolished in the 1960s. Only a sliver of the wall of dark brick that joined it to the adjacent house, along with one of the gateposts, survives today.