Played out Whitechapel
With tailor’s needle-and-thread, with awl and with shoe-thread.
They ‘jobber-ed’ themselves together here in these streets,
Twelve in a house, six in a flea-ridden bed
As, in the tiny corner shops, herring lie in their barrels.
All week they’d hungered in their factories –
So that their Sabbath table might be plentiful.
The thousand and one villages take their Sabbath walk –
And feel joy on the Whitechapel pavements!
Now, barely two or three generations have passed,
Here in these streets, and already there are places in need of a sweep.
And feel joy on the Whitechapel pavements!
Now, barely two or three generations have passed,
Here in these streets, and already there are places in need of a sweep.
Round me, I see a market of wholesale and retail.
But stripped of its kosher thread.
A.N. Stencl
trans. Chaim Neslen
‘Stenclmusic effectively captures the hardships and romances of Jewish life in the East End, the clarinet beautifully evoking the individual characters through memorable cadences and rhythms. In particular, the lamenting ballad which accompanies a reading of Stencl’s poem Played Out Whitechapel, resonates with heartache and despair when, after two generations, the area is “stripped of its kosher thread.’”