“Fado Fado”, that’s how all great Irish stories start. In English it means “Long-Ago, Long-Ago”. So my story begins — Fado Fado……Last Saturday I lost my way on Wexford Street and found myself in Portobello. Now, I’m no stranger to Portobello. I’ve staggered through it in the wee hours on many occasions on my way home from Martin Slatterys in Rathmines.
Slatterys is a culchee pub. A culchee is an Irish redneck, a hayseed, a hick, a bogtrotter. You are a culchee if you live more than 30 miles from the outer edge of the fabulous M50 super highway that rings Dublin. Since I’m from Petaluma, I officially fit that definition, so I frequently drink with my culchee brethren at Martin Slatterys.
Anyway, after many a night at Slatterys, full of the goodness of Guinness, bag of chips in hand, I’ve strolled bemused and drunken through Rathmines, over the canal bridge into Portobello and on down Wexford Street to George Street in the throbbing heart of the (even more) drunken city centre.
HOWEVER, in my altered state, or because I’m addled by age, or because of the darkness, I’ve never noticed it. But today, in the full light of day, I saw it. The repugnant, sneering, sign. Obnoxious in its understatement, this little feckin four word sign threatened to make my very existence a lie, and to render me identity-less. This feckin perky little arrow had the audacity to tell everyone about the existence of …..The Irish Jewish Museum.
My heart leaped into my throat and I got that queasy, sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. “Steady now, just a museum. Antiquities, a few pictures of Bloom, nothing serious”, I said to myself, but I knew I had to go there. Like being unable to look away form a car wreck, I had to see it for myself.
I followed the sign into the heart of the cheery Dublin neighborhood. No further signs and no sign of the museum. I asked a passer-by, “never heard of it.”, “Good”, I said, “I mean, uh, thanks anyway.” I walked on and asked another passer-by. “Sure, off Victoria Street, on the Walworth Road, left two block, then right.”
3 and 4 Walworth Road didn’t look like much. Two houses side by side in a neighborhood of houses, no shops or other commercial buildings. I was relieved.
A small un-triumphal sign hung on the side of a red brick building in Hebrew and English, the Irish Tri-Color flapped in the wind over the front door. The English part of the sign read “The Irish Jewish Museum”. I gripped the doorknob hand shaking in anticipation.
It was strangely quiet and inside. A few visitors whispered to one another. No one greeted me at the door. A small sign explained that admission to the museum was free, but that donations are gladly accepted.
The building housed the original Synagogue upstairs and I took it as a good sign that it was not a “working” Synagogue.
An exhibit about famous figures from the Dublin Jewish community told about how the former president of Israel, Chaim Herzog, was born and reared in Dublin. His father was the Synagogue’s Rabbi.
I went upstairs and had a look around. Everything had been left exactly as it had been when it was a working Synagogue.
Downstairs was a massive exhibit of Bloom memorabilia, tracing most of Bloom’s whereabouts around Dublin. “Just as I thought”, I mumbled under my breath.
Just when I thought I was home free, and sure that there were no longer any Jews in Dublin, I stumbled upon the “Jewish Population in Ireland Over the Centuries” exhibit.
“The earliest reference to Jews in Ireland is in the Annals of Innisfallen in the year 1079 which records the arrival of five Jews from over the sea. These five probably came as merchants from Rouen in France.
There is little doubt that following the expulsion of the Jews from Portugal in 1496 that some arrived on the South coast. The honour of having the first Jewish Mayor in Ireland goes to the town of Youghal in Co. Cork, where a Mr. William Annyas was elected to that position in 1555.
Since then Sir Otto Yaffe was Lord Mayor of Belfast in 1899 and Mr. Robert Briscoe was Lord Mayor of Dublin in 1956 and 1961, his son Mr. Ben Briscoe was Lord Mayor in 1988, and Mr. Gerald Goldberg was Lord Mayor of Cork in 1977.
The earliest record of a Synagogue in Ireland dates from 1660 with the establishment of a prayer room in Crane Lane, opposite Dublin Castle.” “The oldest Jewish cemetery dates from the early 1700’s and is situated near Ballybough Bridge, Clontarf, Dublin 3.”
“A little too close to where I live”, I say to myself.
“Following the end of the Napoleonic Wars, there was some Jewish immigration from Central Europe, but the main influx came between 1880 and 1910 when approx. 2,000 Jews came from Eastern Europe and settled in Belfast, Cork, Derry, Drogheda, Dublin, Limerick, Lurgan, and Waterford. Only a handful of Jews came during the Nazi period and shortly after the end of World War II. The Jewish population peaked at approx. 5,500 in the late 1940’s.”
“Yes, yes, and, and………………….”
“The numbers have now declined to approx. 1,400 in southern Ireland and 400 in Northern Ireland.”
There it was, the complete and total obliteration of my identity. This horrible “Jewometer” confirmed my worst fears. I ran from the awful place, nearly in tears. I hailed a taxi and headed for the corner of O’Connell and North Earl Street.
On arriving, I threw the fare at the cabbie, and threw myself at the feet of James Joyce begging for solace.
“Give me something, James, ANYTHING, PLEASE!” I wept quietly inside for a while when all at once I felt someone staring at me. I looked up and saw a beautiful young Polish woman.
“Can you help me to find to the bus to what is Malaside Road”, she said. “Why, yes” I said, “but you mean the Malahide Road, don’t you?” “Yes, yes, is Malahide Road”, she said. “I’ll walk you to the bus stop”, I said.
“You’re not Irish, are you?”, she said. “No, American”, I said. “You’re a Jew, no?” “Yes, yes I guess I am”, I said with a sigh of irony. “I’m from San Francisco, California.”
“Oh, I would love to go someday to California, I has heard is beautiful”, she said. “Yes, quite so”, I said, a lump forming in my throat.
Then it dawned on me as if Joyce himself had answered my pleas……There were more than 1,400 Jews at my niece’s Bat Mitzvah and besides, unless Murray Rockowitz comes to visit, I’m still the only Jew in Dublin from Petaluma.
Copyright (C) 2004 – 2019 Abram Richman All Rights Reserved
The Only Other Jew In Dublin 