How shall we sing of the Lord in a strange land?

The lament of the Hebrew people in the Exile in Babylon which began in 597BC. It began the process of Diaspora that took Jews to every corner of the globe. The first recorded Jew in Edinburgh was one David Brown in 1691. Brown made an application to reside and trade in the city. The eminent Scottish-Jewish scholar David Daiches wrote in his autobiographical Two Worlds: An Edinburgh Jewish Childhood that there are grounds for stating that Scotland is the only European country that has no history of state persecution of Jews.

The Jewish section of Newington Cemetery (like the rest of the cemetery) is in a very dilapidated state. A quick bit of research, and I discovered that beneath this stone lies Maurice Isaacs. Maurice was a tailor born in 1841. He married Melanie Frank, a Frenchwoman eight years older than he, and they lived at 13 Crawford Road. They had four children - Catherine, Harry, Rose, and Frederick.

Maurice became a Justice of the Peace for Edinburgh and was President of the Edinburgh Hebrew congregation for 20 years. Maurice, died at the age of 72 on 4th January 1913. (Can't help notice that is 100 years to the day before the birth of grandson, Isaac). Maurice had been suffering from Cancer of the Colon for a period of three months.