All language subtitles for Being.Jewish.in.Scotland.2022.1080p.WEBRip.x264-CBFM.[eng]

CHILDREN CHEER

You recognise me? Who am I?

CHILDREN SHOUT
Elephant! Thank you very much.

I'm Rabbi Elephant.

Who's in this costume?
Don't tell anyone!

It's a really big secret,

but it is actually Rabbi Rubin,
the one and only.

Rabbi Rubin is the Senior Rabbi
of Scotland, which means

he's right at the top there.

Moshe, you'd better go.

Well, here's the car keys.

What's a mensch, Tate?

A mensch is a decent person.
A decent person.

What do I do?

It's a difficult one.
I'm the rabbi's wife.

The rabbi's wife is
called the rebbetzin.

Some rebbetzin are quite,
you know, THE rebbetzin,

but I don't think I'm like that.

My name is Mark Cohen.

I own the only kosher deli
in Scotland.

The customer is always right.

My name is Kathleen Hagler.

I grew up in Hungary
and then I lived in Israel

and then I came to Scotland.

My name's David Simons and my
grandmother said when the tram

came to the Battlefield Rest,
the conductor would shout out,

"Jerusalem, next stop."

OK, everybody, are you
sitting comfortably?

Which you appear to be.

My name is Rabbi Pete Tobias
and I'm just back to help

this congregation find its way
into the future,

whatever that future might be.

There are people who say
that they're Jewish

in every part of Scotland.

For some, it might be culture.

For some, it might be
family history.

SINGING

What being Jewish means to me,
that's a very big question.

You probably wouldn't catch me
going to a synagogue service

unless there was a
particular reason.

We didn't want to get dressed up in
a suit

and go to synagogue on a Saturday.

We wanted to be watching
football on the telly.

I wear a kippah all the time.

I cover my hair.

This is a wig.

That's the way I've been brought up.

I don't even think about it any
more.

I am not religious, so it is
not the religion itself

that makes me Jewish.

It is...my history.

The history of my people.

For me, being Jewish
revolves around food.

Latkes, gefilte fish.

Kosher haggis, that's the perfect

fusion of being Scottish and Jewish.

So you can be Jewish and
not eat chicken soup.

The world has transformed.

I always felt this...

..almost like an umbilical cord
kind of pulling me to Judaism.

There's a kind of joke - ask
two Jews, get three opinions.

I love that because, as a nerd,
I feel like it's a culture

that really embraces nerds.

I think today in every community,
you have to be a bit more creative.

Ultimately, the outside
world is going to come inside.

If we're just this unique club
that you can only be a member

if you have particular
genetic credentials,

there's a very bleak future
for the community.

I personally take the view
if you're daft enough

to want to be Jewish,
then we'll have you!

# Light up the night with
the candles burning bright

# On the festival of light
here on Hanukkah... #

Good evening and happy Hanukkah.

Welcome to the Scottish National
Hanukkah Celebration 2021.

CHEERING

These candles that we light are
for the miracles and the wonders

performed by God.

HE SPEAKS HEBREW

Hanukkah is the Jewish Festival
of Light and we celebrate it

by lighting a special candelabrum
that we only use on this festival.

THEY SING

SHE SINGS

Well, my granny was
religious and she taught me

to read Hebrew, to read
the prayers in Hebrew,

but I couldn't understand
a single word.

I don't think my granny
understood it either.

We light it every night
for eight nights

and each night,
we add an extra candle.

And I think the fact that
it's so dark in Scotland

so early makes it extra special.

When I first came to Scotland
as a tourist in the '70s,

I fell in love with Scotland.

I fell in love with
Scottish history.

I felt that the Scots suffered
over the centuries...

..just like the Jews suffered over
the centuries and the millennia

and I felt that I may just fit in.

No way. No, you cannot.
That's cheating.

It has to be right side up.
It doesn't HAVE to be right side up.

It really doesn't.

So this is the game of dreidel
that we play on Hanukkah

and we're just playing for M&Ms.

The four letters on the dreidel
are an acronym for a phrase

"a great miracle happen",
which is a reference

to the miracle of Hanukkah.

OK, we'll play one more round.

My name is Emily Michelson.

I'm a lecturer in history
at the University of St Andrews,

and that is how we
moved to Scotland.

I'm Bill Shackman.

We have three children who are now
16, 13 and ten,

and the youngest was born
here in St Andrews.

That's not tradition! Yeah.

We knew that we were taking a risk
in leaving a Jewish community

in order to move here, erm...

..but we did. And here we are.

We're not...
All right, I get the pot.

How many do you think I could
fit in my mouth at once? 17.5.

What happens to the other half?

Right, just bung it on top
and I'll get a box, OK?

We're busy because it's Hanukkah.

Lots of people want latkes
and doughnuts.

So, latkes are like little potato
fritters, but better.

It's potato, onion, wee bit of
matzo meal, which is like flour,

a lightly shallow fried.

They are incredible.

We literally can't make
them fast enough.

The festival of Hanukkah,

it celebrates a miracle when a
bottle of oil in the temple

lasted eight days
instead of one day.

Doughnuts are fried in oil,
latkes are fried in oil.

All Jewish festivals are
surrounding food, basically.

Hello. Any latkes today?

They're being made as we speak.

How many would you like?

Eight. Eight.

Right, I need eight latkes, please.

This is ten kilos of potatoes,

12 eggs, six onions, salt, pepper
and flour.

That's all that goes into latkes.

There's no secret ingredients.

I'm Doreen Cohen and I help my son,
Mark, in his deli.

I retired from my own catering
company and I thought

I was going to be a lady of leisure,
but that didn't happen.

Oh. Come again.

Oh, right, right, sorry.

My mum and I work very well
together.

We can shout and
scream at each other

and then, by the end of the day,
you've forgotten all about it.

You know, what goes on in the shop
stays in the shop.

She's the cook.
She can make good food.

I tried to make a
chopped liver brulee -

I wanted to fuse two things
that I liked together,

a creme brulee and chopped liver -

and it was horrible.

Right, so that's another...

That's two.
Fresh latkes, literally just made.

Ta-da! That's eight. OK?

Oh, no, I meant eight packets.

Eight packets?! Uh-huh!

Right, so it's 48 latkes I need,
not eight.

MAN SINGS

I am Rabbi Moshe Rubin.

I am the Senior Rabbi of Scotland.

My pulpit position is at
Giffnock Newton Mearns Synagogue.

When I came here 33 years
ago, my own congregation

had over 1,000 members.

We don't have that today,

but what hasn't really changed in
Glasgow community is the buzz.

Glasgow's an interesting community.

It seems to punch way
above its weight.

Hello, everyone.

OTHERS GREET HIM

My senior role deals with
many other areas of work.

For instance, chaplain to
Calderwood Lodge Primary School,

which is the only Jewish
school in Scotland.

So, boys and girls,

each and every one of you
in this room are blessed

with amazing talent.

Some of you might be
brilliant at maths.

Trust me, I'm not one of them.

Calderwood Lodge is run by
East Renfrewshire Council

and it combines Jewish studies
and secular studies.

# Torah, Torah, Torah

# Torah, Torah, Torah

# Tziva lanu Moshe. #

The kippah is part of uniform.

The food that's served from
the kitchen is all kosher.

We have a lot of children
in the school who are Jewish,

but we have a lot of children
in the school from other

faiths as well.

We have Muslim children in
the school and children of no

denomination as well.

# Bim bam, bim bam, bim bam

# Bim bam, bim bam, bim bam... #

It's important that they have that
strong identity of who they are,

of their story, of their history
and the importance of community.

All this comes from
Calderwood Lodge Primary School.

There are plenty of songs that
you all know, so please join in

and sing along or, in true Glasgow
fashion, sing "lai lai lai".

LAUGHTER

I was born in America.

I left America just after my
Bar Mitzvah when I was 13 years old

and then when I was 20,
I married my wife.

So, I met my husband on
what's called the shidduch.

So, somebody who knows both families
will traditionally call up and say,

"I've got a boy for your daughter.
I've got a daughter for your son."

There's phone calls and phone calls
to friends, to rabbis, to teachers,

just so you get a picture of
what the family is like,

if the families are compatible.

And the funny thing was that
my father-in-law was speaking

to somebody before we got engaged
and said,

"Oh, I need somebody
for my son, a girl for my son,

"but not from the traditional
Hasidic families, I need somebody

"a bit more...with a bit
more worldly view."

And he said, "What you want
is one of the Cohen girls."

APPLAUSE

We're blessed with eight children.

Five are married.

Some live in America.

When we got married, we decided
to come and live in Glasgow.

Almost 33 years later,
it still feels like two years.

I always refer to my community
as a family of families.

And, yes, I'm maybe at the head
of this family

and so is my wife and my children.

You know, it's the
first family in Glasgow.

You're missing one number.

What did I get wrong?

Because you didn't times it by 100.

So it's 4%, not 1.4%.

So the two kids I've got at home,
Perele is 16 and Solly is 13.

He just had his Bar Mitzvah.

And even before lockdown,
we were home-schooling them to make

sure that specifically their
Jewish knowledge was on par

with their peers in other places.

These are the easy ones.

All you've got to do is
move the decimal point.

I teach girls who are coming
up to their Bat Chayil,

which is their 12th birthday.

We have guests Friday night,

so that's my domain
to do the cooking.

PHONE RINGS

Hello, Mark's Deli.

There's lots of places in Scotland
where there is a Jewish family.

I know that because we send
random things that they can't

get anywhere else.

If people want to eat kosher
food, they need to be able

to buy kosher food.

We don't mix milk and meat.

We have lots of dishes in
Jewish households.

You know, I have a meat set of
dishes

and I have a milk set of dishes.

And then I've got a good set
of milk dishes

and a good set of meat dishes.

So everything is kept separate.

I'm the fourth generation
of my family

to be in the kosher food business.

My great-grandparents came
to Scotland between 1900-1910,

I would think, and they all came
from either Poland or Lithuania.

You know, they found their
way to the Gorbals,

the centre of the Jewish community,

and they found help,
you know, to settle.

My great-great-aunt was
Sophie Geneen,

who had a kosher hotel and
restaurant in the Gorbals.

Very well known for feeding refugees

if they came to Glasgow,
for example.

So, following on from that, was my
great-aunt, Annie Cooper,

who had Cohen's Deli, and people
even now talk about my Auntie Annie,

you know, how they used to go in,
they'd get a wee bit of wurst

if they were a kid, just to munch on
so their mum could do the shopping

without any interruptions.

And she was basically
everyone's Auntie Annie,

whether you were
blood family or not.

So then after my
Auntie Annie was my mum.

It's in our blood.

We keep the community fed on
kosher food, basically that's it.

I'm Deborah Haase.

I'm Glasgow born and raised and
we're in Garnethill Synagogue,

which is the oldest purpose-built
synagogue in Glasgow.

I'm the honorary curator with the
Scottish Jewish Archive Centre.

Garnethill Synagogue traces
back to the oldest community,

which started down in the high
street in Glasgow about 1823.

Edinburgh a little bit earlier,
about 1816.

Dundee's coming along at that time
as well.

It's the industrialisation of
Scotland that's attracting people

into traditional areas
for trade and so on.

Just before the First World War,
we saw a big influx of Jewish people

who are fleeing from what,
essentially, was the beginning

of the collapse of the
Russian Empire,

so Latvia, Lithuania, Poland,
Belarus, Russia itself and so on,

and most of them tended to settle
at that time in the Gorbals area.

There was the Jewish bakers,

the Jewish butchers,

the Jewish grocers, everything.

People lived in the area,
they worked in the area

and there were a myriad
of synagogues.

You could call it the
Glasgow shtetl.

Couldn't recommend a good barber,
could you?

LAUGHTER

Erm...

Mine's gone out of business.

I'm Ephraim Borowski.

I'm the director of the Scottish
Council of Jewish Communities.

I'm an interesting hybrid.

My mother's family arrived
in Scotland at the beginning

of the 20th century as
refugees from Russia.

And my father was a Holocaust
survivor who arrived

just before the war, which probably
saved his life because six

of his siblings did not survive.

And then there's a third wave
between 2-3,000 people

who escaped from the Nazis and
found sanctuary in Scotland.

While a lot of people are
flowing through,

A lot of people were sticking.

I don't know if anybody
would consider me Scottish...

..but I consider myself, yes.

Well, I used to speak
five languages.

That's Hungarian,
followed by Russian,

followed by German,
followed by English,

followed by Hebrew.

But...I forgot my Russian now.

If you don't use it, you lose it.

I was born Jewish.

My grandmother, who brought me
up, was an Orthodox Jew.

She was a lovely, lovely person
and I loved her very much.

Then I lived with my aunt,

but I was the black sheep
in the family.

I wanted to learn things.

I loved education.

I loved school.

They were not interested
in all those things,

so I went to live on a kibbutz.

As a child, my granny made
all my decisions for me.

As a young adult, my aunt made
all the decisions for me.

The kibbutz then made all
the decisions for me

and I said, "When am I going
to make my own life?"

So I left the kibbutz
and I came to Scotland.

Inverness was, in the '70s,
much smaller than it is today.

It has changed now, but I grew
old here and I got used to it.

I suppose people got used to me.

Well, you wanted to see pictures.

My granny kept them.

That's the only reason I have them.

SHE CHUCKLES

That's me.

That's a small child.

Had very long hair.

Two huge plaits.

And that was my mother and my
father on their wedding day

in 1930-something.

I don't even know the date.

My father was probably
an accountant.

I don't know for sure.

I think that my mother
was a housewife.

I never knew my parents.

My father was taken into
slave labour when I was a baby.

My mother, my brother and my sister
were all killed in Auschwitz.

My father never came back.

Nobody knows where he died,
when he died or how he died

and nobody will ever know.

That's my brother and me.

The only reason I know his age
when he died was because there is

a date on the back of the picture.

I've got the pictures of my
brother, not of my sister.

She never had a picture.

My father didn't even know
he had another daughter.

I was stolen out of the
Munkacs ghetto as a toddler

and was brought up by my
maternal grandmother and my aunt.

They realised there is something
wrong. Very, very wrong.

They paid somebody, a Christian man,
and he went to try to get us out

from the ghetto.

The idea was to get my brother out.

He was nine years old by that time.

I was saved by mistake because
my brother was ill at the time,

so he couldn't go,
so he took me out instead.

And then he went back a week or
ten days later to get him out.

By that time, there was nobody left.

Have you ever heard about...
the idea of survivor's guilt?

I survived...

..but I shouldn't have survived.

It should have been my
brother who should...

..should have survived.

I don't think I can
ever forgive myself...

..for being the one who survived.

It's not that...
I don't think about it every day.

It's not my fault.

I realise it's not my fault.

Nothing is my fault.

But...

..my brother should
have survived, not me.

I'm just not a religious
person by nature,

but there is a prayer
that I say six times a year.

It's called Yizkor,
which means "remember",

and it's to remember not just
my parents, but to all the Jews

who were killed over the history.

If anybody made me Jewish,

it was Hitler that made me sure
that I remain Jewish forever.

Oh, gosh. Look at that.

That is the best.

This is challah.

SHE SPEAKS HEBREW

Challah's become a special bread for
Shabbat, to remember the manner

that we had when the Jewish people
were wandering in the desert

and on a Friday it would be a double
portion because they wouldn't be

able to go out on the
Sabbath to collect it,

so to remember that, we have
two challahs at every meal.

It is like a special
woman's mitzvah,

a special, like,
woman's commandment,

so I guess the women
in the house... Do it together.

..do it together, yeah.

Is it always women that do the
baking?

Is that... Are men allowed to?

No, there's plenty men who do it.

There's men...
men in the community who do it.

The men in our house
don't do so much baking, erm...

..but they do quality control, so...

For normal Shabbat, we do either
a four plait or a six plait.

It is quite time-consuming,

so when my older
children were little,

I didn't do it for many years.

Now you see them all grown up,
it's fabulous.

And then they come home
and become children again!

LAUGHTER

PHONE CHIMES

Oh... Speaking of which! That's her.
That'll be her, from Israel.

Hello. I haven't spoken to you since
Monday, I just realised.

"I didn't speak to
you since Monday!"

LAUGHTER

They call, like, at least
three times every day.

One sister, I think, one time,
called eight times in one day

and she was like,
"Oh, I made a new record."

I will speak to you later. Bye, Mum.
Bye!

So that was daughter
number three in Israel.

Shabbat is a special day when
everybody goes to the synagogue.

On Shabbat, you really
stop everything.

No electricity, erm...
and so that includes no phones.

And so, for 25 hours, even
in the 21st century,

you're not checking your emails

or doing this or doing that or even
cooking.

Like, you're just...just being.
Just being.

It's four o'clock now and Shabbat
starts in just about two hours.

So, because we don't cook on Shabbat
and we don't turn electricity

on and off, we need a
way to keep food warm,

so we have this lovely hotplate
and all we have to do on Shabbat

is remember to put the food
on it a couple of hours

before we want to eat.

So it will be on until
ten o'clock tonight.

And we have a massive urn
so that we can have a hot drink

without heating up the water

because even heating up the
water counts as cooking.

The Sabbath, Shabbat, has rules
about things that you should do

and rules about things that you
should not do,

and that's intended to help
you have a day of rest.

And we rest.

We rest really, really hard,
I would say.

At sunset or just before sunset,

we will light the Shabbat
candles and that is the moment

when Shabbat starts.

I tend to light them and then say...

SHE SIGHS

.."we made it."

To be perfectly honest,
I will say that when we say goodbye

to Shabbat on a Saturday night,
the first thing that happens

afterwards is that everybody
runs for their phone -

and I have to include
myself in this -

and, at the moment, we have to...

..we have to maintain
our Wordle streaks.

When we moved here,
we moved to a place that didn't

have any Jewish infrastructure.

There were no other Jewish
families, to our knowledge.

Yeah, the closest synagogue
was in Dundee. It sadly closed.

When we realised we were
here for the long term,

we very consciously started having
Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur

services here for the students.

We lived in Jerusalem,
we lived in New York City.

I miss having a Shabbat community.

I missed having a synagogue.

I miss the learning opportunities
that my kids have not had.

Our kids won't to have a community
in the way that we envisioned

and would have wanted
ideally for them.

And, unfortunately, to feel really
comfortable in a Jewish community,

it really helps to
have practical skills,

like some level of comfort
with Hebrew language,

knowing your way around
a prayer book,

knowing the festivals enough
that you don't feel intimidated

around certain practices.

And it's much harder to give
our kids that on our own.

And so I fear that they will someday
move to a place with more community,

and although they have felt
really Jewish their whole lives,

somehow they won't feel welcome
or they won't feel like they know

enough, or they won't feel like
they're similar enough to other
people.

They won't feel at home.
They won't feel at home. Yeah.

It's a big gamble and we won't
know how that pays off.

This is our heritage
and our tradition.

And it's important to us and
important to pass on. Yeah.

And we hope that they also want to
carry it on in some way.

The Jewish experience in Scotland
has changed so much in my lifetime.

I mean, when I was growing up
in the '50s,

there must have been around 15,000
or so Jewish people in Glasgow

and maybe 20 plus or
whatever across Scotland.

I mean, now we argue is there
are four or five or 6,000 Jewish

people in Scotland.

My name is David Simons
and I'm a novelist.

We're standing outside the old
Queen's Park Synagogue.

This is where I had my Bar Mitzvah,
it's where my parents were married.

And, and it's now been turned
into a block of flats.

This was a very bustling
and vibrant community,

not just during the week,
but especially the high holidays

of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.

There weren't enough seats,
I mean, and it is a big synagogue.

And so we always remember
that we used to have to lay out rows

of folding chairs to
accommodate the overspill.

And it's hard to believe now
that that is no longer the case.

I was brought
up in in Pollokshields.

My maternal grandfather
was one of the founders

of Langside Synagogue, which sadly
is now just a shell of a building.

I mean, the irony is if you took
your religion seriously,

then probably Glasgow wasn't,

it wasn't Jewish enough or religious
enough to, to be an Orthodox Jew.

And so you would move to Manchester,
you would move to Leeds

or you'd move to, you know,
more than likely to London.

Then there's a lot of intermarriage
which dissipated the community.

Many of the children grew up,

they went to London,
they went to Israel.

And the parents, you know,
once their own houses got empty,

they followed and they went
to live near their children.

Orthodox people will want
to have a synagogue within walking

distance because they don't
drive or travel on Shabbat.

And, therefore, it's inevitable
that as people move,

the synagogue that's no longer
within walking distance

gets left behind.

It's like a brick wall.

You take a little brick
out of the wall,

the whole wall threatens to crumble.

And that does affect the community.

When a shul closes here
a shul closes there,

it just leaves a mark,

it leaves a feeling
the community is shrinking.

I mean, there may still
be a significant number of Jewish

people, but their lives don't centre
around the synagogue any more.

RADIO: Monday morning.
Good morning, Scotland.

And our thought for the day
comes from Rabbi Pete Tobias

of the Glasgow Reform Synagogue.

Good morning, Gary.
Can this really be happening?

Are we really on the verge
of another war in Europe?

The war to end all wars ended
just over 100 years ago,

and yet was followed by another
just two decades later.

And once again, it would seem...

My name is Rabbi Pete Tobias.

When I first got here, people
only joined the synagogue

because they were not allowed
to join an Orthodox synagogue

because of Judaism's fairly strict
rules about Jewish status.

I'm not sure how much that's
changed, but in a traditional Jewish

world, if your mother ain't
Jewish, then you ain't.

The reform movement takes
a slightly less rigid view.

Shabbat shalom to you, Zoomers,
and Shabbat shalom

to those of you who are
here this morning.

When Reformed synagogues were first
established over 200 years ago

in Germany, initially they were
based on the idea that it's meant

to be far more inclusive.

In a reformed synagogue,
men and women sit together

as an acceptance that some,
if not all,

of what's in the Torah
was written by human beings.

HE SINGS IN HEBREW

Everybody has a kind of a different
point where they draw a line

where they decide, "Yes, I'll
do that on the Sabbath,

"even though I know I'm not
supposed to".

Reform Judaism encourages people to
make their own decisions on these
matters.

"And no fire shall be lit
in any of your settlements

"on the Sabbath day."

So once the rabbis got their hands
on, it led to a whole series

of interpretations of Sabbath ovens,

and not switching this on and
not heating that up,

suddenly became a big part of
the observance of Shabbat.

Judaism has always adapted.
Always.

I mean, if Moses turned
up in Glasgow tomorrow and he went

to an Orthodox siddur,
he wouldn't recognise any of it.

PRAYING IN HEBREW IN DISTANCE

UNTRANSLATED

Now, in Orthodox tradition,

three times a day we have
our services.

So we have morning,
afternoon and evening.

In order to be able to do
the service properly,

you have to have ten men.

We work hard to make sure
we get that and sometimes

we have a have to send out
a WhatsApp.

"We need an extra man,
extra two men."

Why do we have ten?

So, ten, the number
ten signifies community...

..and the Orthodox tradition is a
tradition of followers that we say

that what was taught in the Torah
was taught to us from Mt Sinai.

And whatever was taught,
don't change.

In an Orthodox world,

by and large,
women can only be spectators.

That is changing.

There is a very large Orthodox
feminist movement that is engaging

with Torah learning.

I was born into an
Orthodox Jewish family,

so I really don't have much choice.
I'm a Jewish person.

I just could not reconcile
this question in

the Orthodox tradition that women
play no part in the service.

And it seemed to me terribly,
you know, sort of sexist

and I didn't, I didn't like that.

THEY CHANT IN HEBREW

Part of the idea
of why we have the men

sort of in one area and the
women in another area

is so that, is not... It's just to
keep distraction to a limit, right?

You know, so it's not about one
gender being, you know,

lesser than another gender.

I believe in equality.

And yet every time I go
into an Orthodox prayer service,

I have to kind of put that aside
in order to participate.

We come from a background that says
men and women can participate

equally in leading a service...

..in reading the Torah.

BOY CHANTS IN HEBREW

You know, I think the pride
I have in my son standing

there and reading the Torah
is that he can do it.

Now, I don't know if he wants
to go into the rabbinic,

so I don't know if that's his...
Maybe he's more into music.

Might want to become a rock star.
I don't know, maybe.

CONTINUES CHANTING

My dad makes me do it, actually.

But no, it's fun.

It's good.
It's a good skill to have.

And it gives you a sense
of, of reward,

being part of a community more.

Being on the egalitarian part
of the Jewish spectrum,

for me, means being able to
contribute to my community.

My name is Ash.
I live in Dundee.

I'm a voice actor
and an illustrator.

I wasn't born into a Jewish family.

I wasn't raised Jewish.

I'm in the process
of converting to Judaism.

A few years ago, I started reaching
out to synagogues in Scotland

that I thought I
might want to visit.

I eventually found the Sukkat Shalom
community in Edinburgh.

I noticed that there were a bunch
of people with pride flags,

like badges on and things,
so I was like,

"Ah, right, this is a place
where other queer people feel safe".

And that was really, really
important to me

as a queer-trans person.

SINGING IN HEBREW

CONTINUES SINGING

I mean, I've been
in transition since 2013.

It has been a bit like a
second adolescence.

I've been kind of joking
about having a Bar Mitzvah at some

point because I never,
you know, got that,

not, not being brought
up Jewish and

not knowing I was a boy at the time.

For me, community and belonging
is really, really important

cos I didn't always have that.

I grew up in a place where
being different was not OK,

like any kind of different.

So for a queer neurodivergent kid,
it was not a healthy place for me.

So once I was in my 30s, I,
and kind of living independently,

I sort of realised that that
had been holding me back my whole

life and I didn't really
know who I was.

We're at Tentsmuir Beach.

It's a place that I've
always associated

with peacefulness and reflection.

I don't know any other Jewish people
in Dundee, so I had to do a lot

of things to do with festivals or to
do with ritual observance on my own.

So I like to come here
quite a lot now.

It can be so hard to
measure Jewishness.

My perception of it certainly is

it's kind of a sort of three-pillar
system where there's,

there's the ethnicity component,
there's the cultural component

and the religious component,
and you can have any one of them

and be Jewish.

You don't need to have all of them,
but you do need at least one.

I feel very at peace
when I'm with these people.

So it's really, um...

SNIFFLES

Sorry.

I already feel like I'm part of it.

I felt like I was part of it
from the first day I went.

So for me, this is just kind
of making it official.

My name is Elisa.
I grew up in Aberdeen.

I live in Edinburgh
and I'm a marketing executive.

May I please have two flat lights?

Course you can. Thank you.

I roast it all myself.

Hellishly strong
and devilishly good.

We'll see about that.

Judaism in Scotland is a topic
that is, by and large, completely

untouched by Scottish education.

I was the only Jewish person
in my primary school.

I was the only Jewish person
in my secondary school.

Which meant that when you know
little about something, you stick

to the stereotypes, because that's
all you tend to know.

And unfortunately, those were
strong anti-Semitic tropes.

In primary school, it manifested
mostly in physical bullying.

I wouldn't say that the kids knew
exactly what they were talking

about, but just regurgitating things
maybe their parents have said

or something they've read online.

You know, "Hitler should
have finished the job",

which was, like, as a 13-year-old,

quite nasty to hear and quite scary.

That being said,
being Jewish in Scotland,

actually I'm met more
with curiosity now,

rather than immediate up-front
anger or violence.

Up until the 1500s, coffee
was known as the Devil's Drink.

Oh, no kidding?

My God, every day's a school day.

Thank you.

My parents, whilst ethnically
Jewish, aren't practising Jews.

So as a child, I remember
researching how religious women

would wrap their hair in scarves,
much to the horror of my mother.

But I always felt this
strong connection.

So I'm beginning to delve further
and further into Judaism.

While I was at university,
being surrounded by Jews my age

was a complete revelation for me.

So I choose to practise
in a reform way.

I go on my phone on a
Friday and Saturday.

I dress in jeans during the day.

Some women feel comfortable
covering their hair,

and that's their choice.

But I don't think I will ever reach
the point of doing that myself.

However, I guess it depends
on who I marry.

If they feel particularly strongly
about, I would consider it.

I think there is a great deal
to learn from Ultra-Orthodox Jews,

which is why I do go to Chabad,

which is an Ultra-Orthodox
synagogue.

I think it is counterintuitive
that, as a young person,

I am drawn
to that kind of orthodoxy.

DIRECTOR: Arranged marriage.

Is that something you
would contemplate?

Oh, yes.

But I feel like in this day
and age, it's...

..difficult to try and explain
and to justify why

you're considering it to,
to non-Jewish people.

But, yeah, a husband would be nice.

Cut that out.

Don't leave that in.

SHE LAUGHS

LAUGHTER DROWNS OUT DIRECTOR

"Jacob Stein raised his arms
to his side as if to weigh the worth

"of what he was to say next.

"'Justice and fair play.

"'Never forget that, Avram.

"'We Jews have been
treated well here.

"'In other countries, we were
persecuted for our religion.

"'In other countries,

"'to be a Jew is to carry a death
sentence over your head.

"'And do you know why Scotland
is such a fine place for us?'

"'No, sir.'

"'There is so much hatred between
the Protestants and the Catholics,

"'and when they are not
hating each other,

"'they combine to hate the English.

"'Ha, what a wonderful
city Glasgow is.

"'No-one has any hatred left
over for us Jews.'"

All writers are writing
about themselves.

And I think for me, when I look back
now, writing the Credit Draper,

was the opportunity to write
about my Scottish-Jewish identity.

But what was interesting
for me was that I expected

there to be all kinds of conflict
when this sort of, you know,

these Jews would turn up in these
villages and Scotland and so on.

But I actually found that there was
a lot in common between Scottish

and Jewish cultures.

The violin music, there
would be the schnapps, the bran...

You know, the little the
whiskies and the brandies.

There would be social values,
I think, you know,

respect for education and social
justice, which I think are both part

of the Jewish and Scottish culture.

Growing up, for me, there was quite
a divide between my Jewish life

and my non-Jewish life.

We used to come as a family to
the synagogue here,

Queen's Park Synagogue.

And I think that walk sums
it up for me.

Here we were sort of
all dressed up with,

with these prayer shawl bags,

with a star of David on it, kind
of quite conspicuous walking,

not walk of shame, but certainly a
walk of shyness or embarrassment.

I went to a cheder, the, you know,
Jewish school, after school,

three weekdays and on the Sunday.

You know, learned Hebrew and studied
the, you know, the Talmud.

And I don't think my non-Jewish
friends really had any idea

what was going on with us
after school.

And we had our separate assemblies.

The Jewish kids were,
were siphoned off.

And of course, we had
different holidays as well

when we would be off and it
would be very conspicuous

that we were different.

Yeah, there's a definite
feeling of being alien.

Anti-Semitism is a form of racism
directed against Jewish people,

stereotyping Jews
as having particular traits.

There's a long history of conspiracy
theories about Jewish control

of the media or the banks, as well
as religious persecution, I suppose.

I grew up in Hungary where
being Jewish was a problem.

As a small child, I remember myself
actually lying about it when people

asked me because I was afraid.

I've been frightened about
being Jewish all my life,

so it didn't just change
all of a sudden.

Because people feel vulnerable,
they are less inclined to display

open signs of Jewishness.

My friend, who lived across the
road, was not Jewish

and she was a member of the local
tennis club and I wanted to join

and they would not let a
Jewish child join.

If you went through the Gorbals
or places, you would see signs,

you know, "No blacks,
no Jews, no dogs".

That's what it was.

We have moved on a lot.

In more recent times, it's much
more focused on anti-Israeli

sentiment and the way
that the Israeli government behaves

towards the Palestinians.

There are political problems
concerning Israel,

and I have the same problems
concerning Israel.

But because I'm Jewish,
the problems become my problems.

Och, that's lovely.

I'm looking at a film that was made
of my mum and dad's wedding.

They got married and
Pollokshields Synagogue

on the 22nd of March, 1949.

Four coats.

It's March the 22nd, they've all
on their fur jackets.

LAUGHS

Och, there's my dad and grandma
and grandpa.

Och, that's lovely.

Oh, that is fantastic.

It's my mum under the chuppah, so a
very traditional Jewish wedding.

But then there was also a big
working-class population

and the weddings would not
have been quite like that,

not in Pollokshields Synagogue.

They would have been in one of the
shuls in the Gorbals at this time.

Look at this line of cars.

Absolutely fantastic.

Ay, ay, ay!

Ay, ay, ay!

LAUGHS

That's a very good question.

What kind of a Jew am I?

It's my being, isn't it,

even though I'm not an actively
religious, observant person?

I still don't like the
negative bits about it.

And there are lots of negative bits
about Jewish religious life

and, and so on.

I'm the youngest of three
and we were absolutely brought up

in a Jewish-Orthodox,
Jewish environment.

When I got to university,

equal rights for women,
equal pay for women.

Women's right to choose was a very
important campaign for me.

I was quite aware that that
did not sit comfortably

with Orthodox Judaism.

It's like, in a way, I decided to
give up eating meat

and the last thing I gave up was
my mother's chicken soup.

It was quite a thing
to go home and say,

"I'm not going to eat
your chicken soup".

So you're kind of living
a parallel life in a way.

But I do like tradition.

My mum and my dad.

I tend to come before Yom Kippur,
the Day of Atonement,

and just pay my respects,
talk to them,

bring them up to date
with the news.

SHE LAUGHS

The question of the
Jewish way of death.

The tradition is, in the Orthodox,
is that it's burial

and it should happen as
quick as possible.

I mean, when my mother passed away,
she died in the morning.

We buried her in the afternoon,
which might seem shocking.

After somebody has died,

there's a period of a week
where, of shiva,

where you're in deep mourning,

and you will remember the person
who's gone and stories

and people will come and give
their condolences and so on.

And it's an incredibly nurturing
and supportive kind of period.

When it comes to the bit,

I'm, I'm a member of the
Burial Society.

I want to be buried
in that graveyard.

It's not the most pretty one
in the world, but that's the one.

Yes, I pay my dues so I'm
going to end up here.

SHE LAUGHS

We joke about all the characters.

I mean, I obviously don't know,

there are so many people
buried here.

So I kind of have this vision
of this underlife

that's going on, or upperlife,

but I think of
an underlife that's going on.

But how does one make sense
of, of death?

It's part of what happens in life.

And... But it's not, it's not easy.

I am here today to go to the mikvah,

the next stage
in my conversion process.

I always sort of gravitate
towards the really colourful ones.

I'm really excited.

This has been a two-and-a-bit-year
process of kind of actively working

towards this moment.

You can do this in a kind of have
natural free-flowing body of water.

But in Scotland that's not ideal.

I thought about going to Tentsmuir
for it and I think if I'd been doing

this in July,
that might have swung it.

But in March, no.

I think I joked once about it being
putting a Jewish coating on me.

Symbolically,
that's kind of what it's about,

is because the water has
to touch every part of you.

I mean, I think I see a lot
of parallels between my Jewish

journey and my trans journey.

They are both kind of transitions
that have taken a lot of time,

but have also been essentially
just confirming

what has always been there.

Mazel tov.
Mazel tov.

Thank you so much.

Why am I extra happy today?

Why am I extra happy?

Oh, it's...

I forgot...

THEY SING

Do I consider myself
Jewish and Scottish?

Yeah.

That is the Jewish story
of being everywhere and anywhere.

There's no conflict...
Exactly, yeah.

..being Scottish and
Jewish, that's absolutely fine.

The beauty of being Jewish is that
you could be Jewish anywhere.

Growing up, I lived in a tenement
in Pollokshields and we were only

half a block away from a
kosher grocer.

There were Hebrew classes after
school in the local state school.

So in that sense, we felt at home.

You know, I think Scotland
is pretty welcoming.

We were exactly the same.

Don't forget that. We were asylum
seekers and economic migrants.

That's who we were.

Being Jewish means
being part of a conversation

that goes on over centuries.

This is a tradition that is 3,000
years old and we carry with us

all of that evolution.

Well, hopefully, while there's a
community in Glasgow,

there will always be a
kosher deli.

No two ladies buy the same chicken
stock for making their chicken soup,

and they'll make the best
chicken soup as well.

There is a very particular kind
of Jewish humour,

finding things to laugh about when
things are really dark.

And I can very much see why that's
a really important part

of the Jewish character.

I'm immensely glad that my family
washed up into Glasgow

and allowed us to
have peaceful lives.

I was a happy child
and I'm a happy adult

and I'm a happy old person.

I'm very lucky.

I'm slowly learning about where my
boundaries are with the religion,

but I bake really good bread,

so maybe that will be
my redeeming factor.

SHE LAUGHS

INDISTINCT

My sisters always come here
and when they eat the challah

that my mum makes, they just give,
like, the sigh of, like,

ah, it's like it's home.

It tastes like home,
it tastes like our home.

MAN SINGS IN HEBREW