London Overground’s new Weaver Line has Jewish significance

Summer is not usually a time when commuters look forward to getting on the train. However, this year, overground passengers have something to look forward to.

In February, Mayor Sadiq Khan announced that the London Overground is to be rebranded. Now, with Khan safely re-elected, the changes will go ahead. By the end of the year, the Overground will be divided into six new lines, each with new names and colours.

One line in particular holds significance for London’s Jewish community. The purple Weaver Line will travel from Liverpool Street to Cheshunt or Chingford, passing through stations including Bethnal Green, Hackney Downs, Stoke Newington, and Stamford Hill. These areas of London have a strong Jewish heritage and are still home to Jewish communities today.

According to Transport for London, the name of the new Weaver Line was chosen because it will travel through “areas of London known for their textile trade, shaped over the centuries by diverse migrant communities and individuals”.

As outlined in an official TfL blog, these communities are Huguenot, Jewish, and Bangladeshi. At various points in time, all these groups have lived and worked in East London, each playing a significant role in the development of the London textile trade.

The Huguenots began arriving from France as refugees from religious persecution in the late 1600s and were instrumental in establishing a thriving textile trade in the East End of London, mainly in Spitalfieds. Today, one can walk through the Tenter Streets in Tower Hamlets, named after the equipment used to hold fabric taut for drying (the equipment is also the origin of the phrase “on tenterhooks”).

Jewish migrants followed in the 19th and 20th centuries. According to the Museum of London, between 1880 and 1914, 150,000 Jews from Eastern Europe and Russia arrived in the UK, many fleeing religious persecution. This was followed by a wave of migration in the 1930s. Large numbers settled in the East End, between Spitalfields and Whitechapel, many earning a living in the textile and fashion industries. By the late 1960s, the fashion scene had moved across the city to the West End. On Carnaby Street, one of the centres of the fashion world, more than half of the shops were once owned by Jews.

The current exhibition at the Museum of London Docklands, Fashion City: How Jewish Londoners shaped global style (extended until 7 July), showcases the work of Jewish Londoners in fashion. Dr Lucie Whitmore, curator of the exhibition, says that part of her motivation in creating the show was to highlight a history that has not been brought to prominence in the past. “That’s the thing that’s missing: the acknowledgement that Jewish migrants and their descendants have had an absolutely massive impact on London’s fashion reputation and […] that needed to be acknowledged.”

Today, the East End has a large Bangladeshi community. Bangladeshis began arriving in London in the 1950s, with many settling around Brick Lane and Spitalfields. The building on 59 Brick Lane, which was once a Huguenot chapel and then an Ashkenazi synagogue, is now a mosque. Like those who preceded them, many Bangladeshis were involved in the textile trade. Now, East London has become better known for its restaurants and bars, but the history of the area is evident on every street.

“I like that we are situated in a narrative of migration,” says Rabbi Roni Tabick, of the New Stoke Newington Synagogue. “There’s something about that continuity between those three communities which is so lovely, and it’s so London. And I think having the Weaver Line trying to capture all three of our communities and the role we’ve played is lovely.”

Ian Stone, historian of London and grandchild of a Jewish tailor in the East End, also sees the symbolism in the new name: “If you look at that Huguenot story, if you look at that Jewish story, there are so many similarities. It does speak to a weaving of communities into the fabric of London life. If people become more aware of that, it can only be a good thing.”

The reaction is not all positive, however. Rabbi Tabick sees irony in a new name that celebrates community connections in the context of tensions between Jews and Muslims since the war in Gaza. “There’s millions of pounds being spent on this rebranding effort,” Rabbi Tabick says, “and fine – I support that, I get the need […] but I also think some money should be spent on trying to create the sort of community cohesion that the names are celebrating.

“It can’t all be down to individual Jews and Muslims to reach out to each other and try to build bridges. We need some investment in that work. It’s so important. And I think that, unfortunately, there isn’t much being invested in it at the moment.”

As a mere rebranding project, perhaps the new line does as much as it can. “You can only ever do your best with these things,” Ian Stone concludes. “You take a long-term view of this, and hope that that weaving – that fabric, that textile – continues.”