Rosa and Maurice Solomons
Rosa (1843-1926 née Jacobs)’s family was from Hull in north England. She was the sixth child of 14 children born to Sarah Barnett and Bethel Jacobs. Bethel’s father Israel Jacobs (1773-1853) had lived in Hull since at least 1801 where they were silver/goldsmiths and watch makers with shops in Hull and Scarborough. Rosa had spent 4 years studying in France and Germany and was a pianist and published poet. According to the historian Louis Hyman, it is almost certain that Rosa was the author who published the rebuttal in the All-Ireland Review to antisemitism in Limerick in 1904. Rosa’s other activities included her involvement in the Irish Women’s Suffrage and Local Government Association in 1913.
Marilyn Taylor
Marilyn Taylor was born and educated in England, the daughter of Millie Gluckstein and Lord Fisher, a former Labour Peer and one-time president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews. A child of the war years herself, her family had evacuated from London during her early years but she remembered “the terrifying shriek of air raid sirens, my mother running with me in a buggy to the bomb shelter, and the thousands of V1 and V2 rockets that wreaked random death and destruction, striking fear in all our hearts.”
Hannah Berman
Hannah Berman first settled with her family when they arrived from Lithuania in Athlone where her father was a peddler. After a brief period in Galway, they joined other family members in Dublin where Hannah attended Donore National school in Dolphins Barn while the family lived on Dufferin Ave. At the age of twenty-six, her profession is described as “journalist fiction” in the 1911 census when her father’s occupation is furniture dealer.
Ray Rivlin
Her works include stories, poems, plays and articles for children. She undertook extensive research to outline the history of Jews in Ireland from the mid 1800’s to the present.
David Marcus
David Marcus studied law but decided not to practice in that profession and instead spent 13 years in insurance in London before returning to Ireland in 1967 when he became the literary editor for the Irish Press.