Get celeb-spotting with JW3’s glorious new mural that celebrates London’s Jewish past and present

A giant technicolour mural that celebrates real and fictional Jewish personalities and events in London has been unveiled on JW3’s nine-storey building this week.

The mural, which measures 26.5 metres x 14.2 metres, was commissioned by JW3 and designed by artist Leon Fenster and includes some of London’s liveliest stories. The mural features more than 150 historical figures and events, including Queen Elizabeth I, as she watches the trial of her Jewish doctor, Rodrigo Lopez (who was executed for being found guilty of plotting to poison her), former British prime minister Benjamin Disraeli and the psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud. The image also features seven rabbis, three agony aunts, a clutch of boxing legends and copies of paintings by Marc Chagall.

Eagle-eyed passers-by will also be able to spot a young Nicholas Winton as he oversees the Kindertransport trains, the mythical figure of the golem warding off Nazi planes during the Blitz and a depiction of the Battle of Cable Street. St Paul’s Cathedral is also there – during Cromwell’s time it was rumoured that the site was at the centre of a Jewish plot to turn it into a synagogue, and in a nod to more recent developments there’s a mini bus weighed down by black hats and suitcases, representing the Charedi community’s gradual migration from Stamford Hill to Canvey Island in Essex.

“My philosophy is that there’s an entire world in everything – in every city, community, family – and so [my art] opens up a window onto those worlds and reveals, in some glorious technicolour, every world beneath every stone,” says the artist Leon Fenster, who created the work – and who also appears peeking out from the mural.

“Once I open myself up to receiving the stories, they just come flooding. Whoever I’m talking to, I’ll ask them, ‘What stories can you tell me?’ Or I'll read a book and that’ll give me an idea for a story that will lead to another one.”

Fenster, who started out in academic architecture, does not plan his projects meticulously. “As I’m drawing, it will give me new ideas and one thing leads to another.”

This can lead to an intriguing juxtaposition of characters and events and he hopes people will constantly find something new in the mural. “I try to put things next to each other so that the viewer can make meaningful connections, but, the joy of this kind of art is when the unexpected collide.”

Some seemingly incidental figures have also been included in the picture, such as the Beatles’ manager Brian Epstein. He “just happens to be Jewish”, says the 37-year-old artist, but he gave the Beatles their first suits, which defined who they became. “And why did he give them those suits and that image? Because he was inspired by Mod fashion, which was a very Jewish phenomenon because, as the story goes, it was the children of Jewish tailors wearing their parents’ creations.”

“London has a diverse Jewish community, with history and stories to match. Leon has captured the depth and breadth of Jewish London in a beautiful artwork that we hope will create countless conversations about multicultural London,” said William Galinsky, JW3’s director of programming.

By Alex Galbinski

Photos by Blake Ezra

The JW3 mural by Leon Fenster will be on display until the autumn. To discover what each part of the mural means, visit leonfenster.com/jewishlondon.