Book Review: Anti-semitism was part and parcel of life for young Corkman Lionel Cohen in the 1920s

• Memoirs of an Irish Jew
• Lionel Cohen 
• Cork City Libraries, €15 

This lively account of a Cork Jew's life and times is an interesting social history that is class conscious with the author, Lionel Cohen, describing his family as being on "the verge of the working class." 

He notes that it was "the grander class" of Cork society that was more anti-Semitic than the working class as the lower orders were too busy getting on with their lives to indulge in discriminatory attitudes. Not that this is a book about anti-Semitism "though it was part and parcel of life in my boyhood."

Cohen was born in 1922, descending from Russian Jews. His father and uncle David were partners in a small clothing factory on Academy Street. The family lived in Maylor Street. At the time, there were about 300 Jews in Cork. Cohen's mother tried to keep a Kosher house but not as strictly as other families.

The family of four ended up in Marble Hall on the Ballinlough Road. Cohen attended Presentation Brothers College but had no interest in his studies. 

He left school at 16 and went on to serve in the Irish Army, the British Merchant Navy, the Israeli Army and the fledgling Israeli Merchant Navy. He was made chief radio officer of the Kedmeh, the first Israeli passenger liner, having trained as a radio operator in Cork.

However, events put a stop to Cohen's gallop. Having earlier started an apprenticeship as a cutter in the family tailoring business (which he hated), Cohen was implored to go back there to work in the business when his uncle died. Cohen decided to give Cork six months and if he couldn't take it, he would go back to sea.

The four walls at work "drove me mad." To make matters worse, Cohen had to refuse the offer from the Israeli government of the post of chief of the first Israeli coastal station. It was an honour to be asked. 

Perhaps it's no great surprise then that this frustrated man drank too much at this time. (He was also smoking 60 cigarettes a day.) 

"I was not an alcoholic but I had slipped into the habit of drinking, even in business. For example, when we used to go to the woolen mills to place the spring order for cloth, there was sure to be a drinking session at some pub or other."

Cohen was on the verge of telling his father that he had enough of the business and was going back to sea, but "a pretty girl" got a job as a secretary at the firm. Cohen married May "after a stormy courtship" - not helped by the fact that she was a Catholic. 

Not for the first time, Cohen's mother found her son's life choices hard to take. Permission had to be sought from Bishop Lucey to allow the marriage take place. Any children born into it would be raised as Catholics. Cohen and his wife moved to Rosebank in Douglas and went on to have one child, Yvonne, called after Cohen's only sibling.

in 1969, Cohen's father died. Cohen contracted TB and spent about six months at Sarsfield's Court sanatorium. 

When he recovered and returned to work, Cohen discovered that the business was in poor shape, in debt to both suppliers and the bank. Cheaper imports were killing the business. Cohen closed it down and paid all the creditors.

The last and happy chapter in Cohen's life saw him working at Lota residential school for boys with an intellectual disability. He gained a qualification in residential childcare and did a lot of work to get childcare formally recognised. Lionel Cohen died in 2000, having left a detailed record of an eventful life.