Just in time for the Jewish New Year I’ve received a sweet gift of poetry celebrating the story of the once vibrant Jewish community of Cork City, Ireland.
Jewtown**, a debut collection by Jewish-Irishman Simon Lewis, continues where academics leave off by offering us a fictionalised, whimsical account of the citizens’ private lives. We learn how, like other east European Jews fleeing persecution, they were duped into landing at the wrong port (Foot), initially disdained by the locals for appearing akin to aliens (The Zoo), then began to climb the economic ladder via menial labour (Creosote, Spit) sometimes having to resort even to bartering with food – and then themselves (Two Sisters).
There are nods to popular Ashkenazi Jewish dishes like cholent (Sabbath stew) and chopped herring; references to times of mourning (Shiva) and to end, a prose poem marking the death of the entire community with The Last Sabbath at South Terrace Synagogue. The closure happened only in February this year.
Lewis, the principal of a primary school in Carlow, Ireland, has taken an unusual and vivid approach to teaching the wider world about his Lithuanian Jewish roots, which he continues to explore with great charm and unflagging gusto. It is no surprise that he has already been widely published and won awards for his work.
I am perhaps the first Jewish person to review Jewtown but others – far more distinguished! - are sure to follow soon. The video clip below was recorded at the Irish Jewish Museum for its archives.
I conclude with Tashlich, a seasonal and painfully sad look at the privations endured by many immigrant Jews after they fled west to escape the persecution they had suffered elsewhere. Tashlich is a New Year ceremony in which bread is thrown symbolically on flowing waters to cast away a person’s sins.
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Tashlich
I toss breadcrumbs in the river
and pray to God for forgiveness:
for the food I stole from the houses
in empty shtetls, the lies to the soldiers
at every checkpoint all the way
to the harbour at Riga, and the evenings
where I could barely breathe,
questioning my faith, broken from the day.
This year, I thank God for a mattress
on a dirt floor, a small knob of butter
melted in mashed potato, to be able
to walk without looking behind me.
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** Jewtown is published by the Doire Press in paperback @ €12.00 ($13.65; £10.40 approx.)
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