Jewish Museum London Blog

A Learning Day Out - Part 2

Lisa Shames- Learning Manager: Families, Interfaith and Community

Arguably, the most important part of a Jewish Culture CPD day is lunch. We decided to head over to Hummus Bar on Golders Green road. The first part of the menu listed their signature homemade hummus, made twice daily. The hummus can be ordered plain or topped with any number of delicious items such as falafel, grilled mushrooms, salt beef, spicy beef, or even a sloppy joe version with minced beef, mushrooms and egg. The menu also featured various salads, sides and mains including schnitzel, sabich, burgers and brisket.

Seeing as hummus is the signature dish, all nine of us decided to dip right in….

I ordered the Oriental Beef Hummus topped with spiced minced beef and caramelised onions. The hummus arrived with warm pita and a spicy chilli sauce. The hummus was deliciously creamy, dusted with paprika, and drizzled with extra virgin olive oil and red tahini. The beef was perfectly spiced with warm Moroccan spices while the caramelised onions added a bit of sweetness. I honestly cannot express just how smooth, creamy and delicious everything was--only that I will definitely be back many times to work my way through this gorgeous menu!

Emily Barnes- Learning Officer

Following lunch, we headed off along Golders Green Road to explore the bakeries and shops. Every year we review our handling collection for our school workshops and this was a chance to add to it. Jerusalem the Golden was full of unusual treasures, many of which I had never seen or heard of before – children’s toys and books to help learn Hebrew, Kippot for every occasion and beautiful items of Judaica.

For me, visiting the shops was quite eye-opening, revealing a world of items I had never imagined, it was quite incredible to see all these objects together and the sense of community that came with that. Take a look at some of the items we choose to add to our collection.

Emma Crew- Learning Assistant

We then visited SOFERSTaM. I was really excited to go here as they have kindly donated many objects to our handling collection including quills and scrolls. Our school's children are really interested in these objects and the process by which Siffrei Torah are made and repaired. It was fascinating to see where this careful work is done. On our visit, we were fortunate enough to see a large Sephardi Torah in the process of being repaired.

We then went to Kosher Kingdom. Our museum regularly buys items from here in preparation for different festivals. This was my first time visiting and it was great to see such a wide range of items relating to the Jewish faith. We bought some more Havdallah candles for our handling collection. Shabbat is a popular topic with schools with 3,077 students coming to our museum to learn about it last year! We also bought some bamba to try a traditional Israeli snack- it was very popular with the team.

Charlotte Hafner- ARSP intern

At the end of our CPD trip, we enjoyed some cold drinks at Head Room Café. This lovingly decorated café was opened by Jami, a mental health service for the Jewish community, as a space for taking a relaxing time out from the troubles of everyday life. Jami’s aim is to create opportunities for Jewish people living with mental illnesses, enable them to take on the journey of recovery and work on reducing the stigma and prejudice surrounding topics of mental health. We really enjoyed our time at the Head Room Café, and their Homemade Limonana definitely became a particular favourite of the team.

A Learning Day Out - Part 1

Foreword from Frances Jeens - Head of Learning

Learning is central to the museum’s values and here in the Learning Team, we like to practice what we preach! This means that twice a year we book a full day of CPD and off we go to learn something new. With the school summer holidays just starting and new staff joining the team these past few months now was a perfect time.

Shereen Hunte- Learning Officer

Our first stop was to Hoop Lane Cemetery. Founded in the late 19th Century, Hoop Lane was one of the first Jewish spaces to be established in Golders Green (before the mass migration of the Jewish community and before the arrival of the tube station!) Rachel Kolsky took us on a tour around the cemetery, starting with a wall of tributes to 12 Kindertransport Rescuers including Nicolas Winton, Frank Foley and Ho Feng Shan. To the right of the cemetery were tombstones which lay flat as is a tradition of Sephardi graves whilst to the left, the headstones which commemorated members of the Reform Community stood up tall. Throughout the cemetery, many of the tombstones were scattered with pebbles and rocks left by family members. Pebbles, unlike flowers, cannot wither away.

In the Sephardi side of the cemetery were the graves of the parents of the Iraqi Jewish Saatchi brothers, founders of the advertising agencies Saatchi and Saatchi. Nearby, were also the graves of Jackie and Joan Collins’ parents. In the Reform part of the cemetery, certain tombstones reflected similar symbolism as found on Christian gravestones such as slashed columns to resemble a life lost too soon. This was a result of the largely Christian tombstone makers of the time. In the Reform part of the cemetery were the graves of artist Rose Louise Henrique and her husband Sir Basil Quixano Henriques, philanthropist and founders of many boys’ clubs for deprived for Jewish children.

Emma Weleminsky-Smith- Learning Officer

I felt very privileged to be able to visit the graves of some of my great grandparents at the cemetery and share their stories.

Dr Freidrich Weleminsky, my maternal grandfather’s father, was a talented scientist who created an early cure for tuberculosis called Tuberculomucin Weleminsky while working as a member of the medical faculty of the German University in Prague. This cure was about to begin commercial production when the war broke out and Freidrich fled with his wife and two of his children to the UK. My mother, Judy Weleminsky, is working at the Royal Free Hospital (in connection to UCL) to try and recreate this cure using Freidrich’s notes.

Rabbi Dr Arthur Löwenstamm, my maternal grandmother’s father, worked as a community rabbi in several synagogues and was the last rabbi of the community of Spandau, Berlin. His synagogue was set on fire during Kristallnacht and he was sent to Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp. Thankfully he was able to come to the UK in 1939 and ended up teaching at Leo Baeck College (Progressive rabbinical school) and taught, among others, Rabbi Hugo Gryn. In 2002 a street in Spandau was named Löwenstamm

-End of Part 1

Debating (and visiting) museums in Poland

Krakow – Warsaw – Gdansk, 15-25 July 2018

By Kathrin Pieren, Collections Manager and Curator.

Every four years the European Association for Jewish Studies organises an international conference that brings together hundreds of delegates and covers topics from archaeology to Talmud and rabbinics, Jewish languages and literatures, culture, history and arts. This year the conference was held in Krakow and presented an important novelty: an entire section on Jewish museology with ten sessions of 3-4 papers each. I presented the Jewish Museum’s ‘Family from A to B (Armistice to Brexit)’ project, which was well received.

One of the advantages of this section was that it was the only part of the conference where practitioners and academics got together. Having done research in the past on the history of museums I was particularly interested to learn from Alla Sokolova, Alexander Ivanov and others how political priorities of the former Soviet regime in the first third of the 20th century impacted on ethnographic research and the representation of Jewish history in museums. A presentation by Susanne Urban on the postwar reconstruction of the synagogue in Worms and its present-day use by an immigrant Jewish community from the former Soviet Union has given me food for thought for a conference I am co-organising with the University of Southampton in 2019.

Of particular relevance to our museum was the talk by Eva Atlan about the innovative multisensory approach to Judaism that will structure the new Judaica display in the refurbished Frankfurt Jewish Museum, opening in late 2019. Moreover, Renata Piatkowska from POLIN Museum in Warsaw’s talk on their relationship with object donors made me wonder whether we should invite some of our donors to write short blogs about the objects they are donating, what they mean to them and how they have used them in the past.

Before and after the conference I had some days of annual leave to explore museums and sites in Krakow, Warsaw and Gdansk. Among many other places, I visited Auschwitz and thought that the guide managed to give us a sensitive tour despite the fact that the place has become a major ‘tourist attraction’, which feels rather strange. Seeing the actual sites of destruction was, of course, a harrowing experience, but it did increase my understanding of the many accounts that I read in the past.

Visiting POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw was great, but exhausting. It took me 7 hours to take everything in and I did not even get to see the temporary exhibition! Navigation is a challenge as a large amount of information is not properly layered and it is easy to miss crucial information if one does not read everything.

However, their prolific use of original texts by Jewish individuals really brings out a broad diversity of viewpoints and stories, and it made me think that we should do that more often at the Jewish Museum as well. The brand-new Museum of the Second World War in Gdansk was fascinating if a little too graphic, but it presents a new and more comprehensive look into these events, including the war in the Far East, than I have seen in any other museum. Overall my visit was a great learning and human experience.

Anonymous Question Cards: The museum as a space for questions.

By Charlotte Hafner

Here at the Jewish Museum London, we have schools coming in for our Judaism or history workshops almost every day. A big amount of the students that come with these schools have a lot of questions they want to ask about Judaism, however, they sometimes seem to feel a bit shy about directly approaching either their teachers or us from the Learning Team.

It might be because they’re afraid of offending us or saying something insensitive about the Jewish community by accident. Or it might be because it is a question about Jewish LGBT, or because they just think that their question might sound a bit silly.

Regardless, we want the Jewish Museum to be a space for questions and a space for learning and we don’t want students to feel anxious about asking us anything. This is why we offer the students to use our Anonymous Question Cards.

The Learning Team hands out these cards at the start of most of our workshop sessions, and then try to answer all the questions students write on them at the end of our workshop sessions.

A big benefit of using the Anonymous Question Cards that we noticed is, that the students generally seem to be more confident about asking us things that some might deem controversial or silly.

A few examples of questions that we frequently get on our Anonymous Question Cards are:

Are you Jewish?

What kind of Jew are you?

Do you have to be Jewish to work at the Jewish Museum?

Do you keep kosher?

Why do Jewish people write G-d instead of God?

Is being LGBT accepted in Judaism?

Why is circumcision practised?

Are there any specific rules about marriage?

Why don’t Jewish people believe in Jesus?

What do Jewish people believe happens after you die?

Do you get punished if you touch the Torah with your hand?

Do you dislike German people?

Do you want revenge on the Nazis?

The first three questions are actually questions that we get asked every time we offer to do the anonymous questions. It seems to be that a lot of students assume that everyone who works at the Jewish Museum is Jewish, or that the Learning Team is full of Jewish people because we know so much about Judaism, and they are often very surprised to learn how diverse the Museum staff actually is.

Using the Anonymous Question Cards has enabled us to find out more about what topics we might have to add to our workshop plans and what concepts of Judaism seem to be tricky to understand, which helps us help the children learn more about Judaism.

No matter what kind of question we get, it is always interesting what students want to know more about and with which assumptions they enter the Jewish Museum.

#learning #interns

Julian Maddison “My first introduction to Goscinny”

We hope you enjoy this guest blog post by Julian Maddison, an expert on all things René Goscinny. Julian is a true enthusiast and has been an invaluable source of information to us throughout the development and display of this exhibition. He has assisted us with fact-checking as well as sharing incredible stories and fascinating details about Asterix. Julian has unearthed UK-specific materials for us, such as the popular 1960s Valiant and Ranger comics, in which Asterix, pre-official translation, appears as ‘the ancient Brit with bags of grit.’ We are incredibly grateful to Julian for all his support.

Morgan Wadsworth-Boyle, Assistant Curator, Exhibitions

My first introduction to Goscinny’s work did not go well. In 1976, at the age of six, I struggled to understand the first page of Asterix and the Great Crossing. Asterix readers will know that this album begins with an entirely blank page, broken down into different sized frames, with speech bubbles coming out of the whiteness. Two ships are meeting in dense fog, the crew of each ship unaware of the presence of the other. Their conversations get intertwined and confused. In many ways this is typical of Goscinny’s work, exhibiting self-reflexivity, pushing the boundaries of the cartoon genre, and challenging the reader – all to great comic effect.

Once I got beyond page one and found myself immersed in the Gaulish village, I was hooked on Asterix. Jokes that I missed, I understood on rereading. Historical or political allusions that passed me by when a child made me laugh out loud when I came back to the books much older. Goscinny’s scripts and humour work on many levels.

Visits to France revealed there were Asterix albums that had not yet been published in English, which my father translated for me. His translations did not have the brilliance of Anthea Bell and Derek Hockridge’s English language albums, but he was translating on the spot, effectively providing footnotes as he explained the puns and allusions.

I discovered Goscinny had written Lucky Luke too – a cowboy series created and drawn by Morris. In fact, there are more Lucky Luke titles signed by Goscinny than Asterix. Morris’ artwork is as exquisite as Uderzo’s drawings for Asterix, but more restrained, and Goscinny’s texts reflect this aesthetic – Lucky Luke relies more on situation comedy and parody.

The Oxford Professor of Armenian, Charles Dowsett, purchased Asterix books in different languages, a practise I continue today. One day he told me Goscinny wrote something else and handed me a copy of the first Iznogoud book. That evening my father translated it for me and we were introduced to a world of magic, flying carpets, and intricate wordplay brought to life by Tabary’s energetic drawings.

By now, I also knew of Goscinny’s work with Sempé for the Nicholas books – a first-person narrative of equal genius to P.G. Wodehouse’s Bertie Wooster.

In 1980 we moved to France where I found not only more adventures of Iznogoud and Nicholas, but numerous other albums penned by Goscinny including the Dingodossiers, Signor Spaghetti, and Oumpah-Pah. That year also saw the publication of the first Asterix and Lucky Luke books after Goscinny’s death. The artistry of Uderzo and Morris remained intact, but even as a ten-year-old, I could see that the magic of Goscinny was missing.

I found biographies of Goscinny which listed unobtainable works such as Dick Dicks, Pistolin or Jehan Pistolet, and made it my mission to try to find these – years later having to buy hundreds of magazines to get a sequence of serialised pages. These early works informed Goscinny’s later output and there are always some fantastic lines or interaction between words and image. Further reading revealed Goscinny’s influence on the development of the Franco-Belgian cartoon industry and how he used Pilote, the magazine he edited (and which had published Asterix and Nicholas from the start), as a vehicle to promote new talent including artists whose work might not be to his taste but he considered important or impactful.

Even today, more than forty years after his death, cartoonists he supported speak warmly about Goscinny and his influence on them.

As Tabary once said, Hergé (author of Tintin) may have popularised “la bande dessinée” but Goscinny gave it status.

It has been a delight to work with the team at the Jewish Museum on the exhibition Asterix in Britain – the Life and Work of René Goscinny. It is exciting to see so much original material being exhibited in Britain for the first time. I hope that I am paying back some of the great pleasure his work has given me all these years by helping introduce some of the lesser-known aspects of his life and work to a British audience.

Pride in our collection

By Hannah and Zara, work experience students in the Learning Team.

During Pride month, we have been considering what it is to be part of both an LGBT+ and a Jewish community and the intersection between them, by looking at images within our collection.

We have been looking at different images, the first ones being drawings of David and Jonathon by Simeon Solomon. Solomon was born in London in 1840 to a middle-class Jewish family. He was gay and found creative and unique ways to express his sexuality through art. His early works were influenced greatly by Shakespeare and the Bible. As he grew up in a Jewish home, Solomon received a religious upbringing which was reflected in his art. He illustrated characters from Bible stories, often with Hebrew captions

These images are from one of Solomon’s early sketchbooks from a collection of pen and ink drawings. The image on the left is of David in battle armour embracing Jonathon. The image on the right is of David with a crown clasping Jonathon wearing a helmet and holding a pennet.

David and Jonathon were heroic figures from the Book of Samuel who formed a pledge of friendship – “Jonathon made a covenant with David, because he loved him as his own soul” (1 Samuel 18). This relationship of love may be especially surprising considering the context of the two figures, who were rivals for the monarchy of the Kingdom of Israel.

The biblical account of David and Jonathon has been interpreted by some, especially modern LGBT+ groups, as the story of two lovers, which is emphasised in Solomon’s drawings. These images and the love between David and Jonathon are important as they represent another type of Jewish experience that is not always represented in Jewish art and tradition. They also show how one LGBT+ artist found role models within his tradition, boldly reclaiming a story to reflect something from his own experience.

Another, more recent image, we’ve been looking at is this photograph taken by Judah Passow in 2010. It depicts a gay couple dancing at the end of the Simchat Torah service at a Liberal synagogue in West London. It appeared at the Museum in 2012 as part of Passow’s ‘No Place Like Home’ exhibition, a series of photographs which documented what Judaism meant to him.

Simchat Torah (which literally means ‘joy of Torah’) is a celebration of the annual Torah readings, and of Jewish law and customs. Traditionally the ceremony consists of much singing and dancing, sometimes continuing all day and into the night. This photo has captured a key and interesting part of an individual Jewish experience. If Simchat Torah is a celebration of Jewish law, this photo, and the act of the couple dancing and enjoying the festivities together – is also a celebration of the multiplicity of interpretation when it comes to the Torah and Jewish teachings.

The Liberal Judaism UK website displays this quote; “Judaism has never stood still. It has always moved forward, sometimes slowly, sometimes faster. Its history is a history of continuity and change. – Affirmation 23”. Therefore, when discussing and teaching about Judaism, as arguably with most subjects of historical/ religious enquiry, it is important not to exclude the breadth and depth of experience and rather aim to demonstrate the complexities and nuances of real, lived experience.

Both these images have been used within the museum to spark discussion around the intersection between Judaism and being LGBT+, and the experiences of people who are part of both communities, especially when considering the young people who interact with the exhibits. However, also, during pride month, it is important to consider the possible positive effect these images may have in terms of representation. Feeling your own image and relationships are recognisable in a learning environment can help young people (and people of all ages!) to feel more engaged, interested and understood.

Theatrical Photoshoot!

Theatre costumes worn by the award-winning Jewish actor, Henry Goodman, during productions of The Merchant of Venice and Fiddler on the Roof have recently entered the collection of Jewish Museum London thanks to the actor’s generous donation.

Before storing them safely away, we took the opportunity to set up a 2-day photoshoot (yes, it really takes that long!) to photograph these costumes in full. We built the looks up item by item and took pictures during every step.

via GIPHY

Investigating the Isaac Family

By Karen Van Coevorden

Following on from Emma’s blog about Esther Rafer, another family which we have explored at our recent Curious Minds workshops is the Isaacs family.

Using a series of photographs and objects from our collection, we set individuals the challenge of trying to piece together an understanding of the Isaac family history.

We know that Philip Isaacs was born in Russia and came to England in about 1875 with his wife, Kate (known as Kitty) and his eldest son, Israel.

Just by looking at the photographs, one can presume that Philip and Kitty only had sons as it is only boys who feature in the photographs. However, on looking closer at the Census, we know that in 1911 they had 9 children still at home – 5 sons and 4 daughters. The Census also tells us that Kitty gave birth to 13 children – 2 have died and 11 are living. We know that their eldest son, Israel, is not included in the Census so he must have already left home by that time but there is still one child that is not accounted for, who we presume was born after Israel and before Michael (Mike). Israel was the only child to be born in Russia; the others were born in the East End, in Stepney.

Philip was a tailor (specifically a waistcoat maker). While one of his daughters was a machiner in the fur trade and 2 were tailoresses, 4 of the sons followed a completely different trade and became hairdressers. They were trained by their elder brother, Israel, whose first shop was in Cleveland Street, Mile End; they also had another shop in Canonbury and one in Bermondsey. The sons changed their surname to Phillips, after their father’s first name. With ‘Issacs’ very clearly being a Jewish name, by Anglicising it, this may have enabled them to have better business opportunities and be accepted more easily into the community.

In 1911, the Census records that Kitty has been married 32 years, which would mean that as her current age is given as 50 years old, she was aged 18 when she married Philip in 1879. This information appears to contradict what we know already and if this is true, Philip and Kitty could not have arrived in England in 1875 already married and with a child, Israel – Kitty would have only been 14 years old!

While these inconsistencies may lead us to doubt the accuracy of the Census, there could be a number of logical explanations. One may simply be to do with a language barrier and a lack of knowledge about what was being asked. It was also not uncommon at the time for people not to know when they were born and as dates were not recorded, people would not necessarily know how old they were.

The joy of learning about history is that there is always more to discover! Most of the information I have comes from the 1911 Census of England and Wales. I am keen to discover what detail is recorded about the Isaac family in 1901 and 1891. Finding a reference to Israel and also the ‘missing’ child may hopefully shed some light on this situation.

Esther Rafer and the Jewish East End

By Emma Crew

When planning our Curious Minds sessions for people living with dementia we decided to include objects and photographs relating to specific people who lived in the Jewish East End. I chose to show some of our items linked to Esther Rafer.

Her descendant Sheila donated a fascinating collection of items from her life including family photographs, shop receipts, birthday cards and letters. From these, we can piece together her story from her birth in Russia to a family of butchers to her marriage to Abraham Rafer and the butcher’s shop they ran on Hessel Street.

There are family photos with their four children David, Joseph, Minnie and Cecilia and letters they sent to each other showing their close relationship.

There are receipts showing their move to Upper Clapton in the mid- 1920s. They finished their careers in the cinema business running the Empire in Mile End and also building four more cinemas in London and Kent.

So far so good- but once you start to look closely at the dates on the different items you run into problems. Esther and Abraham appear in the 1911 census in Hessel Street where they record that they have been married 5 years.

Their son Joseph sent them a silver wedding anniversary letter writing ‘My dear parents, wishing you every Happiness, Health and Prosperity on your Silver Wedding’. A lovely letter- the only problem is it is dated ‘June 12th 1933′. This would mean they were married in 1908, not 1906. Esther and Abraham hosted a Silver Wedding Dinner in their home on Sunday 2nd July 1933 so as a couple they recorded their wedding as 1908.

Then there is Abraham’s date of birth. In the 1911 census, he gives his age as 28 suggesting he is born in 1883/4. However, we also have a small paper certificate dated 12th December 1917 which discharges Abraham from the army declaring him ‘permanently and totally unfit for service’. The Doctor found evidence of problems with his chest and lungs leading to a medical discharge. Abraham is described as being 5” 2 with blue eyes and brown hair. He is also recorded as 38. But how can a man who is 28 in 1911 be 38 in 1917? This certificate suggests that he was born in 1879 which matches his certificate of Naturalisation dated 1931.

The more I compare the different documents and photos the more interested I become in the contrasting information. Unable to find an exact reason for the difference in dates I have been asking participants in our Curious Minds workshops to give their opinions.

A couple have suggested that there was a language barrier and Esther and Abraham were confused when filling out the 1911 census. One man suggested that families didn’t record the year their children were born so lots of people didn’t know how old they actually were. Another man pointed out that many young men in Russia pretended to be younger than they were to avoid conscription in the Russian army. We’ll never know for sure but these little mysteries have sparked many interesting discussions at our Curious Minds workshops.

To Bake or Buy: The Challah Question

Everyone knows that a freshly baked challah loaf is one of the best tastes there is but alas it turns out that many of our staff lack basic baking skills (myself included!) and therefore are forced to have to buy our challah bread each week. To challenge ourselves the Learning Team organised for a few members of the museum staff to take part in a challah baking workshop held at Chabad Islington to see if even we could learn how to bake the perfect challah.

So off we went to Islington for a packed 2 hour workshop where we hoped to learn all the skills we would need to bake our own challah and of course plait it! So what did we learn? Here come our top tips!

Step 1: Find a great teacher

Hadasa from Chabad Islington was our teacher for the evening and along with her three lovely daughters, they guided us through the treacherous skill of live yeast. Something most of us hadn’t seen before let alone tried to use.

Step 2: Bake together

Like Shabbat, baking is best done with friends and family so pull together a group so you can share the experience. There were five of us from the museum and alongside meeting new people at the course we met a mother with her daughter who is preparing for her bat mitzvah and who coincidentally has a family heirloom on display in the museum!

Step 3: Get organised

You will need a few key pieces of equipment in your kitchen before you start. A mixing bowl, wooden spoon, parchment paper, an oven and oh that’s it! Really there is no excuse for not trying it!

Alongside your equipment you need some basic ingredients. White bread or spelt flour, dry yeast (or live if you are feeling brave), eggs, sugar, vegetable oil, salt and warm water. You probably already have most of these in the cupboard. As we were already feeling adventurous we added some fillings to our challah bread including chopped rosemary and garlic or chocolate chips. All of us would recommend it. Top tip from us: If you haven’t used live yeast before then definitely get some advice or use dried. The fresh yeast made our challah taste even better but it needs someone who knows their bread!

Step 4: Get mixing

At its most basic form of a recipe, it really is super simple – proof the yeast and then all the wet ingredients and then all the dry. Even we can’t go wrong. Then leave it somewhere warm to rise for 2 hours.

Step 5: Get kneading

It starts out messy but when that sticky mess starts turning into dough you know things are going your way. Get stuck in with your hands and get that dough to a smooth consistency because what comes next is the fun part.

Step 6: Get plaiting

Ok, so now it’s time to decide how brave you really are. A three plait? A basket shape? A six or seven plait? It’s all possible with the right instructions. Between us we tried them all with various degrees of success. But in the end we were pretty pleased with how they all turned out. Once you are happy with your shape leave it rise for another 45 minutes.

Step 7: Get baking

So easy. Quick egg wash on the bread and any sprinkles of seeds if you want, then 200 C fan for 20 – 30 minutes depending on the size of your challah. Top tip we learned was to bake it straight on the wireframes in the oven so that the bottom of your bread bakes evenly too. When it starts looking golden brown you know you are close.

Step 8: Nosh and natter

Surely it’s almost Shabbat now? Your fresh bread is best served to your friends and family. Those who will judge you kindly!

So take up the challenge and get baking and if you feel like you could also use some expert guidance then perhaps go to Hadasa’s class! https://www.jewishislington.co.uk/events

And send us your challah photos @JewishMuseumLDN It’s only fair seeing as we shared ours!

The Learning Team

#learning #learning team

Life in the East End: Israel Zangwill’s ‘The Children of the Ghetto’

By Robyn Viney - Learning Intern

When one thinks of historical research, the image of the novel is perhaps not the most immediate association that is made. However, being that past generations were cruelly robbed of the amenities to broadcast their experiences through social media, or embellish them in a blockbuster film, works of fictional literature are a valuable way of accessing a previous society’s culture.

Israel Zangwill’s 1892 publication, ‘The Children of the Ghetto’, was a major hit in Britain and America, after being published in both London and Philadelphia and republished continually throughout the 20th century. As the son of Latvian and Polish immigrant parents, Zangwill was a self-proclaimed ‘cockney-Jew’, a label he devised whilst trying to straddle the divide that second-generation immigrant children faced in defining their identity in Britain. His family moved to the East End of London whilst he was under the age of ten, and subsequently he attended the Jews’ Free School in Spitalfields, an institution he described in the novel as a centre of Jewish anglicisation. His intelligence and drive were clear from the beginning, rising through classes at a rapid rate and beginning to teach at the age of 14; the school still has a house named after him today.

It is within this personal experience that we find the inspiration that shapes the messages and characters within ‘Children of the Ghetto’. The novel not only tells us about the living conditions and economies of Jewish people in London, or the popularity of Jewish semi-autobiographical literature, but also paints a picture of Zangwill’s life too.

Subjects of charity, diaspora, and integration feature heavily throughout the text. Its narrative follows the story of the Ansell family, consisting of father Moses, oldest sister Esther, as well as 5 younger children. It is through their eyes that we gage a real affinity with the struggles and joys of living as a Jew in later Victorian London. Zangwill highlights both the major challenges and strange combinations that emerged within the sphere of Eastern-European Jewish tradition, conflicting the bustle of the increasingly industrialised cities of 19th century Britain.

Poverty is a key catalyst in the novel and frames the lives of the Ansells. The contrast in expectations is palpable, with Moses merely accepting his hunger as part of his station in the world, whereas daughter Esther strives for more than she has been dealt, unsatisfied by the seemingly justified reliance on the God given wealth of the upper class of Jewish society. Esther is seen to mirror Zangwill himself, eventually becoming a teacher at the end of the book just as Zangwill did in his own career. Her embarrassment in collecting soup and bread from the ‘Tafeekin’ (charitable body), to take home to her siblings is introduced early on as her greatest motivator to achieve more, to gain independence from her seemingly subdued identity.

The Tafeekin is at the core of this East End immigrant existence, in many ways acting as the fundamental point of irritation that embodies Zangwill’s messages. Around him he saw cycles of poverty, perpetuated both through discrimination on the part of outside employers, but also through the inherent ghettoization of the Jewish economy in England and the culture of ‘otherness’. Reliance upon charity was prolonged by the instilled spiritual societies that ran his and his family’s lives, with seemingly little alternative. In many ways, as Bryan Cheyette argues, Zangwill made himself and his works difficult to adopt by the Jewish communities of later generations because of his inability to see a middle ground between religiosity of the ghetto and total assimilation. Although, as the Jewish Herald of Texas wrote on March 12, 1909, Zangwill wrote the Jew, ‘not how he be in fiction, but how he be in fact’, through his work on ‘Children of the Ghetto’, Zangwill’s moral and political ambitions were developing in a far more provocative way.

The politics of Zangwill were rooted in a deep and analytic scrutiny of anglicising the Jewish identity. As the creator of the term ‘Melting Pot’, meaning a collective of immigrants combined together to create a new cohesive culture – often with reference to America, Zangwill was commenting on the frustrations that separationist attitudes bought to his life. His beliefs led him to advocate Territorial Zionism, the creation of a Jewish state on any land that could be legally ascertained, as opposed to a specific ‘holy land’. Although that may appear to disparage to idea of assimilation as a whole, in fact what Zangwill implied through his writing of ‘Children of the Ghetto’ was the need for distinction of some kind, as opposed to a tug-of-war between the observant Jewish communities and a subliminal push towards Anglicism in education, removing the difficulties associated with being a ‘cockney-Jew’ and aiding the opportunity for youth such as Esther to decide how they want to live their lives as adults.

Overall, ‘Children of the Ghetto’ was a piece unlike any other of its time. It both enlightened a generation as to the religion and culture of Jewish people in Britain, as well as challenging some of the traditional forms of Zionism and religious separatism that existed during his lifetime. Sparking both criticism and support from the Jewish community, even claims of blasphemy, Israel Zangwill was a controversial and brave writer. His 1892 work warrants respect and acknowledgment, which is why it sits in our museum today.

#interns

#Jewish Museum London #volunteers #jewish history

JFS - A Four Sites Saga

By David Harris, longstanding volunteer, who was previously a teacher and deputy head at JFS for 29 years.

JFS started as Jews’ Free School in the 1730’s in Dukes Place in The City, then moved to the East End and then Camden and is now in Kenton on a large campus.

In the history gallery is a copy of the 1892 work “Children of the Ghetto” written by Israel Zangwill (below)

Israel Zangwill, born in 1864, was a pupil, pupil-teacher and teacher at the Jews’ Free School before finding fame and fortune as one of the period’s most famous men of letters. Often referred to as the Jewish Dickens, he had the ear of the great and the good and could count HG Wells, George Bernard Shaw, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Rudyard Kipling, as his friends. A critic of the time, Hall Caine, wrote to Zangwill on this novel’s publication telling him that: “It is wonderful in its reality and force. By this book you have justified your claim to be classed with the foremost writers of your generation.”

Zangwill, an early Zionist, was a key member of the Territorialists, the group whose aim was to establish a Jewish homeland anywhere in the world- not necessarily Palestine- to rescue Jews urgently from oppression. Opposite the copy of “Children of the Ghetto”, is the Jews’ Commemorative Scholarship Medal (below) - that was awarded annually to the outstanding student of the year at JFS, together with a cheque for £25.

It was first awarded in 1858 to celebrate the fact that Lionel de Rothschild had become the first practising Jew to take his seat in the House of Commons. You can’t tell the history of JFS without mentioning the Rothschilds for whom JFS was a favourite charity. The family’s support of and involvement in the school was- and remains to this day-more than considerable and in “Children of the Ghetto”, Zangwill tells us that “Rothschild was a magic name in the ghetto” and “It stood next to the Almighty’s “as….. a friend of the poor”. Zangwill won this medal - and the £25 that went along with it- twice.

Items 8 and 9 in the gallery- show Zangwill’s seal (above) and a commemorative plate (below) quoting the response Zangwill threw at a heckler who called him an “alien Jew” at a public meeting.

Alas, Zangwill is rarely read these days. But, he does live on in his alma mater because if you have a yellow stripe in your tie then you’re in Zangwill House. There are two photographs, taken in the early 20th century, of students at the JFS Bell Lane Site (Site Number 2). Underneath one of the pictures is a quotation from “Children of the Ghetto” where Zangwill describes: “…the bell of the great Ghetto school, summoning its pupils……to come and be Anglicized”

The “great Ghetto school” was, of course, his school, the Jews’ Free and that word “Anglicized” would play a major role in the school’s purpose. For the challenge facing the school-90% of whose role was composed of immigrant families- in those days, was how to make Englishmen out of Jews. The challenge in 2018, some would say, is how to make Jews out of Englishmen!

All of the boys in the photographs are dressed in school uniform and the likelihood is that these clothes were bought for them by the school-(how else could these immigrant families possibly afford the luxury of a school uniform)?- using funds and trusts set up by the Rothschilds and their friends. That’s how in 1908 a pupil was able to declare proudly, that“Every boy in my class has a clean collar”. Even today children’s school activities are subsidised where necessary. There is a school magazine from May 1912 (below).

Always ahead of its times, I wonder how many other schools of the day could have boasted a school magazine? Lawrence (nee Lazar) Bowman was the head at the time. Bowman had been born in Poland, was a brilliant scholar and led the school for 23 years. Sadly, his son, Claude, also a JFS alumnus was killed in action in Flanders in August 1917. Next to the magazine is a piece of student needlework from a similar period (below).

Moses Angel , a towering and legendary head teacher who led the School for over fifty years in the nineteenth century-and still found time to edit the “Jewish Chronicle” for a few years- was of the view that: “Every young woman is the better for knowing how to mend…”

There’s much more to JFS than the outline presented by these items. The miracle was that this school, situated in one of London’s poorest, least favoured and most chaotic areas, was able to take thousands and thousands of immigrant children who came from overcrowded homes where English wasn’t spoken, from parents who were poor and often unemployed, and give them the wherewithal to carve out for themselves a life and a future as proud Jews, citizens of the UK. And now, nearly 300 years later, the fruits of that miracle can be seen in the wonderfully resourced 2000 strong school that continues to produce excellent results and rounded, proud Jewish graduates.

The Reverend Simeon Singer was the editor of the Singer’s Prayer Book, which, published in 1890, was to become the authorised daily prayer book of orthodox synagogues in the UK and the Commonwealth. After a visit to the school in the late nineteenth century, Singer wrote

“It is little short of a marvel that, from material apparently so unpromising, educational results so extraordinary are produced.”

Some would say that it’s not all that different today!

(Photographs and Edit by David Fenton)

Fragments of Childhood – Then and Now

by Jemima Jarman, Assistant Curator

The Jewish Museum London recently received a generous donation of 14 charming oil paintings, depicting East Ham, Ilford in the 1930s. The artist, A. David Crown, M.D., (1924-2016), created these paintings after retiring from a medical career in Rochester, New York; drawing upon memories of his early childhood and the neighbourhood he grew up in. Each painting is accompanied with written memories of the place he depicts.

The subjects of his paintings include street scenes, shop fronts, cinemas, synagogues and London buses. Each painting is full of warmth and character in which Crown’s childhood memories are depicted in bright colours and where each scene bursts with nostalgic detail. Dr. Crown wrote in his opening statement: “The paintings do not exactly depict the places, nor are they to scale…but they show what cannot be said. And the accompanying brief recollections have said what cannot be shown.”

Both the series of paintings and the written memoirs were entrusted to the Jewish Museum London by Dr. David Crown’s widow, Deborah Cohen-Crown; who has enabled these stories and images of a Jewish childhood in 1930’s Britain to be shared with future generations.

Of the 14 oils, 6 have been selected to feature in this blog post with Crown’s own (edited) text accompanying them.

King’s Dairy

“King's Dairy was across High Street North, beside a short road to the Salisbury Elementary School. It was, I was told, the last actual dairy with cows in Greater London. Indeed, there were cows behind the store front - I went past them and smelled them every school day till I was nearly eleven.

Behind it was my school (not that colour of course). The stairs are where Ivor Good, Saul Cohen, David Miller, Dennis Morris and I nightly fought Gerald Cox and his Jew hating friends many many nights when we came out from classes to go home. Ivor was not Jewish but as we were outnumbered and he adored ideas of chivalry and was taller than us and a good fighter, he was very welcome.

My memories of that school are prolific - of Miss Lindsell who encouraged me to write and in whose classroom at my suggestion we created a lending library which failed dismally - the books were stolen. She's the one who, when I used words like "ichthyology" and "Jewfish" denied they existed. Also that darned anti-Semitic Mr. James who caned me and threatened me with his Luger on the last day before Christmas vacation, when I was ten, because of my response to Dennis William Davis's crude note depicting a "wandering Jew." My drawing was better! So was my reply but James intercepted it, caned me, and as a result the four Jews in the class were segregated in the far back corner and told to be silent throughout the festivities or he would shoot us.”

Fire Engine Fanny

“The bridge over the railway where the Manor Park Station was located was ideal for roller skating. The game required that you waddled up the hill like a person wearing skis and then come whizzing down, turning the corner at the bottom or else you would shoot off the curb and into the road, possibly into the path of oncoming vehicles - potentially dangerous. In the painting there are only two of us whereas usually there were many more, even 5 or 6.

The first house round the corner, with its hinged gate and gravel path, led to the door of Fire Engine Fanny, so named for her bright red nose. At night, usually frosty and cold, we would silently (except for suppressed giggles) unlatch the gate and shuffle with our skates on to the front door...then we would bang loudly on her door, yell insults through her letter box and flee.

In the painting the coalman's dray horse is coming over the crest with his sacks of coal. But on the way up the other side the horses would often slip slide and stumble to their knees. Their steel shoes on the cobbles would throw up comet-like showers of sparks. I was fascinated when these horses would urinate, a torrent of steaming splashing yellow pee. And I would watch when they lifted their tails to deposit mounds of steaming straw-filled poop on the road. The sparrows loved it. I have left some of it on the road in the picture!”

Cheder

“Carlisle Street was a very ordinary street, gray with rowhouses on both sides. About two hundred yards down on the south side was the synagogue. The rabbi, actually a chazen, was Mr. Miller. The front cement yard was quite small and on religious holidays it was packed with men taking a breather. It was enclosed by 6 foot walls except for the entrance. Then came the huge double wooden doors and once inside it was suddenly dark till ones eyes adjusted.

There was a room off to the side with rows of desks for our cheder. The teacher, a short man with an agitated shiny bald head and a few strands of greasy hair, mustard-coloured stains down his front and smelling of stale sweat and pickled herring, would stride up and down the aisles very excited. He carried a black ruler and if he came up behind you and found you were inattentive (like having your book open at the wrong page) he would crack you across your knuckles with that ruler. I did not like him. I did not like being pent in. I played truant, cricket or soccer or street games being preferable. I missed class as often as I could but I had to attend one day each month. That was the day dad gave me 2/6 to pay for my lessons. I knew that if I did not show up that day with the money, questions would be asked, and the truth would come out.

The last time I saw the synagogue a few years ago, it was disused, locked up, derelict with barbed wire along the walls.”

Barber’s Bakery

“The bakery was a family run affair - rather "low life" types. The toy miniature loaves of Hovis, 1d (1 penny each) were my favourite. I would have it all to myself. I spent a lot of time in the back room where the ovens were, swatting numerous flies for Mr. Barber. But I stopped helping him this way when I encountered a corpse in my slice of raisin bread!

The bakery was very 2nd rate, 3rd, 4th even. Behind the shop the family of 6 or 7 lived and they bought their potatoes by the sack - I'd never seen that before or for that matter, since. One Christmas when we had all of our family and friends for dinner, dad bought a 30+lb turkey which wouldn't fit our oven but he arranged with Mr. Barber to cook it in his bread oven- along with some neighbour’s turkeys. I went with him on that cold day, to carry it home on a wooden board from the bakery...very slowly along the slippery alley and home by the back gate.”

Spare a Copper

“I go to the movies almost every Saturday afternoon. The Coronation Cinema was probably opened at the beginning of the reign of George V and Mary. For 3 pence you saw two features, assorted shorts (Pathe Gazette, a couple of gay fellows in tennis togs or evening dress, one playing the piano while the other leans languorously against it and sings daft stuff, and several animated cartoons). And there's an interval when the lights come on for a while and the theatre organ mysteriously rises from profound depths for a recital. All organists seem to be named Reginald. All for three pence. Of course, when the lights are down and the scant audience's cigarette smoke curls up through the flickering beams of the movie, I sneak down to the front sixpenny seats. I might stay on to see the movie, or part of it twice, moving to a different seat believing the usher won't catch me- he doesn't care. The biggest problem was getting into the theatre because sometimes the film was Adult rated. Kids not allowed in except accompanied by an adult. So you hung around the entrance and kept running up to people who were going in and asked them to take you in with them. It never failed. "I've got me thruppence mister...will you take me in?" “The last time I saw the Coronation it was a bingo hall.”

Eels

“The fishmonger was about 8 houses north of 484. The shop was an add-on in front of a rather singular row house. The proprietor was a very friendly man and I would go into his shop and ask him for some oil-paper which was a heavy tracing paper. The fish was wrapped in this and then the package was wrapped in newspaper. I wanted the tracing paper to trace magazine pictures which I would subsequently show to my mother, “Chops”, and claim they were original drawings. No one was fooled. But I developed many variations such as placing the drawing face down on a white piece of paper and rubbing the back to create a reverse image. And I discovered how to enlarge pictures to scale, portraits too, by drawing a grid and transferring it another piece of paper larger than the original. I loved to draw and water colour. When I stated I wanted to grow up to be an artist Leon (my brother) told me it was forbidden for Jews to make a graven image, especially a Cohen. Till my mid-teens I believed there were no Jewish artists! ”

#Jewish #History #Theatre #Yiddish #Soviet Union #Shulamith #Kafka #Prague

Yiddish theatre, Franz Kafka and art movements of the 20th century

by Charlotte Hafner, ARSP Volunteer

Yiddish theatre groups have been touring through Eastern Europe between about 1890 and 1933. However, the heightened discrimination and antisemitism in Eastern Europe at the end of the 19th and start of the 20th century, often accompanied by violent pogroms against Jewish people, made life quite difficult for many of them. Despite this, there were quite a big number of Yiddish theatre groups, especially in Poland, Hungary and what is now known as the Czech Republic. These groups mostly staged Yiddish operas, operettas and cabaret, but also did the occasional avant-garde performance, inspired mostly by techniques developed by Stanislawski and Brecht. One of the most interesting accounts of the Yiddish theatre communities in Eastern Europe that I want to highlight here comes from the Czech-born German language author Franz Kafka, who, being Jewish himself, developed a keen interest in the Prague Yiddish theatre scene around 1911, when a small Yiddish theatre Company called the Lemberg Group did a number of performances in the Café Savoy (now the Katr Restaurant on Vězeňská Street) in Prague. This group of Yiddish language actors, who, despite generally claiming that they were German, came from all over Eastern Europe and named themselves after the city of Lemberg (now Lviv, located in western Ukraine), which was very prominent for its Yiddish theatre scene at that time.

Franz Kafka (1883-1924)

Reading Kafka’s work, one can actually often notice the influence of Yiddish theatre on them with them often including very dramatic and physically expressive characters such as the father in his work “The Judgment” (German: “Das Urteil”, 1913), who acts very over-the top. There are also characters believed to be based on Yiddish theatre actors, the most prominent probably being Gregor Samsa in “The Metamorphosis” (German: “Die Verwandlung”, 1915), who was allegedly based on performances of the actor and close friend of Kafka’s Jizchak Löwy.

In his diaries Kafka writes about the Lemberg Company performing plays by Goldfaden (Shulamit & Bar Kokhba), Gordin (Der vilder mentsh) and Lateiner (Dovids fidele, Di seyder nakht) and by other Yiddish language playwrights. He also writes about his obsession with one of the actresses, Mania Tschissik, who he was fascinated by. Kafka describes her movements, the tone of her voice and her immense dedication to the company in great detail. He even describes her literally holding up pieces of a collapsing set, such was her dedication, but it remains questionable if this is really true, as Kafka had a tendency to overdramatise a bit when writing about people he admired.

Sheet music from one of Abraham, Goldfaden’s Yiddish plays, Shulamith (1881), is also part of the collection of the Jewish Museum London

Kafka also discusses the ambivalence he feels towards his Judaism after this encounter, as the Jewish culture he saw portrayed on stage was different to his own Jewish identity, but he generally gained a new love for his heritage and for the Yiddish language. Shortly after his encounter with the Lemberg Group, Kafka started studying Judaism more and even took Hebrew lessons. However, he always found his knowledge of Judaism lacking.

In 1912, Kafka even talked publicly about his love for the Yiddish language in Prague’s Jewish Town Hall, saying:

“(…) once Yiddish has taken hold of you and moved you—and Yiddish is everything, the words, the Chasidic melody, and the essential character of this Eastern European Jewish actor himself—you will have forgotten your former reserve. Then you will come to feel the true unity of Yiddish, and so strongly that it will frighten you, yet it will no longer be fear of Yiddish but of yourselves.” - Franz Kafka

The early 20th century was the Golden Age for Yiddish theatre, especially in Eastern Europe. Not only were there a big number of Yiddish-speaking artists who were finally able to create the art they wanted, they were even supported in doing so by the government.

In the Russian Empire, Czar Alexander II (1818-1881), also known as Alexander the Liberator, made the decision to legalize Yiddish press, publishing and theatre, which gave the Jewish people more freedom to creatively express themselves. Yet, in 1883, this was retracted, as part of the anti-Jewish reaction following the assassination of the Czar. Yiddish theatre was completely forbidden in all of the Russian Empire, and there were more and more pogroms against Jews in Russia which caused a huge emigration of Yiddish theatre actors, directors, playwrights and others, to countries such as England, USA, Canada, France, Bohemia and Germany.

This only changed after the Russian Revolution around 1922, which in itself was of course not the best time for the Jewish People, as during the revolution a lot of them were killed.

The establishment of the Soviet Union, however, brought with it a great artistic flowering with strong support for the Yiddish theatre. This is because after the revolution, Jews were declared a nationality in the Soviet Union, with Yiddish as their national language, meaning they now had government support for writers, artists and cultural institutions. Because of this, 20 state supported Yiddish theatres were able to open in the Soviet Union.

But why did the state suddenly support Yiddish theatre? The answer is, that theatre was seen as crucial to the revolutionary project, as it is an art form capable of reaching mass audiences, and especially working class people. Yiddish theatre in the Soviet Union was used mostly for propaganda, as all art was, but also to educate the audiences about communism and other issues deemed important by the state. Nevertheless, there were also adaptions of works by Goethe, Shakespeare, Ibsen, Tolstoi, Schiller, Hugo, Büchner and other authors deemed important. Theatre was the most popular form of Jewish activity in the Soviet Union, and especially important for small-town Jews. Because of the absence of other means to affirm their Jewishness (e.g. no means to go to Synagogue, no Rabbi, illiteracy, so no means to read Jewish texts), Yiddish theatre became almost sacred in village communities.

One of the state funded Yiddish theatres I want to highlight here is the Moscow State Yiddish Chamber Theatre, which mostly staged avant-garde expressionist plays, but also created Cubo-Futurist and Constructivist-style shows, sets and costumes. This theatre is especially interesting, as almost every part of it was designed by the Jewish artist Marc Chagall. He also designed the costumes and sets, so one can only imagine how beautiful the performances must have been. The Moscow State Yiddish Chamber Theatre, was, despite its very avant-garde approach to staging plays, which could put the average theatre-goer off a bit, immensely popular with Jews and non-Jews alike. Even if people did not know what was being said onstage because they didn’t speak Yiddish, the visual experience and the expertly done music and choreography was still entertaining to watch.

Yiddish theatre declined in the Soviet Union during and after WW II, mostly due to Stalin’s antisemitism and sympathies for Hitler, but also because of the authority’s dislike of Zionism and Modernism at that time. The various Yiddish theatres had to adjust to Socialist Realism as the new state aesthetic, and while they complied with that, the messages of their plays were often implicitly critical of the government, which of course the Yiddish speaking audience understood. Due to this audiences were afraid to attend performances of Yiddish plays, so to not enrage Stalin. In 1949 then, the last Yiddish theatre closed down, and in 1952 Stalin “purged” the Soviet Union of its remaining Yiddish artists, murdering thirteen of the most important ones on the so-called “Night of Murdered Poets”. Finally, in 1953, a mysterious fire broke out in the archives of the Moscow State Yiddish Chamber Theatre, apparently an attempt to erase all evidence of the history of the Soviet Union’s Yiddish theatres. But the legacy of the Yiddish theatre lives on worldwide, as there are still companies in Tel Aviv (Yiddishspiel), Montreal (The Dora Wasserman Yiddish Theatre), New York City (National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene), Berlin (Theater Gröβenwahn), Bucharest (State Jewish Theatre), Paris (Troïm Teater) and other cities.

#jewish #jewishmuseumlondon #jewishhistory #kindertransport #nightofbrokenglass #worldwartwo #migration #kristallnacht

A Kinder Suitcase: Rescue and Refuge

By Josie Roberts, Learning Officer

To accompany the Sukkot: Seeking Shelter exhibition we have an array of exciting events alongside the wonderful sukkah installed in our Welcome Gallery. To highlight further some of the important issues surrounding migration, we are going to shed light on a number of hidden stories of migration in our permanent collection. We will add a new sign each week next to an object with a hidden story. To share these stories even further we wanted to add them to our blog. Keep up with the stories week by week.

One suitcase is all most children were able to bring onto the Kindertransport, a rescue mission that transported 10,000 unaccompanied children from Germany, Austria, and the Czech Republic to Britain between 1938 and 1939.

This suitcase belonged to 15 year old Martin Thau, who left Berlin in July 1939. His suitcase was packed by his step mother who ensured he had a change of clothes, items for prayer and writing materials, alongside family photographs.

Martin’s family, like many others in Germany decided that being separated and sending their children away was a safer option than continuing life under the rule of the Nazis. This was certainly the case following Kristallnacht (the Night of Broken Glass) on 9th November 1938. Jewish businesses had been broken into and glass smashed, synagogues were burnt to the ground and many Jewish men were arrested without reason.

After the Night of Broken Glass made international news, many groups in Britain, including World Jewish Relief and Quaker organisations, decided to take action. They petitioned to parliament and a bill was passed allowing children to travel to Britain providing they were sponsored to the amount of £50.

Although the opportunity was welcomed this extremely difficult decision to send children to people they may not have met was paired with the worry of an uncertain future. Many parents had no idea when they would see their children again. Many were never reunited after the holocaust and the children became the only survivors of their families.

Just three weeks later the first trains departed Europe. Within nine months nearly 10,000 children had been rescued. This operation wasn’t the only mission taking place. Nicolas Winton led an operation that transported 669 children from the Czech Republic to Britain in 1938.

Many of the Kinder Transport Refugees made Britain their home, whilst others settled in America, Israel and Canada.

The Sukkot: Seeking Shelter project was supported by the National Lottery through the Heritage Lottery Fund.