Take a look at a virtual walk through the Jewish heritage and history in Cork, Ireland, a city whose only remaining synagogue was closed in 2016 due to the dwindling number of Jews.
The Walk, and its web page is a project by the performance artist Ruti Lachs, who is active in the Munster Jewish Community, a “broad mix of Jews living, working, studying or visiting Munster, the South-West corner of Ireland,” that was formed after the closure of the Cork Synagogue. It describes itself as “an eclectic and inclusive mix of all Jews living, or staying in the Munster area, and wishing to take part in Jewish events/festivals.”
The Virtual Walk came about as “a follow-on from research for the 2020 musical play, Green Feather Boa, set in the Cork Jewish Community a hundred years earlier.” Both projects were supported by Cork City Council.
The virtual tour is presented by Lachs and Marnina Winkler, a PhD candidate and local Jewish historian, and it also includes interviews, stories, and music.
Though accessible as a video on YouTube — the Tour anchors a web page that provides links to further reading and other resources.
The Jewish community was founded mainly in the late 19th century by immigrants from Lithuania who may or may not have actually been heading for New York.
Gerald Goldberg, the son of immigrants, was born in Cork in 1912 and served as the city’s Lord Mayor in 1977-78. (He was also a president of the synagogue.)
In 2017, a year after the synagogue closure, the Cork Public Museum opened an ongoing permanent exhibition on local Jewish history called “The Tsar, the Rosehills and the Music Shop.”
