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w h a T ’ S n E w LetterS


jews of iNDiA Your feature on Indian Jewry (JR July 2011) recalls our visit to Poona, or Pune as it now is, in the 1990s. Seeing reference to a grand synagogue in an Indian tourist brochure, we decided to see it.Aletter to the community there advised us to get to shul at 7am. There we found a small group of some 20men and women praying... froman ancientWest London Synagogue siddur. The synagogue is a huge and elegant


red-brick edifice known to locals as the Lal Deval or Red Temple. It was between Sukkot and Simchat


Torah, so we returned that evening and sat in the sukkah, withmembers dressed both in local andWestern style. The President arrived via one of those phut-phut rickshaws and asked to our amazement, “Do you know Rabbi Hugo Gryn?” “Yes,” I replied, “but how do you?” It transpired that in the 1950s he and his wife Jackie hadministered in India (1957-1960 at the Liberal Synagogue of Bombay, founded by LilyMontagu, which is still functioning), where they were still held in something approaching awe. On returning to London I passed this on


to Hugo who toldme of the origin of the shul. The Sassoons used to go ‘up country’ to Poona to escape the summer heat. He found the few Jews davening in straitened circumstances, bought some land, employed a local architect and instructed himto “build these people a synagogue like that big cathedral over there.” Visitors to India should not omit Pune


fromtheir schedule. The tiny community will welcome themwith open arms. BARRy hyMAN


Ed: The JR tour to India did indeed visit Pune synagogue. The congregation is now evenmore diminished and security extremely tight due to a bomb attack on theGerman Bakery in February 2010 which is suspected to have beenmeant for the nearby Chabad House, popular with young Israelis attending the nearbyOsho Ashram. It is important to write ahead about your visit.


wARtiMeMeMoRies Rarely have I seen a magazine so devotedly picked up as were the copies in the foyer of the NorthWest Surrey Synagogue inWeybridge. They were there one moment and taken away by readers the next. It is indeed a big compliment to your excellent journal.


It was the article on Jews in Nazi


Germany (Jews ofMunich, January 2009) that impressedme and brought back a few distantmemories that I will never ever forget. In 1938, against all well-meaning advice,my lateMother tookme to see her family in the Polish town of Radzyn Podlaski.We had to cross Germany and there for the first time I saw soldiers on the low-lying continental platforms with Alsatian dogs and people beingmarched off the long train that had just come from Ostend and was heading toWarsaw. The cobbled streetswere covered in rain


and I sawsigns on shop doorways that I could not understand then. I remember soldiers goose-steppingwith their rifles and lots ofNazi swastika flags flyingwhilst the station announcement reminded us passengers thatwewere inGermany. If that was not enough, it was on the


return journey that I really knew all about it. MyMother was dragged fromthe compartment, I was debagged to see if I was a circumcised Jewish boy, our belongings scattered all over the carriage, whileMum wasmarched away. I next heard her screaming and wanted to go to her butmy way was well barred by a soldier. I saw her again leaving the place where


she was taken, her dress torn, her face covered in blood. It was not a bit likemy Mother at all. She was then put back on the train and as we started to at last gather our things together a Nazi guard came into the carriage, threw our British passport at her and said in a loud voice, “Juden out, das ist der Fuhrers Deutschland”. For the rest of the journey we had the blind down until a Germanman entered and told us that if we got off at the next station he would see that we would be cleaned up, but told us that he hadmany friends in Oxford and that Hitler was doing the right thing for Germany! We were questioned again as we


crossed the Belgian border but in a lighter way for they were only interested in the Jews we knew and if there were any ‘Blacks’ living in our town. I told themall I knew was there was a local cinema andmy school in Kings Road, Chingford. It was in Brussels that we found a


sympathetic chemist who cleaned us up and was sadly aware of what was going on in Hitler’s Germany.


joeMMARKs


Letters to the editor are welcome. Please send to: editor@jewishrenaissance.org.uk (preferred) or by post to Po Box 28849, London, sw13 0wA.


DAViDweitzMAN is a retired professor of biochemistry


Some of our contributors


MoNiCABohM-DUCheN is a London-based freelance art historian with a special interest in issues of jewish identity in modern art.


MiChAeL BReNNeR is Professor of jewish history and Culture at the University of Munich. he is the international Vice- President of the Leo Baeck institute.


AGi eRDos is Deputy editor of jewish Renaissance. she also works in an editorial capacity for the Littman Library and for louisjacobs.org


jUDi heRMAN is a writer and broadcaster, specialising in the arts and religious affairs, mainly for BBC Radio 4 and the world service. she has also written several stage shows.


sUsAN KiKoLeR is hon. Director of the British- italian society. A writer and public speaker, she is a Commendatore for services to italian Culture.


GALit MANA is an independent art curator and writer specialising in contemporarty art.


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jewish ReNAissANCe oCtoBeR 2011


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