`THEY THOUGHT IT WAS NEW YORK' AN EXAMINATION OF THE HISTORIOGRAPHY AND REPRESENTATIONS OF THE CORK JEWISH COMMUNITY

Abstract

This thesis examines the communal narrative of the Cork Jewish community. It is a narrative based on accidental arrival to Cork following escape from persecution in Russia. In order to undertake this study, it has been necessary to analyse the existing historiography of Cork Jewry. There are significant gaps in the secondary sources and the importance of certain primary sources remain undervalued and absent. Consequently, the dominant communal narrative of the Cork Jewish community is one that has been predicated on a reductive, limited understanding of the historical contexts in which this original migration took place. No analysis of the narrative of the Cork community can be undertaken without first studying the Russian Empire, the patterns and processes of migration as well as the reception of the immigrants in Great Britain. The reliance on the erroneous memories and anecdotes of a small number of `dignitaries? from the community renders the earlier generations of the Cork Jewish community as passive rather than people who had actively made a decision to leave to better their lives. This dependence has also led to a very narrow, at times, stereotypical image of the community being propagated. The interviews with former members of the Cork Jewish community and their neighbours enable the inclusion of previously unheard voices of Cork Jewry in the reconstruction of the identity of the community. By re-examining all the secondary sources and including previously ignored primary sources, a more multi-dimensional, inclusive history of the Cork Jewish community can be written. The Cork Jewish community may have been a small, peripheral community; however, this study shows that it never existed in isolation. From its inception to its decline, it maintained continuous links with not only other Irish-Jewish communities but also with larger Anglo- Jewish communities. While the Cork Jewish community may not be an entirely typical or unique Jewish community, a study, however, of a small Jewish community like Cork allows us to better understand not only Irish Jewry, but also Anglo and European Jewry.