This is the interior (facing East) of the beautiful "cathedral" synagogue of the Spanish and Portuguese Jews' Congregation of London. The Community was established about 300 years ago, by descendants of refugees of the Spanish Inquisition who came over from Amsterdam.

This is the synagogue which I attended as a child, in whose choir I sang for years, and in which I celebrated my Bar Mitzvah. Last year I had the pleasure of returning to the synagogue, as "scholar-in-residence", and giving a sermon and a series of talks.

The building was recently refurbished in honour of its centenary. The "sky" behind the restrained, moorish Ark (previously blue) was inexplicably painted green, a departure which for me somehow succeeds in enhancing the oriental, "Thousand-and-one Nights" aura of the apse.

The first synagogue built by the "Kahal" was actually within the square mile of the City of London, where the Jews lived at the time. As the community grew its centre shifted outwards of the City centre. Hence Bevis Marks Synagogue, the original flagship of the Kahal (and the first synagogue in Great Britain after Jews were allowed in), is used chiefly for marriages and special services, while Lauderdale Road Synagogue (some hundred years its junior) has become the "main" synagogue by default.

(For example, on 13 November 1998 Bevis Marks was the scene of an historic Sabbath Service attended by the just inaugurated Mayor of London, Lord Peter Levene, the eighth Jewish Lord Mayor in the history of the City.)

I took this photograph on a recent trip to London.

A unique feature of Spanish and Portuguese Synagogues is that the Ark (containing the Torah scrolls) is not covered with the customary velvet or silk curtain (instead the curtain is inside the Ark). This is said to hail from the time when marrano ancestors of the community had to practice Judaism in secret, while outwardly professing Roman Catholicism, and concealed their Torah scroll(s) in an ordinary cupboard.

Well, as they say, "necessity is the mother of invention", and a happy by-product of this sad tradition is that the Spanish and Portuguese Communities are responsible for the most exquisitely carved and decorated Ark doors in the Jewish world, as the following picture illustrates.

The photograph doesn't do credit to this truly breathtaking rococo style Ark, built for the Great Synagogue in Mantua, Italy, in 1635.

The story goes that when it arrived here on a ship some 50 years ago, none of the "official" state locations were large enough to accomodate it, so it ended up in the main study-hall of the famous (but very unofficial) Ponivez yeshiva in Bnei Brak.

Thankfully the powers-that-be have not screwed a curtain rail into it to force it to follow the prevailing local custom. You may think I'm being facetious but -- incredible as it sounds -- exactly that was done to another beautiful Italian ark which was installed in "Hechal Shlomo", the building of the Chief Rabbinate of Israel no less! (The graceful renaissance garlands on the doors of that ark are visible for only a brief moment at a time, when the curtain is pulled aside to remove or return the Torah scroll during a a service!)