(Author: Anne Lapedus Brest, Vol. 63, #3, Chanukah 2008)
The Yodaiken family (aka. Judeikin, Jodaiken, Yudaiken, etc) has been traced back to the mid-1600s. Their original progenitor Yodaiken was Hirsh Hacohen, born 1641 in Lithuania. They were Cohanim and from Judeike, as well as places like Kalnel, Zagera, Wenden, and Voru.
The author’s great-grandfather, Avraham Menachem Mendel Yodaiken (1857–1932) and his wife, Basia (nee Lapedus, 1860-1918) moved to Ireland from Lithuania in around 1890. There were Yodaiken cousins in Dublin already, which was probably why they went there. At the time of their move, they had five children, Sam (b.1875), Paulina (b.1880), Isaac Joe (b. 1876), Myer (b. 1886), and Rosie (b. 1890). They later had a 6th child, Maurice Simon (b.1892).
“Why Ireland?” people often ask. There are many theories, probably none of them correct. Some say that the Jewish émigrés got tired of being on the boat, and got off at the first port of call. Others say that when the boat docked in Cork Harbour, and they heard ‘Cork’ being called out, our grandparents thought that they heard “New York” and disembarked. Hardly likely, but this is what we believed, as children, growing up in Dublin.
The very first Jews in Ireland are believed to have arrived in 1067. More arrived around 1200, although nobody knows where they came from. In 1492, some Spanish/Portuguese Jews ended up in Ireland to escape the Spanish Inquisition.
The first shul in Ireland dates back to around 1660 and the oldest cemetery to 1800.
In the mid 1800s through to 1890 came a large Jewish influx, mainly from Lithuania and Latvia. (There was a smattering of Jews coming in from the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Germany, but these were very much in the minority).
Although they arrived virtually penniless, the new arrivals prospered. Many were door to door peddlers, some went into the drapery business, others became tailors, traveling salesmen, butchers and bakers. From whatever little money they made, they put some towards educating their children. Thus, the next generation of Irish Jews were dental surgeons, doctors, solicitors, barristers, and opticians
One of these success stories was Robert (Bobby) Briscoe, (whose mother was a Yodaiken, related to Avraham Menachem Mendel). Briscoe participated in the struggle for freedom in Ireland, and ran guns and ammunition for the IRA (Irish Republican army) during Ireland’s War of Independence. He was also involved in the effort to create the state of Israel and helped many European Jews escape Nazi Germany and Europe. After World War II, he was elected to the Irish Parliament (the ‘Dáil’) and became the first Jewish Lord Mayor of Dublin.
Newly arrived Jewish immigrants to Ireland spoke Yiddish, read Yiddish newspapers and stuck together, reminiscing about “der Heim”. They also brought their Jewish foods with them. Dublin’s South Circular Road district was predominately a Jewish area, comparable to Johannesburg’s Doornfontein around the same time. Known as “Little Jerusalem”, it included several delicatessens and approximately six kosher butcheries, where we bought our ‘fowl’ (‘chickens’ as they call them in South Africa), vuurst (polony) and sausages. There were three large Orthodox shuls with choirs, and one Progressive temple, in addition to numerous small shtiebl-type shuls, mainly in houses.
The Irish Jews, like their South African counterparts who were also of Lithuanian stock, loved their gefilte fish, gehackter herring, pickled herring, chopped herring, Danish herring and potted herring. We sang the same tunes in shul, had the same trops for the leining and had a kiddush (‘brocha’) every Shabbat after services as our counterparts in South Africa. Then, we used the Singer siddur (today they use the Artscroll).
The Irish Jewish community was at its peak in the 1940-1960 period, numbering close on 5500 souls. Everyone knew everyone else, and Irish Jews were noted for their infamous fariebels. Today the community is closer to 1600, with 1200 in the Republic and 400 in Northern Ireland.
Avraham Menachem Mendel Yodaiken was a scrap metal merchant, operating out of a yard in Clanbrassil Street, in the South Circular Road district. An ardent Zionist, in 1912 he took himself off to the then Palestine to plough the land in Hadera (between Cesaria and Tel Aviv). He died and was buried there in October 1932.
Of the six Yodaiken siblings, four (Isaac Joe, Paulina, Myer and Maurice Simon) went off to South Africa and Rhodesia, the lands of sunshine and golden opportunity. Rosie and Sam remained behind.
Myer (1886-1954) was the first to leave Ireland, arriving in Worcester, Western Cape, in 1900. He spent some years in Southern Rhodesia, served in the South African forces during the German South West Africa campaign and afterwards returned to South Africa, marrying Rebecca Samuels on 31 July 1918. The couple lived in Worcester for a time, with Myer working in his brother-in-law, Louis Sakinofsky’s general store. They then moved to Southern Rhodesia, where Myer had a chrome mine and a transport business for moving his chrome ore and African Mines chrome ore to the rail head for loading into railway trucks. He also had a farm with around 25000 head of cattle. Unfortunately, he was all but bankrupted by a combination of the Great Depression and an outbreak of foot and mouth disease. Various other business ventures failed, including a butchery for black township residents in Lobengula Street, Bulawayo, and at one stage he had to resort to selling specially cut up old newspapers to the mines to support his family. In October 1943, Myer returned to Bulawayo where he purchased the Charter Confectionery & Cafe opposite the Palace Theatre. He also started a modestly successful wholesale stationery company.
Paulina (1880-1943) married her cousin, Louis (Lozer) Sakinofsky in Cape Town in 1906. They had three children, Robert, Jeanette and Cecile. The couple eventually settled in the Boland town of Worcester, where they opened a General Dealer shop, named Robert’s Store after their son. A “friendly service store” that offered “dependable goods of the utmost value”, it was later taken over by Robert Sakinofsky and his wife Maida and in all operated for over sixty years.
Maurice Simon (1892-1965), the youngest of the Yodaiken siblings and the only one to be born in Ireland, immigrated to South Africa in 1912, the same year his father left for Palestine. He set up a motor business first in Cape Town and then in Johannesburg (called Transvaal Motor Industries). In 1919 he married Annie (Audrey) Mallinick from Kimberley and they had one son, Ralph Emil Yodaiken.
Ralph Yodaiken’s story is a particularly interesting one. Working at night for a Revisionist newspaper he became an ardent Betarnik and was eventually admitted to the SA branch of the Irgun Zvai Leumi (National Military Organization). He was involved in the escape of five top Irgun commanders held in the British prison camp Gil Gil, Kenya, being one of five local activists to make their passports available to the escapees. (The passports were carried by Chief Rabbi Louis Rabinowitz, concealed in a loaf of bread and picked up by one of the prisoners; the latter turned out to be a relative – also named Yodaiken – whom Ralph had never met).
In 1947, Ralph worked with Jewish DPs from the East European concentration camps who had walked across the Alps to reach Italy. He then made his way to Palestine and saw extensive action as a machalnik during the 1948 Israeli War of Independence, saving several men under his command. He accepted the flag of surrender for the Israelis following a battle with the Egyptians at the Faluja Gap.
After the war, Ralph returned to South Africa to pursue his life-long ambition to study medicine. He married Naomi Baumslag (also to become a professor), and the couple had three children. In 1963, he took up a position as Professor of Pathology at Emory Medical School in Atlanta, Georgia. He later became the Director of Occupational Medicine in the US Department of Labour, remaining in that position until his retirement. He and Naomi now live Bethesda, Maryland, USA.
Isaac Joe (1876-1951) settled in Johannesburg in 1911, living in the city for the remainder of his life. He left his wife, Sarah (Freedman) ex Limerick, Ireland, two of his surviving children, Clarrice Jeanette Rostovsky, and Florence Klein. (His son Lionel Trevor died in 1944 in Normandy, France, during World War II).
Of the two Yodaiken siblings who remained in Ireland, Sam (1874-1931) was variously a rubber merchant, bought components of warehouses’ “about to be demolished” cars and scrap metal dealer. He was married to Rosa Weiner and they had four children, Aubrey, Reneé, Marjorie Jeanette and Leslie.
Rosie Yodaiken (1890-1960) married her cousin, Simon Lapedus, in Dublin in 1908. They had three surviving children, Lionel, Bethel and Stanley (two other children, Mabel and Cedric, died in infancy). Stanley married Julie Marcus in Dublin in 1920. The latter, along with her two children, Robert Eric Lapedus and Anne (Lapedus) Brest – the writer of this article – today live in Sandton, South Africa.
Anne (Lapedus) Brest was born in Dublin, Ireland, immigrating to South Africa in 1961. She is a professional photographer, and has been involved in genealogy and family history research for over ten years, also on a professional basis. She runs a Jewish Irish Group for Irish Jews on the Internet called “Shalom Ireland”.
