Social History: Jewish Dublin: Portraits of Life by the Liffey By Asher Benson A & A Farmar, 114 pp. €14.99Sometimes, driving along the modern thoroughfare, I remember Sunday morning shopping with my grandmother - my brother claims he was 10 or 12 years old before he realised its real name wasn't Clanbrassilstrasse!
The shops would be animated, full of stories, jokes, teasing; we three children would be handed down over the counter slices of salami or buns to sample. It was a friendly, more leisurely style of shopping, reminiscent, perhaps, of bygone days.
My grandmother was born Claire Glassman, the daughter of Jewish emigrants from Kishinev and grew up in New York, where she met and married my Irish (Jewish) grandfather, Alec Wine, returning with him to Ireland in 1930 .
Entering those Clanbrassil Street shops she would be welcomed, consulted, told the latest news and would ask in turn after this or that relative of whomsoever we met. The street was run down by then, only a few Jewish shops remaining. She would tell us how different it was to the bustling place she knew when she first came to Ireland. Now it is entirely gone.
Asher Benson, who died a year ago, gathered images and accounts of the people who made up the Jewish Dublin he knew, and this book was completed by his friends after his death.
Born in the East End of London, the only son of Polish immigrants, he settled in Ireland after the second World War, during which he served in the British Army. Irish correspondent of the Jewish Chronicle for almost two decades, he presented Ireland to a wider Jewish world. He was also a founder of the Irish Jewish Museum in Walworth Road in Dublin.
THIS BOOK IS a rather idiosyncratic collection of glimpses of Jewish life, mainly focusing on the families who made up the community.
There are also short articles on specific topics: "Michael Davitt and the Jews, 1870s-1906" and "The 'Jewish Union' 1908-1948", contributed by Manus O'Riordan, Head of Research at Siptu and author of studies of several aspects of Jewish history; and a piece entitled "From humble beginnings, 1860s-1870s", by Cormac Ó Gráda, whose book, Jewish Ireland in the Age of Joyce: a Socioeconomic History, is the most systematic analysis of Irish-Jewish history to date.
Lynn Jackson, founder of the Holocaust Educational Trust of Ireland, discusses "Commemorating the Holocaust in Ireland, 1995-Present" and the conductor Colman Pearce contributed his "Reminiscences of Little Jerusalem, 1940s-1950s".
An attractive feature of the book is the illustrations, which will bring back memories to anyone who ever shared any experiences of the Jewish community in Dublin. My own favourites are the self-portrait by Estella Solomons reflecting the independence and intelligence of this remarkable artist; and the photograph by Amelia Stein taken from her exhibition Solomon's Children, showing an Ethiopian Jewish small child refugee, staring implacably at the viewer with a slightly worried expression, while his grandmother, in whose arms he is held, turns to look over her shoulder, with a half-smile.
The cover is of a photograph , also by Stein ,of the late Gerald Davis, in suit and bowler, acting the part of Leopold Bloom in Joyce's Ulysses. There is an image of the Irish-Jewish boxer, Daniel Mendoza, who gave boxing exhibitions in Dublin in 1789, and a few photographs of Dublin streets and individuals dating from the early 20th century. The majority, however, are from the 1950s to the present.
There is no hint of dissension in this nostalgic view of Dublin Jewish life. Accounts focus on individuals and families and their lives and contributions within the community. References are made frequently to people's commitments to the Zionist cause, as if this was a unanimous view, although there are some, albeit a minority, of Jewish Dubliners who are not Zionists.
What is especially striking is that for such a small population (Benson cites a peak figure of 3,907 for 1946) the Jewish community has made a mark in a whole variety of spheres: in medicine, the law, the arts, business, sport, entertainment and academic life, Ireland is the richer for its Jewish community. This is to some extent an old man's book - lovingly detailing his adopted community , and yes, it is at times rose-tinted. But it provides glimpses of one, now almost vanished, aspect of Dublin's history.
Carla King teaches history at St Patrick's College, Drumcondra, in Dublin