This film is part of Free

By Gosh It's Hot/A Day Out at Whitby

Eating, dancing in the front room, playing football in the garden, walking around Whitby, a birthday party, a wedding – just being common people, only with a Jewish twist.

Home movie 1964 31 mins Silent

From the collection of:

Logo for Yorkshire Film Archive

Overview

A typical Leeds family enjoying a 1960s trip to Whitby and typical family events, including a 1970s wedding, which are given a less typical twist in being immersed in Jewish customs. But apart from the matzah ball soup and other kosher food, the kippahs and the black hats, this is just like any other family trying to hold an early television set in horizontal hold.

This film is from a collection of family films made by Jack Goldberg who ran the Jewish grocery ‘Modern Food Store’ at 80 Street Lane, Roundhay in Leeds. Jack's mother Rebecca was born in 1888 in Vilna, and his father, Barnet, was born in Dvinsk, in 1881 (both formerly Russian Empire). His parents met in England, and had six children, Jack, the youngest born in 1923. The first generation of Jewish refugees were a close-knit community with distinctive dress and still speaking Yiddish. They were among tens of thousands fleeing the Russian pogroms and arriving in Britain between 1880 and 1905, when they were restricted by the Aliens Act – as campaigned for by the UKIP of the day, the British Brothers' League.