REFUGEES: We Irish Jews

From ancient Scythia, by way of Egypt,Crete and Spain, came the persecuted, wandering children of Gaodhal Glas in search of the Isle of Destiny. "I pray," sang their Gaelic bard Amergin, "that they reach the land of Eirinn, those who are riding upon the great, productive vast sea; that they be distributed upon her plains, her mountains and her valleys."

So, says the legend, came the Gaels to Ireland, long, long ago. Last week another set of persecuted wanderers was finding sanctuary by the Irish Sea. Some of them vaguely remembered luxurious homes in Vienna, Berlin or Warsaw. Some remembered more vividly the sight of parents being dragged off to gas chambers. All had been hauled wearily across warring Europe. When London's Central Jewish Refugee Committee rescued them at last in Prague, the 49 orphan children were like so many mute, shriveled old men & women.

Last week, on a trim, whitewashed farm some 15 miles from Belfast on the shores of County Down, the 49 were laughing and shouting again, playing ping-pong and tennis, swimming, milking cows and feeding chickens. Some tended vegetable gardens, taking particular care of the garlic crop. Others, exhausted from play, lay red-cheeked and panting in the shade of verónica shrubs.

In 1939, with the help of other Jews in Belfast and Dublin, Leo Scop, a silver-haired, Russian-born Belfast Jew, had wangled an abandoned farm site, set his first colonists to clearing it of overgrown sycamore and beech, built barns and kitchens, poultry runs and hutments.

"In the .mercy of Providence," says Leo Scop, "we Irish Jews have been spared the travail of our brethren in Europe. Proudly and in all humility we accept the charge which has been laid on us."

The name of his project is Forgetfulness Farm.