We welcome local poet Sally Michaelson this week on the Secret Library Leeds, who offers some poignant poetry about the Jewish community of Leeds and the Leylands area of the city centre. We are publishing these poems as part of Local and Community History Month.

We hope you enjoy these poems. You can find out much more about the history of the Jewish community in Leeds through our other Secret Library Leeds articles, or by using our Research Guide.

Seven Days in Steerage

Eiderdowns in our knapsacks
turn us into hunchbacks

as we tramp up the gangplank
sneezing at stray feathers –

boiled potatoes from our pot
roll across the deck floor

the Corvodaro like a stiff bear
stalking the Atlantic

When the ship’s horn sounds
we’re first on the bridge

to spot the Lady of Liberty
hidden in fog

on what’s left of our sea legs
we stumble ashore

The Captain has tricked us
this is Hull with seagulls!

Jimmy

loads our heavy peckels
onto a three-legged cart
signals us to follow

collides with a tree
fights it like a champ
ramrod fists up

swears in fluent Yiddish
and his own Irish
(that putz of a tree!)

slugs from a hip flask
lurches through alleys
smitten with smog

where urchins crouch
waiting for luck to turn up
a lost coin or a fag-end

where scraggy chicken
oozes from brickwork
of Cohen’s kosher butcher

steadying battle-worn ankles
Jimmy tips our peckels
onto the muddy pavement

Brukhim Ha Ba’im
du Bist Angekumen
in der Leylands

Note: The Leylands is an area of Leeds where Jews immigrated from Eastern Europe from the 1880’s onwards.

Friday Night on Cutter Street

Six Michaelsons downstairs
Four Lusigers upstairs
get to work on the kitchen —

Joel’s scissors oiled and bagged
his calico apron sprigged
with tufts of his customers’ beards

exiled to the broom cupboard
Minnie’s spools and needles
spirited away under chalked twill –

two challot and shabbos candles
in pride of place on the table,
all huddle up, there’s space for ten

No Jews Allowed
Nu, Jimmy, could I pass for a goy?

With those blue eyes
I think you could…..

shave off that beard now!
borrow my flat cap

drink a beer in the morning
the odds’ll be good…

a line of lads outside Barran & Sons
waiting for the boss to choose

No Jews on the premises!
Piecework at home only!

Long Shot

Give me a band knife
I’ll cut you thirty lengths

says Chaim to Barran
outside the factory gate

Hasn’t seen a band knife
but Jimmy has told him

its taste for devouring
workers’ fingers and thumbs

Thirty lengths x one Jew
equals a sea of Sailor Suits

Lunchbreak

Chaim tames the blade knife
to slice flannel instead of flesh

but now it’s the Tailor’s Union Rep
who cuts him to the quick

while the workers eat their pies
in less than ten minutes

he shines a few bright lights
in Glaswegian-tinted Yiddish

Hebrew School

Joel sits at a low bench
in a dank dark room

The Cheder master stalks
up and down the rows

caning boys’ fingers
cuffing their ears

Repeat after me
KELEV a DOG
KELEV a DOG

KELEV a DOG
until they see stars