It is one of three synagogues in London's East End still functioning and was the first Mizrachi Synagogue in Britain, founded in 1903 by Morris Koenigsberg and Abraham Schwalbe. It is likely that this congregation, which consisted of first generation immigrants from Poland, Lithuania and Russia; Orthodox Jews from small shtetls such as Stetziver, Kalisz and Vikaviskis met in the front room of Mr Koenigsburg's family house on Commercial Road, later occupying our present premises in 1921, which was redesigned by Lewis Solomon & Son, honorary architects to the Federation of Synagogues.