The West Central Section of the Jewish Religious Union (JRU) was founded in 1916 by the Hon. Miss Lilian Helen Montagu, CBE, JP, and her sister the Hon. Miss Marian Montagu, daughters of the strictly Orthodox founder of the Federation of Synagogues, Samuel Montagu, the First Baron Swaythling. The sisters had already built up a highly successful Jewish Girls Club in the Bloomsbury area, so a religious congregation was a natural progression.

By 1928 the section had developed sufficiently to be constituted as an independant congregation and in that year its first full time minister Rabbi Dr. Solomon Starrels was appointed. During the 1930's the congregation developed and grew quickly due both to the dynamism of the Montagu sisters and the excellent reputation of Rabbi Dr. Starrels as a preacher and teacher.

In 1933 Rabbi Dr. Starrels left to become the founding Rabbi of the North Western Reform Synagogue in Alyth Gardens, Golders Green. He was replaced temporarily by Rev. Maurice Perlzweig and then Rabbi David Jacobson was appointed Minister. The congregation continued to grow, attracting considerable support from the then local Jewish population. Rabbi Jacobson left in 1936 to return to the United States and Rev. Perlzweig once again stepped into the breach, aiding the congregation until the end of 1938.

During the period from 1938 to 1946, Miss Montagu acted as Lay Minister, but received considerable assistance from Rabbi Dr. Israel Mattuck from St. John's Wood, Rabbi Dr. Harold Reinhart from West London, and other leading Ministers from Liberal and Reform congregations, including Rev. Leslie Edgar, Rev. Vivian Simmons, Rev. Philip Cohen and Rev. Stanley Solomons. Indeed, during the war years, the congregation was also served by a rota of very distinguished German 'Liberaal' Rabbis, including Dr. Bruno Italiener, Dr. Rudolf Brasch, Dr. Werner van der Zyl, Dr. Heinrich Lemle, Ernst Sawady, Dr. Georg Salzberger, Curtis Cassell, Jacob Kokotek and at the end of the war by Dr. Leo Baeck.

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