Between the gilded doors and the bag checks, there’s a moment when you realize something has changed. On a Friday night, you find yourself outside a synagogue in St. John’s Wood. The security is more stringent than you anticipated, with air-lock doors that resemble those found in banks rather than places of worship. A visitor from ten years ago might not recognize the location. It’s not because the structure has changed, but rather because of what it now needs to safeguard.
Recently, the Liberal Jewish Synagogue started holding “trilingual Sabbath evening services” in Hebrew, English, and French. The addition of French is significant for a tradition that has held Friday night prayers in Hebrew for centuries and in English for maybe a generation. It’s a signal. With an estimated 300,000 French citizens residing in Greater London, it turns out that London now functions as something close to France’s sixth-largest city by population. The cultural geography of the city has subtly changed as a result of the large influx of French immigrants in certain areas, such as Peckham, Kentish Town, and Kensal Rise.
However, because the numbers seem out of proportion, it is worthwhile to look at the Jewish story within that migration on its own terms. French Jewish children now make up about half of new students at London’s Jewish schools, according to Marc Mayer, chairman of the Hendon United Synagogue, who spoke to Newsweek. Half. That is a tide rather than a trickle of people. The number of French nationals attending services has sharply increased, according to rabbis throughout the city. What is motivating them to come here is the question.
The violence is the most obvious and significant response. Over the course of a single year, Jews in Paris were attacked in parks, on the Metro, and in schools. There have reportedly been synagogues set on fire. Compared to the prior year, antisemitic incidents increased by about 84%. Then there was the January 2015 attack on a kosher supermarket, which resulted in an hours-long siege that claimed four lives. Around that time, there is a noticeable upward bend in the timeline of French Jewish migration to London.
A shul member who had lived overseas herself and had a personal, rather than an institutional, understanding of what it means to miss prayers in your native tongue came up with the idea for French-language services at the LJS. The texture of displacement and the particular loneliness of sitting through a religious service and not quite following it are the kinds of details that are overlooked in the larger story about migration and antisemitism. The French sections were led on a part-time basis by Rabbi René Pfertzel, who also works with a progressive Jewish community in Lyon. On the first trilingual Friday night, there was a subtle dissonance when he read from the Torah in French. It wasn’t incorrect, but it was unexpected in a room that seemed, by most accounts, very British.
Those who had been attending these Friday services for years, dressed in tartan pants and navy blazers, made up the majority of the congregation that evening. Perhaps not as many as the event had expected, but the French newcomers were present. It might just be a matter of time. Communities develop gradually. Rebuilding trust takes time, particularly for those who left a country in part because they no longer felt safe there. There’s a feeling that Jewish organizations in London are reaching out across the Channel, though they’re not sure how many people will accept it just yet.
It’s unclear if other synagogues in the city will adopt trilingual services. It’s still unclear if the presence of French Jews in London is indicative of a long-term change or a transient fear—people who are waiting to see how things work out before making a decision about where to settle down. However, observing it from the inside, sitting in a press section with white paper place markers and hearing Hebrew, English, and French blend together beneath a gilded ceiling in northwest London, made it seem less like a momentous occasion and more like the early stages of something that will endure.
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