• Introduction
• History
• Key Dates
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• Touring the area
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The community also desired to replace their existing synagogue which was probably in the Pier district and was by this time in a very poor state. The community had also grown tired of the very inconvenient approach to the building.

The leaders of the community, including Jacob Reuben, petitioned the Dover Harbour Board for land on which to build a new synagogue in 1833. Land was granted and a new synagogue was opened on 1 April, 1836, in Hawkesbury Street. It was a rather compact building described as 'a small fabric'.

In 1839 the Dover community entered its most illustrious period with the arrival of 34 year old Rabbi Raphael Isaac Cohen as the minister to Dover. Rabbi Cohen's work as a Jewish educator was soon known and feted across England and even internationally.

Rabbi Cohen set up a Jewish school in 1842 at the 'Victoria House Establishment Charlton', then in 1847 he moved to larger premises at Sussex House on the Folkestone Road. Cohen offered a general education with Jewish studies - a veritable Carmel College of its time!

Private boarding academies were quite common on the coast. They were usually run by Christian ministers for boys. There were also ladies boarding establishments ran by respectable ladies, often spinster sisters. Thus Cohen's establishment was the Jewish counterpart and expression of an established educational trend.