23 january 2012, a leben on his kepele

Wonderful evening on saturday, at the school, for a unique havdallah service that was for year threes, or first year juniors in old money. Every family, about thirty of us, had to bring in a family artefact, and preferably an old member of the family or two, and each of the children got up on stage (usually with parent) to tell the tale of the book, photo, candlestick or becher they'd brought in. We took the one thing I have from my grandfather abraham, a silver chanukiah, and told the story of how he left danzig in 1909 with his father for a new life in america, only for some dastardly captain to sail around the baltics for a couple of weeks and drop them all off in hull saying it was new york. They weren't the only ones, it transpired later in the evening. In fact, most of the stories were incredibly familiar to most of what remains a very tight-knit community. Our story had an epilogue, as once eighteen my grandfather stowed away aboard a ship that did go to america, only to be held at ellice island. His uncle got the letter two weeks later and rushed to get him in, one day after he'd been deported back to england, where he eventually got a job as a tailor in manchester, and the rest, as they say, is history; my heritage. Azoy vert dos kichel tzekrochen.