The Isaacs: A Jewish Immigrant Family from India
Collection item used as inspiration
This photo shows the Isaac family who immigrated to Britain from India in 1957. Albert Isaac, the father, decided that the family should move to London, as he believed there was no longer a future for Jews in India. The Isaac family was part of the Indian Jewish Baghdadi Community and practiced Sephardic traditions of Judaism. Albert was an atheist, but his wife Miriam was Orthodox, so they kept an Orthodox home even though Albert did not attend synagogue. In India the Isaac’s were a fairly wealthy family. They had servants which was typical of affluent families in India at that time, the daughters attended private schools, and Albert Isaac had a good job. When the Isaac’s left India and migrated to London they were not able to take money out of India, so they came to London with very little. They had to sell nearly all of their possessions and borrow money from relatives to get the money to travel. However, they still managed to bring some things from their home country with them on their journey. They brought black pepper, stone tools for grinding spices, a sewing machine, overcoats for the English winters, and their mother’s tradition of making homemade non-alcoholic currant wine for Shabbat. The family travelled from Bombay (present day Mumbai) to Liverpool by cargo boat, a journey which lasted six weeks. After arriving in Liverpool the family travelled to the Jews’ Temporary Shelter in the East End of London. At the shelter, they lived in dormitories separated by gender, which meant that the family had to live apart from each other at the shelter. Most of the other immigrants in the Jews’ Temporary Shelter were Hungarian and Egyptian. Due to their different customs and traditions of worship, the Isaac family felt like outsiders among the other Jews at the shelter. Even the food at the Shelter was unfamiliar as the cook was Hungarian, and they had grown up eating Jewish food influenced by Arab and Indian cultures. The Isaac’s remained in the shelter for six months until they found a place to live in Stamford Hill. In London, Albert was able to continue working for the company he worked for in India, but he was forced to take a lower position than he had previously held. Miriam, who had never worked before, got a job as a seamstress. The eldest daughter Yvonne found work as a typist, and the two youngest daughters, Jeanette and Maureen, attended school.
Rowena's creative response
Rowena has used mixed media collage to reflect on the Isaac family story and how it relates to her own family’s history.
The collage uses photos from the Museum’s collection of Indian Jewish communities combined with modern photos of India. These sit alongside the artist’s niece and grandmother touching hands (representing the theme of intergeneration care), and Rowena’s in-law’s family Seder table. Fabric samples with rich colours represent Indian textile and India’s vibrant colours. An Angel with an almost mandala feel represents a connection to one’s ancestors and how past and future cultures interweave. A menorah stained glass window placed alongside a candle framed by Indian patterns represents remembrance, and the Mother/Child image here represents England being considered the Mother country vs India as the homeland.
Pink tissue paper covers the top half of the image symbolising British Empire and India often represented in pink on maps -it covers the photos to show that these are from the past and are part of ancestral memory. A label, inspired by Kindertransport labels represent journeys such as the Isaac family’s to England. 
