I am Giles, son of Anthony, son of Harold, son of Louis, son of Mark, son of Morris, son of Jacob, son of Judah, son of David. All English Jews stretching back to the early 18th century. All Jews, that is, except for me.
That is my father’s family. My mother’s was comically different. “As goy as it gets,” a friend once remarked. Seeking to escape a dysfunctional and claustrophobic working-class home in rural Leicestershire, she dreamed of another life. Running away to become a nurse, she imagined something more exotic, well-travelled, urban. And her name for that became “Jewish”.
She had no idea what that really meant, of course. But when she met my father’s mother in her Golders Green flat, she marvelled that they said “darling” all the time and had carpet in the loo. This is what she wanted. But by then my father was already in full flight from his Jewishness. When Nazi bombs fell on London, he was evacuated to a small Christian prep school in Devon where they wore little pale blue crosses on their caps. The war stole his history. And we never spoke about it.
This was the joke of my family background: I have a non-Jewish mother who pretended she was, and a Jewish father who pretended he wasn’t.
It is nearly a decade now since all this buried history unexpectedly caught up with me. I had just resigned from St Pauls following the Cathedral’s decision to evict the Occupy movement from the cathedral precincts. And I was in search of a new job.
I had landed an interview in Liverpool, and having a bit of time to spare beforehand, I went to check out the synagogue that was just along the road from the Cathedral. I understood there was some distant family connection. Chancing my luck, I banged on the door, and was welcomed in by the caretaker.
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