Casgliadau Arlein
Amgueddfa Cymru
Chwilio Uwch
Recordiad sain / Audio recording: Rachael Barnett
Oral history recording with Rachael Barnett 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 1936 in Newhaven, Sussex. My father was a Zionist, and in 1939 we went to Palestine and settled in Jerusalem. My father was in the Forces and later had a clerical job, and my mother worked as an announcer in the Palestine Broadcasting Service. I went to an English school and never learned Hebrew. I hated that school and felt like a complete outsider. There was an awful lot happening because people were being killed, which I only heard about. My mother’s work headquarters were in the town, so very often you’d have blood on the streets where fights had gone on. One time, when I was nine, I was due to meet my mother in town. I was cleaning my shoes on the terrace of our house and saw the King David Hotel being blown up. My mother was able to ring and say, “Don’t come to town, it’s too dangerous.” We left Palestine when I was ten, and I remember having a birthday party on the ship back. My mother, whose knowledge of German was great, went as a translator and interpreter at the Nuremberg Trials in Germany, and when they finished, she got a job with the International Refugee Organisation, helping to settle displaced persons who’d been in the camps. I lived with my grandmother in Hove, and in the holidays I used to fly over to Germany and spend my holidays with my mother. My parents divorced when I was eleven, and I went to live with my father in Newport, who had since qualified as a lawyer. I met my husband at a bar mitzvah in Newport, and we married in 1958 at the Reform synagogue in Cardiff. I’m not particularly religious, but it’s my roots. I probably go to synagogue once a month because I receive some sort of comfort, or I know it’s where I belong. We had happy times there in the social life and I’ve made many friends. We raised three children and both of the boys had their bar mitzvahs there. I joined the Ladies Guild, and we used to meet in each other’s houses and organise things to raise money for the synagogue like the annual garden party. It’s all so different now. It’s not called the Guild; it’s a team of ladies who are younger than me, and we provide food when there’s a need for catering after the service and Passover and things like that. I also belong to Ziona, a part of the Women’s International Zionist Organization. We meet every fortnight socially, and do things like go to the cinema or have speakers on all different topics. Then we have some big event where we raise money to support women and children in Israel who are poor. But we’re a small community, and it’s getting harder and harder because you’re always asking the same people to support you, and the younger people aren’t interested in these sort of things. I did market research most of my adult life. We did surveys on products and political things, and then I did surveys to do with the Children’s Bureau and finished up interviewing doctors on their opinions. I enjoyed it, because I like meeting and talking to people. I finished when I was sixty. For the last ten years, since my husband died, I’ve done voluntary work for Victim Support and I find that very fulfilling. It’s challenging but you always realise there are people worse off than you in the world.