Casgliadau Arlein

Oral history recording with Colin Heyman collected as part of The Hineni Project, an insight into the life and stories of a Jewish community in all its diversity. Hineni was a collaborative project between Cardiff Reform Synagogue and Butetown History & Arts Centre.

I was born in 1956, and brought up on the outskirts of London. I was a very quiet boy. I didn’t feel understood, particularly, but I felt very loved. I suppose, looking back, that the big event in my youth was that my mother had cancer and died when I was fourteen. It was a very difficult time, especially because negative emotions like unhappiness weren’t talked about in my family. I went to Bristol University. University was a real coming out process for me, mainly because I started going on walking holidays in Wales and hitchhiking here and further afield. My travels were as much internal journeys as external ones, and this is when I started my love affair with Wales. In 1980 I moved to Cardiff and began working in computing for BT. It was soon discovered that my kidneys were damaged and I had to go on dialysis in October 1982. I was much more solitary than I am now and very isolated. I think of these as my wilderness years. I got the first of my two transplants in ’84, which was the beginning of my life expanding again. I joined the local group of Amnesty International and became chair. Through human-rights work I met my partner, Loli, who’s Brazilian. We’ve been together twenty-two years, which is pretty amazing. We haven’t got children, but nephews, nieces, godchildren and children of friends whose lives we’ve been very involved in. In 1986 I began training in co-counselling, which got me interested in switching to a training and facilitation role. I left BT in 1994 and now work with organisations, working with people on leadership and diversity, helping them to change how they do things. I love my work. I feel really lucky in that I found something I think I’m skilled at and was meant to do. It was running a Jewish support group that got me back into Judaism. Although I was brought up as a Jew, I come from an assimilationist background; my family were very clear that they were English before they were Jewish, and I didn’t know much. After I joined Cardiff Reform Synagogue I felt I couldn’t go to synagogue because I didn’t know what to do when I got there. Eventually Loli, the non-Jew, said, “I’ll come with you.” I was very lucky because Elaina Rothman was the perfect rabbi for me to come back to. I wanted to learn more so I went to the conversion class and then read Torah for the first time. I gradually became more involved and started going to synagogue regularly and taking services. I joined council and was chair from 2008-2010. I wanted to develop the synagogue and started a number of new initiatives, including this oral history project. I also prepare children for their bar/bat mitzvah, which is a real privilege, teach the conversion class, and a class for peripheral people similar to me when I first started. I’m fairly agnostic about God, but the thing for me around Judaism is connecting with my tradition. Being Jewish is part of who I am. Hill walking is also a passion in my life. The hills are a constant source of wonderful memories. I feel at home amongst the hills. When I started hillwalking, I didn’t know how to map read or use a compass or anything but I learnt. Hill walking has been such an achievement for me because I come from a very impractical family and it was something I’d chosen for myself and taught myself. Judaism, Loli, the hills – these are the things I’m most proud of and the things I love most.