Golders Green is an area in the London Borough of Barnet in England. A smaller suburban linear settlement, near a farm and public grazing area green of medieval origins, dates to the early 19th century. Its bulk forms a late 19th-century and early 20th-century suburb with a commercial crossroads. The rest is of later build. It is centred approximately 6 miles (9 km) north west of Charing Cross on the intersection of Golders Green Road and Finchley Road.
It was founded as a medieval hamlet in the large parish of Hendon, Middlesex. The parish was heavily superseded by Hendon Urban District in 1894 and by the Municipal Borough of Hendon in 1932, abolished in 1965. In the early 20th century it grew rapidly in response to the opening of a tube station of the London Underground, adjacent to the Golders Green Hippodrome which was home to the BBC Concert Orchestra for many years. The area has a wide variety of housing and a busy main shopping street, Golders Green Road. It is known for its large Jewish population as well as for being home to the largest Jewish kosher hub (located west of Hoop Lane after the rail bridge) in the United Kingdom, which attracts many Jewish tourists.
There has been a prominent Jewish community in Golders Green since the early 20th century. The Jewish community took root after Hitler‘s rise to power, with the first German Jewish immigrants forming the Golders Green Beth Hamedrash. Soon after, Galician Jewish immigrants formed other synagogues. With it came the formation of Jewish schools such as Menorah before the onset of World War II. There are close to fifty Kosher restaurants and eateries under rabbinical supervision in Golders Green, and more than 40 synagogues throughout the area continuing into neighbouring Hendon, as well as 30 schools (some in outlying areas owing to space restriction), many of them independent. The Jewish community of Hendon and Golders Green is viewed as one, sharing the schooling system as well as rabbinical guidance.
Golders Green is home to a growing Japanese and East Asian community with many families living in the district being catered for a notable number of restaurants and shops specialising in Japanese and other East Asian food, such as the Seoul Plaza supermarket.
