Collections Online

Oral history recording with Devra Applebaum 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 Liverpool in 1953 into an Orthodox Jewish family. I lived in London for about fifteen years, where I was a teacher, and met my husband, Geraint from Carmarthen. Like many Welshmen, he wanted to come home once he had children, and wanted Welsh-speaking children. We came to Carmarthen in 1992 and put our eldest of three daughters in a Welsh-speaking school. I have been a special-needs teacher in Llanelli since 1996. It was hard coming to Wales because I’d only ever lived in big cities, and Carmarthen is a small town where everybody else seemed to know everybody, and there was the language thing. I felt quite excluded until I got to a level of Welsh where I could involve myself and feel more at home. I then got a job and that made it easier. The first two years were hard because culturally Carmarthen is so different to anything I had experienced before. I learnt Welsh because I felt very concerned that I wouldn’t be able to help my daughters with their homework. It opened doors. People give you quite a lot of respect; even if your Welsh is not perfect, they respect the fact that you’re making an effort. There’s always the feeling of being different, not uncomfortably so, but an awareness of it. I always get: “Oh, Devra, she’s English, you know, but she’s learnt Welsh. And she’s Jewish!” It is unusual, I suppose. I suppose it has made me different, but I suppose marrying out has made me different. Marrying a Welshman who is strongly proud of his culture has been a challenge, but if I’d married and stayed in England, would this have been an issue? My husband has always been enormously supportive of bringing up the girls with a knowledge of their identity. We both felt that being Welsh was a big deal, but being Jewish was equally important. They needed to have the knowledge to have both. I like Reform Judaism because it does take on board you as a person, and it allows you to fit your Judaism to your beliefs; whereas Orthodox is much more prescribed, and with Geraint not being Jewish, I didn’t feel particularly comfortable with the Orthodox. I rang the Cardiff Reform Synagogue when we arrived in Wales and instantly we felt welcomed because there were other people from mixed marriages, and the fact that I wanted to be involved was enough, so I felt the extra travelling (140 miles round trip) was worth it. My middle daughter and I both taught in cheder. I don’t think the girls feel different because they’re ‘Welsh-Welsh’, i.e. they speak Welsh as their first language. They’ve all been members of the Urdd and competed in Eisteddfods, and represented Wales in the National Youth Orchestra and Choir. They’ve gone through Welsh-medium schools, and now the eldest has just got a teaching job in a Welsh-medium secondary school and sings in a Welsh choir. All of them in their bat mitzvahs did different bits of the service in Hebrew, English and Welsh and were very proud of that. I think it’s quite unique. For a lot of their friends, they’re Welsh first and Christian later, and I think my girls feel the same about Judaism. It was important for me that my daughters would have the knowledge, the experience of Judaism, to be able to make up their minds. Now they’ve got the choice. We’re all proud of having two such strong cultures and history.