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00:04If you care to look at my wardrobe, most of it 25 years old.
00:08This was given to me by Angie when she went to Spain the first time.
00:12She only wears it for special occasions.
00:1584-year-old actress June Brown has been a British cultural icon for decades.
00:22Playing the indomitable Dot Cotton in the BBC soap, EastEnders.
00:26It shouldn't really be too coordinated, because she gets the colour slightly wrong.
00:31Many find it difficult to distinguish June from the part she plays.
00:35I think they think I'm very like Dot. A lot of people call me Dot.
00:38I'm always delighted when they call me Dune.
00:41As a negligee, well covered up.
00:46I am the oldest person who has ever done. Who do you think you are?
00:51Dune married at 23, and by the age of 30 was widowed after her husband's suicide.
00:58She continued her acting career, and in 1958 married for a second time, to actor Robert Arnold.
01:06They had six children, losing one as a baby.
01:13In 2003, after 45 years of marriage, June was widowed again.
01:20I'm not a person who can cry.
01:22I think I've sort of worked my emotions out.
01:26So I don't expect to weep, although I will have some waterproof mascara,
01:30but I don't think I will.
01:34June knows she has EastEnd Jewish roots.
01:37Now she wants to see whether these spread any further than the laundrette
01:41she's inhabited professionally for more than 20 years.
01:46I had never really felt like an East Ender.
01:49I knew my mother was.
01:52I don't think we'll find any royal blood,
01:56any blue blood flowing in our veins, but who cares?
01:59We're all people.
02:33Well, I'm going to have a wine glass.
02:40I was born in 1927.
02:43We had no television, telephones or cars.
02:48It was a lovely life.
02:50It's a different world from ours.
02:54At the age of 84, June feels that this is her last chance
02:58to discover if she's a real East Ender.
03:01Smile.
03:04Before she begins, her family has gathered at her Surrey home
03:07to send her off in style.
03:09Cheers.
03:11Cheers.
03:11Sorry, I've already done mine.
03:19June was born in Suffolk, one of five children.
03:24Her parents, Louisa and Henry, both came from London's EastEnd.
03:32Scottish grandfather, Italian grandmother, Irish grandfather.
03:38Like a mongrel, I'm not truly English.
03:41I'm not truly anything as far as I know.
03:44But I know I'm Jewish through my mother's line.
03:47It's her mother's Jewish East End heritage June wants to investigate.
03:52I'm not married.
03:52That is my mother.
03:53And my mother was 35 for years and then she got fed up with being 35
03:58and suddenly said, oh, I'm 50.
04:01When I was first in EastEnders, they said, 47-year-old June Brown.
04:06Well, I was 58, I think.
04:07We laughed at that.
04:08If they want to think I'm 47, let them, I thought.
04:11I'm not going to say any different.
04:13You know, we laughed at that.
04:15You might have done, I didn't.
04:16I was delighted.
04:20As the matriarch, she is the keeper of the family history.
04:24And over the years has collected together an archive of photographs and stories.
04:29That was 1967.
04:32Your father was quite famous at the time as PC Swain in Vixen of Doc Green.
04:38Is this you here?
04:40That is me as a bridesmaid in green satin.
04:43This is the wedding of my auntie Marie.
04:46They lived in the East End.
04:48And all of those are Jewish cousins.
04:50Right.
04:51My mother said, and I might be completely wrong, but my mother did say we had a champion bare-knuckle
04:59fighter.
04:59And he was in the East End, of course.
05:02What was the fighter's name?
05:03His name was Isaac Bitten.
05:05I don't know where Bitten comes from.
05:07It doesn't sound a bit Jewish to me.
05:09It would be nice to find out more about him.
05:10Well, I'd like to find out more about him.
05:12I wouldn't know.
05:13You know, did he have money?
05:15Did you...
05:15Oh, I should think so.
05:15It would be quite interesting.
05:17To follow that.
05:19It's all my mother, the Jewish side.
05:21It's granny.
05:37June's family archive includes a document that proves she's a direct descendant from Isaac Bitten.
05:43My mother was born in the Mile End Road.
05:47She mentioned this famous bare-knuckle fighter in the East End.
05:53And I'd like to find out more about Isaac Bitten, if I can.
06:00Family research has managed to trace back as far as June's great-great-great-grandfather,
06:06the bare-knuckle boxer Isaac Bitten, born in 1779.
06:15Now June is hoping that Isaac, the legendary fighter,
06:18will help her travel further back into her East End past.
06:24I'm a very curious person.
06:26I like to know everything, really.
06:28I don't care what I find out, as long as I find out.
06:34Would you be Michael Berkowitz?
06:36Yes, I am.
06:37My name is June Brown.
06:39Pleasure to meet you.
06:40Thank you so much.
06:42Historian Michael Berkowitz is an expert on Jewish London and the early years of British boxing.
06:49And here we have Isaac Bitten, your great-great-great-grandfather.
06:58He was a big personality, a real East Ender.
07:03Look at the little dancing feet.
07:06They remind me a bit of, you know, dance like a butterfly.
07:10But it looks like he has quite strong legs.
07:11He was known for being undefeated, an extremely powerful fighter.
07:21In the early 19th century, Isaac Bitten lived in London's growing Jewish community in the East End,
07:28an area that for centuries had been home to those on the social margins.
07:35The bloodthirsty sport of bare-knuckle fighting was at the height of its popularity.
07:41Few rules existed, and audiences were entertained by bouts that could continue for hours.
07:47With no limit to the number of rounds, the winner was only decided when his opponent could no longer stand
07:53and fight.
07:55For men like Isaac, the sport provided one of the few paths to fame and fortune.
08:01One of the things that's very interesting is not only were Jews involved, who were pretty marginal in society,
08:07but also Irish and blacks.
08:09And one of the things that boxers consider very special is that, although it's a very brutal world,
08:16that they treated each other with more respect and more dignity than they would be accorded in the wider society.
08:24If you could take a look, there was a paragraph down here that I've marked.
08:29One thing at all events is certain, he was a Jew.
08:33That was unmistakably stamped upon his physiognomy.
08:39The hooked nose, the thick lips, the swarthy complexion, the curly black hair and piercing black eyes,
08:48every traditional feature of the Jewish face was there in most marked and pronounced characters.
08:55So they're talking about their racial characteristics, which is completely wrong,
08:58but he had no problem showing himself as a very, almost stereotypically Jewish Jew.
09:06I think this is part of his personality and part of the magnetism.
09:10He was very comfortable, although he had a lot of it.
09:13He was very comfortable in his own skin.
09:15You mean he was fat?
09:17Yes, he was fat, but agile.
09:20The sport of bare-knuckle boxing was illegal.
09:23Fights were arranged covertly, many taking place on London's commons far from the attention of the police.
09:31But attending the fights had become a fashionable pastime.
09:35The cream of society enjoyed mixing with London's underworld.
09:40Though most of the boxers themselves saw little profit from the fights,
09:45vast sums were won and lost by the wealthy audiences betting on the outcome.
09:50A fighter like Isaac Bitten would have been lauded by his aristocratic audiences.
09:56The fights were incredibly popular, and they could have hundreds, if not thousands, of spectators.
10:02Even Byron was a great patron, so he knew a lot of these very important people of his time.
10:09He was identified very consistently as sort of one of the great figures of the East End.
10:16Actually, we've got a rather special publication here called Pugilistica.
10:21It's just a little over a hundred years old.
10:23If I could have you read toward the end.
10:29This is fun.
10:30Isaac Bitten, a Jew of great strength, was well known for more than 30 years to the ring-going world
10:37of the last generations.
10:39His draw with Maddox deserves preservation, and for these reasons we have given the ponderous Isaac, ponderous, a niche in
10:48our history.
10:49It's a fight that lasts 74 rounds, you know, which would be absolutely unheard of.
10:55It's referred to as one of the hardest fought battles ever.
10:58Isaac actually came out on top.
11:00By the end, he said he simply isn't going to be able to see.
11:04You know, he was probably completely swollen.
11:07Well, it's fun.
11:08Yes, he probably, his eyes were walked in me.
11:11Do you think his brain was damaged?
11:12I think it's, if he didn't get damaged in some way, it would be utterly remarkable.
11:19Isaac Bitten's epic fight of 74 bloody rounds took place in December 1802 on Wimbledon Common, when he was just
11:2723 years old.
11:29It would be the greatest fight of his career.
11:33Isaac retired, undefeated.
11:38His weight, after his retirement, so immensely increased, that although his activity was remarkable for his size, he drew at
11:47scale 17 stone.
11:51That's not that bad nowadays.
11:53They can be 22, really quite small.
11:55For quite a long time, though, he was the life of the party.
11:58I mean, he was one of the major figures.
12:01I think it will most likely be helpful to see what kind of evidence is available at Bevis Mark's synagogue,
12:08because there are references to him as being Sephardic, that is, coming from the Spanish world, which means either Spain
12:17or Portugal, at some point.
12:27From Michael's research, June has clues to her family's Sephardic Jewish roots in the East End.
12:36She's on her way to the Bevis Mark's Sephardic synagogue, which holds records for the community.
12:47Hello.
12:49Nice to meet you.
12:50Oh, nice to meet you.
12:51My name's June Brown.
12:52Yours is?
12:53I'm Maurice Bitton.
12:54I'm the, er, I look after this wonderful old synagogue.
12:57You're not a relative by any chance, are you?
12:59Well, I was hoping we were, but I don't think we are.
13:02I'm sure we must be with a name like that.
13:04Well, if you go back far enough, we probably are.
13:06Well, as you can see, this was built in 1701, which makes it the oldest surviving synagogue in the country.
13:15Oh.
13:18It's beautiful, isn't it?
13:19It is, isn't it?
13:22Well, the candelabra, I suppose you call them.
13:27You get this wonderful sense of silence.
13:30Let me introduce you to Miriam Rodriguez Pereira, who's our kindest.
13:35How do you do?
13:36It's very kind of you to come and tell me.
13:38It's been a pleasure to do.
13:39Is this the rabbi's reading desk?
13:43Reading desk.
13:44This is the book of all the Hebrew marriage certificates.
13:50There we are.
13:51There he is.
13:53Their names are given in Hebrew here.
13:56Isaac, son of Abraham, be torn.
14:00And her name is Hava.
14:03Hava.
14:04Eve, in Hebrew.
14:05So that gives us his father, who's Abraham.
14:08Yes, it sounds like the Old Testament, doesn't it?
14:12Isaac, son of Abraham.
14:14There's his signature.
14:16But he could write quite well.
14:17Yes.
14:18He was literate, and what's that say?
14:20That says novio, which is the Spanish, actually, for bridegroom.
14:25Oh, that's lovely.
14:27And at the bottom, the rabbi has written, in Portuguese, I married them with the seven blessings, the 10th of
14:34July, 1818.
14:36Oh, wonderful.
14:40Aged 39, Isaac married Hava, 17 years after beginning his career as a bare-knuckle boxer.
14:47For June, the wedding record is the first time she's seen evidence of any other bitten ancestors.
14:54Isaac's father, Abraham.
14:59The next document Miriam has for June is from 1798, when Isaac was 19 years old.
15:06This is the charity ledger from 1798, and Isaac's father was getting money every month until April, and F, I
15:21think his father said, which is the Portuguese for, died.
15:24Oh.
15:25So he died.
15:27So Isaac was on his own.
15:30Is the mother mentioned?
15:32No, it was just himself and Isaac.
15:35Oh.
15:37The charity ledger proves that Isaac and his father, Abraham, were living on their own in London's East End.
15:46June wants to discover what happened to Isaac after his father's death.
15:50So we know from the birth register, Isaac had 11 children altogether, and this is the ledger for the charity
16:02allotment by the congregation, which gives all the details of water.
16:09Oh, it's the money they give.
16:15Isaac bitten relief.
16:16Yes, here we are.
16:20Isaac gets money, ten shillings.
16:23This was in 1838.
16:25But, I mean, how long was that, do you know, that he'd stopped boxing by drastically?
16:31I don't think he was ever wealthy, and he didn't have very much, and the congregation was very good at
16:38providing for people and giving them allowances and giving them coal in the winter.
16:45Otherwise, there was no welfare for anybody.
16:48But exactly.
16:48And they'd starved the Christian of all those children.
16:51Yes.
16:54More than a century before the creation of a welfare state, Britain's poor relied on charity for survival.
17:02The Bevis Marks Sephardic Synagogue looked after its members, distributing sedaka, charitable donations to the needy, like Isaac and his
17:12family.
17:16There is a note of his death, so.
17:20Oh, it's in English.
17:21That's marvellous.
17:22Well, I can read this.
17:23Where do we go?
17:24Ah, here we've got it.
17:26Look.
17:26Old Ikey, nice, isn't it, after a few weeks' illness, breathed his last at the age of 60 in the
17:35Eastern Quarter, when he was so long known, and lies in the Jewish burial ground near Bethnal Green.
17:43That's Myland Road, actually.
17:45Yeah, well, you see, that's where my mother was born.
17:49Isaac died in 1839 at the age of 60.
17:53He had fathered 11 children.
17:59In order to learn any more about her Sephardic roots, June has to turn her attention to Isaac's father, Abraham,
18:06her great-great-great-great-grandfather.
18:11Abraham was an immigrant, as far as we can tell, and I should think the most likely place is Holland,
18:20from Amsterdam.
18:21Why would you think that?
18:22Well, because a lot of our people did come from there.
18:26I want to ask you, Miriam, if there are any graves that one could visit for, because if Abraham died
18:32here, he would have been buried here.
18:34Yes, they were both buried here, but unfortunately there is no grave now.
18:39And we don't know whether there were gravestones.
18:42If there were, they didn't survive.
18:49Despite Isaac's fame in the East End, no memorial to the bare-knuckle boxer exists.
18:56Isaac died penniless, just as his father Abraham had four decades earlier.
19:11That's always been one of my fears, being poor and old.
19:17You know, it's not about being poor when you're young, because you've always got the hope that something's going to
19:21happen.
19:22But unless you win, the football pools or the lottery comes up, you don't have much chance when you're old.
19:38It seems likely that Abraham and Isaac made their way to London's East End from Holland.
19:45Dune's come to Amsterdam to discover if they did live here, and if so, why they migrated to London when
19:52Isaac was only ten years old.
19:55For me, it's rather like reading a detective novel, which I do all the time.
20:01It's the only things I read unless I'm being serious.
20:04And this is like this for me, you know, finding out all sorts of fascinating things.
20:15What I'm interested in finding out is why he left Holland or the Netherlands.
20:22I don't know whether a mother had died or stayed behind or whatever, or divorced.
20:28There must have some reason why he came to the East End of London.
20:39At Amsterdam's Municipal Archives, Dune has arranged to meet Harman Snell, a specialist in Jewish genealogy.
20:48What I found out in London was that I have a great-great-great-grandfather who was a very well
20:56-known bare-knuckle champion.
20:58This is Isaac Bittle.
21:00And I'd like to know if he was the only child and why he came at the age of 11,
21:06roughly, with his father to the East End.
21:08And when did they arrive?
21:11I think roughly 1790.
21:14Yes, so we're going to go for Bitton.
21:18We're looking for some child born about 1778.
21:24I wish I could work one of these things.
21:26This is Abraham Bitton as a father.
21:29Uh-huh.
21:30These are the years that his children were born.
21:33And it's the name of the mother.
21:36Ah, oh, look.
21:37Rachel Rodriguez de Castro.
21:39What a lovely name, isn't it?
21:41Yes, it's beautiful.
21:42I wish I had a name like that.
21:44Mine's so common.
21:46Yeah, well, mine too.
21:47And here is one child, Isaac, born 1777.
21:55Ah, a bit older than we thought then.
21:57And here is another Isaac in 1779.
22:02Oh, one died.
22:03One died.
22:04The first one died.
22:05And the second one was named Isaac Chaim.
22:09Chaim meaning life.
22:11This is a birth registration.
22:15Good Lord.
22:16Such lovely writing.
22:17And here you see, 29 of June 1779,
22:22Isaac Chaim, son of Abraham Bitton and Rachel Rodriguez de Castro.
22:29So that must be the bare-knuckle boxer.
22:33And his mother was Rachel.
22:35Yes.
22:37In the late 18th century, many of Europe's cities forced Jews to wear distinguishing marks and live in separate ghettos.
22:46But in Amsterdam, the city in which Abraham and his family were living, Jews were tolerated and could move about
22:53and practice their faith freely.
22:56But even with this freedom, Jews were prohibited from most professions.
23:01Many were forced to scrape together a living as street traders.
23:06So what prompted Abraham and the ten-year-old Isaac to abandon their family and leave the most tolerant city
23:12in Europe for an uncertain future in England?
23:18What I want to show you is a book, which is called The Termos, The Sephardic Community.
23:27If they had to deal with something, they wrote it in this book.
23:32Very fancy.
23:33Very fancy.
23:35But Abraham Bitton is registered here being a taxpayer for the community.
23:42Ah, so he wasn't on the poor relief then?
23:45No.
23:45He had a job?
23:46He had a job.
23:47Most likely he was a hawker on the street.
23:50Not a liability on the congregation?
23:53No.
23:53Ah, well done.
23:55Not yet.
23:56Oh, no.
23:58Yes.
23:59What's next?
23:59And next.
24:01What's this?
24:02This is the year 1784, 1785.
24:07And here you see Abraham Bitton again.
24:11And this is a sedaka list.
24:15Relief for the poor.
24:16Aha.
24:17And this is the first time he appears in this.
24:20Right.
24:21So his household were seven people.
24:24So five children.
24:26Five children.
24:26Five children were alive at that moment.
24:28And these are the amounts that they received.
24:32Why did they receive that?
24:33Had he gone down in the world?
24:35Was he out of work?
24:371784, 1785 were dramatically bad years in Dutch economy.
24:43We just had a war behind us.
24:46Which war was that?
24:47That was what we call the Fourth English War.
24:51So imagine who we were fighting.
24:53Ah, yes.
24:54I can't think which war that was.
24:55But we lost.
24:56We lost.
24:57Oh, good.
24:57I'm sorry.
24:58Oh, yeah.
25:02In 1780, the British declared war on Holland when the Dutch came out in support of George
25:07Washington and his revolutionary forces in America.
25:12Four years of war with Britain followed.
25:16The Dutch economy was in ruins.
25:18And in the years that followed, Jewish street traders like Abraham, who in the good times
25:23had managed to eke out a living for their families, now faced destitution.
25:29The 10-year-old Isaac and his father Abraham joined a wave of Jewish migrants in search
25:34of a new life in the booming city of London.
25:39Abraham's wife Rachel and Isaac's siblings were left behind in Amsterdam.
25:47Why did he move to London without his wife and other children?
25:50He probably thought in London there might be chances.
25:54He went there to see if there were chances to stay there for a longer time and get his
26:01family over.
26:02Still goes on.
26:03It still works like that.
26:05But in 1795, the Netherlands were invaded by France.
26:12And from that moment on, it was very difficult or almost impossible to travel to England.
26:19To leave the country.
26:20To leave the country.
26:21And go across the channel and on the boat.
26:26By 1795, Europe was in the grip of the French Revolutionary Wars.
26:31Holland was politically and economically vulnerable.
26:34And the French invading army marched in, isolating the country by land.
26:40And with Britain and France at war, the channel was blockaded.
26:43Cutting Holland off by sea.
26:48Rachel would have given up any hope of escaping the devastated Amsterdam to join Abraham and
26:54Isaac in London.
26:55It's probable all communication between the divided family ceased.
27:03But by 1801, word from London must have got through to the synagogue in Amsterdam.
27:09Rachel's husband, Abraham, had died.
27:15Here you see a registration, the widow of Abraham Bitton.
27:23Abraham had already died.
27:25And she knows here that he died because she's registered as the widow.
27:31And her support in this sadaka list is now for three persons.
27:36But she had eight children.
27:39Yes.
27:39The other children at this time in 1801 had all died except Isaac.
27:45In these times...
27:46They died young.
27:47They died young.
27:48Many of them died young.
27:49And most of them on tuberculosis or kind of fevers.
27:54And that's a very bad period of their lives then.
27:57Yeah.
27:58They were separated.
27:59The son went and she was on the parish, as it were.
28:03And for Isaac, writing letters or visiting his mother was not really in it.
28:10It was impossible.
28:10It looks like the mother was totally not aware that her son was still alive in London.
28:17And he had no contact with her once he was in England.
28:22Oh dear.
28:25What happened to Rachel?
28:27Well, she died in Amsterdam in 1812.
28:31And she and her children are buried in Amsterdam.
28:36Where did Abraham and Rachel come from?
28:39We can research that when we find the marriage.
28:44I will show you.
28:45Go on then.
28:45I'll show you that one.
28:47Speedy Gonzales.
28:52June has uncovered the fate of Isaac's parents, Rachel and Abraham.
28:57Now she wants to delve further back to earlier generations.
29:05So what I have here is a reference to the actual marriage of Abraham Bitton and his wife.
29:14I'm looking for my glasses.
29:16I won't be a minute right.
29:17I've got them.
29:19I think you might be able to read it without.
29:2421st of May, 1762.
29:26Abraham Bitton from.
29:29Can you read this?
29:30Yes.
29:31Yes.
29:31What does it say?
29:33What does it say?
29:33Well, I said yes.
29:34I just said yes to, you know, to be accommodating, but it looks like go to me.
29:39You should read it like this.
29:41There is written Livorno.
29:43And what does that mean?
29:45That's the only place in Italy, isn't it?
29:47In Italy.
29:47The town where he was born.
29:50Oh, so he was Italian.
29:53And she, it's written here, Rachel Rodriguez from Amsterdam.
29:59And here you see their signatures.
30:02Yeah.
30:02So this is the father of Isaac.
30:04Well, that's very good because they were literate.
30:06Yeah.
30:06See, that's unusual at that time because very often people couldn't write and they signed
30:12their name with a cross.
30:14Yeah, or with a circle.
30:16In the Netherlands, Jews very rarely used a cross when they couldn't write.
30:21Oh, you mean that sort of cross?
30:23They didn't like very much what the cross had done to them.
30:26So the man who came to England, he came from the Netherlands, but he was born in Italy.
30:34Oh, in Italy.
30:34I always said I was a mongrel.
30:38So, where do we go not from, where do we go backwards from here?
30:43We go backwards.
30:44Harman has one final document connected to Abraham for June to see.
30:49You see, this letter, dated 1764, says that there is confirmation of his birth in Italy, in Livorno, with an
31:01exact date, 25th of June 1732, and names of his parents, Joseph and Simcha Bitton, in Livorno.
31:09That's the mother.
31:10Yes.
31:11And this part is even more interesting.
31:15This is by two other guys who confirm that Abraham, the son of Joseph Bitton, who now lives in the
31:24city of Amsterdam, that he really is from the Nacion Española, the Spanish nation.
31:32Yes.
31:33And that his grandfather, Isaac Bitton, was from the city of Oran.
31:45Where is that?
31:46What?
31:47In the north of Africa.
31:50Africa.
31:51In Algeria, nowadays Algeria.
31:54Algeria.
32:15Algeria.
32:16So all the Jews were expelled from that town.
32:20Because of faith, that faith?
32:21Yes.
32:22Oh.
32:39June has now traced her Bitton ancestors back to 1669, to the North African city of Iran, when it was
32:46under Spanish rule.
32:47June.
32:49But before she can pursue this new information, there is one place she still wants to visit in Holland.
32:57Amsterdam's Sephardic Cemetery is just outside of the city, on a tributary of the Amstel River.
33:03June is now on her way there to see if she can find the grave of Isaac's mother, Rachel, June's
33:09great, great, great, great grandmother.
33:12They must have lived always on edge.
33:16Their fortunes fell and rose and fell, and unfortunately fell more than they rose.
33:22I think this must have been particularly hard for Rachel when she was left.
33:28It's like being widowed.
33:30There is the hole there somehow.
33:33You miss the familiarity of it, the pattern of it, the routine of it.
33:39I think it must have been dreadful not to know what happened to your son.
33:44But she couldn't get across the channel.
33:46It was blockaded, and there wasn't a telephone, and you couldn't make a call.
33:52And how did you know how they were?
33:53It must have been.
33:54She must have lived her life in constant worry.
34:01By tradition, the dead are carried to Beth Heim Cemetery by boat.
34:10Hello.
34:13May I hand you this?
34:18Opened in the early 17th century, the cemetery is still used and cared for by Amsterdam's Sephardic community.
34:31That's only ten years later.
34:35June's sorting through the cemetery's records to find Rachel and any of her children who may have been buried here.
34:41Bittern.
34:43Ah, we've got Rachel.
34:4621st of July, 1812.
34:50And the bittern is only spelt with one T.
34:54Well, that must be the mother.
34:57Oh, a child who died at two months old.
35:01Oh, dear.
35:03And this is a brother.
35:05And he was two when he died.
35:07So, he's died.
35:10But he's died as well.
35:12Of course, they all died in here.
35:14This one died in 96.
35:18So, she lost that daughter.
35:21This one, born 69, Abigail, a daughter, a pretty name, died 1812.
35:30So, she died the same time as her mother.
35:35So, we've got 1812.
35:38Mother and daughter died in the same year.
35:40Oh, well, the daughter died first.
35:45Abigail died on the 26th of January.
35:48And her mother died on the 21st of July.
35:52So, she was left all on her own.
35:55She was the last one to die.
35:58And she'd lost her daughter.
36:04Perhaps she died heartbroken when her last child died.
36:08Nothing left to live for.
36:11Oh, dear.
36:13What a sad life.
36:18Beth Haim's caretaker, Dennis Orderdorp, is taking June to the place where Rachel was buried.
36:25The mother was left alone.
36:27She was the last one to die.
36:29She'd got Isaac, but she didn't know that.
36:32He was in England.
36:34If they were wealthy, they would have a stone.
36:37Oh.
36:38And if they were not wealthy, then they wouldn't have a stone.
36:42Of field 1763, this is row 8.
36:46Right.
36:47And Rachel was buried in row 6.
36:49Right.
36:50So, that must be somewhere here.
36:53Right.
36:56Row 7.
36:57Row 7 is about there, yes.
36:59And somewhere here must be row 6.
37:03Row 6.
37:06So, we could be standing on a...
37:08On her grave, yes.
37:11Well, I'm going to imagine that her grave is here.
37:14Where would her head be in this row?
37:17On the side we are standing now.
37:20This side?
37:20Right.
37:20And her feet upwards.
37:22So, it does that work?
37:24Right.
37:24So, we are here.
37:28Would you like to leave me alone for a moment?
37:30No, of course.
37:30I do understand.
37:39So, Rachel, dear great, great, great, great grandmother,
37:48I have come to visit you, which you never expected.
37:53And I'm going to show you what happened
37:57to your only living child when you died.
38:01Well, this is he.
38:03And he became famous.
38:06He was a champion bare knuckle fighter.
38:08So, you would have been very proud of him.
38:11So, where is the sun?
38:13There.
38:14And I brought you a flower from him.
38:16And wherever the sun goes, that face will track it.
38:19So, may your face always be beside the sun.
38:22And this I will place in front.
38:25I don't suppose it will be there long.
38:27And according to the Jewish custom, I have brought you a stone,
38:33which, believe it or not, has got a little face on it.
38:37I'm sure you are prettier, but there she is.
38:41That is on your side.
38:50I feel a kind of affinity with this Rachel.
38:53Partly because of the amount of children that she had.
38:57Partly because she named two of her children, I think it was,
39:01when the first one died with the same name, and I did the same.
39:05I had a premature baby that died when she was 16 days old,
39:09and I named her Chloe.
39:10And then I had Sophie, and then I had William,
39:13and the next one I called Chloe again.
39:17And, of course, I've lost one child.
39:21My mother lost two children.
39:23She had five, and I had six, I suppose.
39:26And this, how many has she lost?
39:28All of them in the end.
39:30And she was widowed.
39:31And I am twice widowed.
39:34And so I do feel very much that I understand
39:36what it must have been like for her when she was left at the very end
39:40with no children, no husband.
39:43I'm quite sure she gave up.
39:47And I should think she'd had enough.
39:50I think you can almost will yourself to die.
40:04She at least knows that she had one son living at the time of her death,
40:09who became successful,
40:12and was charismatic and very well liked.
40:18Now there is success.
40:22Bye.
40:26It won't last long, the photograph.
40:30But she's seen it.
40:37June has traced her Bitten family's line from the East End
40:41to the heart of Amsterdam's Sephardic community.
40:45To follow these Sephardic routes any further,
40:47June has to step back a century earlier
40:50and trace the journey that her family made from Iran in North Africa
40:54when it was under Spanish imperial rule.
41:01June has travelled to mainland Spain,
41:04where records of its time under the Spanish are kept.
41:19She's starting her journey in Madrid,
41:22once the capital of the largest empire in the world.
41:28I've been to Spain before, not to Madrid,
41:31and it gives the sense that Spain had a big empire.
41:37An enormous empire.
41:44June is in pursuit of another Isaac,
41:47her great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather.
41:52She knows this Isaac was expelled from Iran in modern-day Algeria in 1669.
42:00I might be able to find out more about my Sephardic roots,
42:05what happened to those particular Jews,
42:09because that is a very interesting thing to be part of.
42:16When June's ancestor was living in the North African Spanish outpost,
42:21religious intolerance raged.
42:25For more than two centuries, Spain had aggressively expanded its empire.
42:30As it grew, a zealous Catholicism was branded on its new territories.
42:35A tribunal was set up to enforce adherence to this Catholic doctrine
42:40that's become known as the Spanish Inquisition.
42:44In Spain, Jews faced the onslaught of this Catholic zeal.
42:49They were offered a choice.
42:51Leave, convert, or face death.
42:56The Spanish captured Iran in 1509.
43:01Remarkably, in this North African town,
43:03just a day's sail from mainland Spain,
43:05the small Jewish community was tolerated,
43:08and even permitted to practice their faith.
43:12The area surrounding Iran was rich with fertile ground,
43:16and Jews were put to use brokering deals for the abundant crops
43:20between the local Berber farmers and Spanish buyers.
43:35The largest collection of documents connected to the Jewish presence in Iran
43:39is held in royal archives,
43:42north of Madrid, in the town of Simankas.
43:54June is here to meet Dr. Francois Sawyer,
43:57an expert in the history of the persecution of the Jews in Spain.
44:05Ah, you must be Francois Sawyer.
44:08Hello, June.
44:09You know my name.
44:10Sit down, shall I?
44:12Sit down.
44:13These are rather beautiful.
44:15It is. It's a beautiful watercolour, isn't it?
44:17This is a map of...
44:19A map?
44:20Of the Western Mediterranean, yes.
44:22Looks like a pretty picture to me.
44:24On the upper side of this map
44:26is the Mediterranean coast of Spain.
44:29Yes.
44:29The Hina Alicante.
44:31Uh-huh.
44:32In the middle, Mallorca, Ibiza.
44:35And here at the bottom, what is today Algeria,
44:38known back in the 17th century as the Barbary coast.
44:40Ah, is that there?
44:41And Iran here, this town on this side.
44:45Yes, thank you.
44:46And what is that?
44:47That is a more detailed map of Iran,
44:52drawn, actually, in 1675.
44:56The town is surrounded by walls.
44:59It's very much a military outpost.
45:01Yeah.
45:02It's got hostile Muslim outposts all around it.
45:07Now, the Jews in Iran had this rather peculiar existence,
45:10never fully trusted by the Spaniards.
45:14very much forced to live in their own little area,
45:18seen as potential double agents,
45:21maybe working for the Muslims
45:22as much as they were working for the Spaniards.
45:25Francois has a document
45:27which will give June a clue to Isaac's life
45:29and that of his father, a second Abraham.
45:33Now, this is from the Royal Archives.
45:37I'm going to get slightly round, nearer you,
45:40and we can both read at the same time.
45:43Its date is from...
45:45What language is it?
45:46It's in Spanish.
45:47Oh, I don't think I'll bother.
45:48You can tell me about it.
45:49I'll give you a translation of it.
45:50Its date is from 1637.
45:52And what it's telling is, is that in that year,
45:55two Jews from Iran asked for the right to trade in Spain.
46:00And this is exactly what the documents say.
46:02So, Sadia Eliyke and Abraham Ben Botten.
46:07What's that name again?
46:09Ben Botten?
46:10Ben Botten.
46:11Ben Botten.
46:12The name has changed.
46:14Yeah.
46:14And the Botten here is probably a Spanish sort of transliteration
46:20of what the original name would have been.
46:21Is this Abraham related to me?
46:24The names are so similar.
46:26Uh-huh.
46:28Abraham, Ben Botten, Isaac, Bitten.
46:32There should be almost no doubt that they are related.
46:37Abraham was probably his father.
46:40Ah.
46:40So these two Jews have asked the crown for the right to come to Spain
46:45for their business dealings.
46:47Mm-hmm.
46:48Jews are not allowed to go to Spain normally.
46:50No.
46:50In fact, there's a death penalty against any Jews who were to be found in Spain
46:55without any proper authorisation.
46:58Mm-hmm.
47:04As a trader in Iran, Isaac's father, Abraham, needed to travel to Spain to broker deals.
47:13But under the rules of the fanatical inquisition, any Jew found in Spain without proper authority faced torture or execution.
47:25The permit granted granted to Abraham allowed him to travel to Spain safely.
47:32Effectively, they were asking for a visa to come to Spain.
47:35And it had to go all the way to the king, and they had to go all the way to
47:39the king, and they had to wait for his authorisation.
47:41This bit here is the king's...
47:45Initials, I think.
47:46Exactly.
47:46Exactly.
47:46This was Philip IV.
47:48Document's also very interesting, because both Sadia Elike and Abraham Ben Botan are portrayed as good Jews.
47:57Right.
47:58They're descendants of Jews who helped Spain when the town was captured, and Abraham Ben Botan is one of the
48:04most senior members of the local synagogue.
48:06When the Spanish authorities asked for a list of the most prominent Jews in 1656, he is definitely there.
48:12The best place to go in Spain is probably Toledo, in central Spain.
48:17Why is that?
48:18Well, it has probably the best preserved medieval Sephardic synagogue in the Western Mediterranean, and I would heartily recommend you
48:28go there.
48:32Once again, June has uncovered a father and son, another Abraham and another Isaac, living in Iran in the mid
48:41-17th century.
48:48What she has not yet uncovered is evidence to explain why the Ben Botan family fell out of favour with
48:54the Spanish court, resulting in the expulsion of Abraham and Isaac in 1669.
49:01How did they go from being the good Jews of Iran to being cast out?
49:14Abraham was a Sephardic Jew, which of course makes me Sephardi, fact of which I'm rather proud.
49:22He came from Iran in Algeria, which was a Spanish property. It was a fortress town. They had been there
49:31for years, but suddenly they were all expelled. Whether it was just a general pogrom, or whether there was a
49:38particular reason is what I hope to find out.
49:44During the violent years of the Inquisition, few synagogues were spared. Many were converted to churches, others looted or destroyed.
49:54Remarkably, here in Toledo, the 14th century Synagogue del Transito survived the onslaught of the Inquisition.
50:21It's very hard not being of the Jewish faith, but coming from Jewish roots.
50:26I see both sides, I suppose, and I suppose that's what we should all do.
50:32I don't understand religious wars. That is where we all go wrong.
50:44At the synagogue, June's meeting Spanish language scholar Michael Britton.
50:50He's translated a document written in 1670, a year after the Jews were expelled from Iran.
51:00It's not exactly brief, is it? But it says brief account and abridged summary of the complete expulsion of the
51:09Jews from the Jewish quarter of the city of Iran,
51:11due to the Catholic zeal of the most excellent Senor, Don Fernando, and then it lists all his name.
51:19Oh, dear.
51:20This governor of Iran.
51:21So this is written by the captain of the place on his behalf, and within it we can see what
51:28happened,
51:28and we can see things about the Jewish community at the time which Abraham and Isaac lived in and what
51:34happened to them.
51:35But it's effectively a propaganda document, and it's very one-sided.
51:39Is this to excuse the reason why they expelled the Jews from Iran?
51:44Absolutely. And our protagonist in all of this, the Marquess, he's going to carve himself out a glorious deed.
51:56In 1667, the politically ambitious Marquess de los Vélez, governor of Iran,
52:01saw an opportunity to bolster his position in the Spanish court.
52:06He knew that any move against the Jews would be popular with the Catholic monarchy and powerful inquisition.
52:15The theme that goes throughout this document is the utilidad, the usefulness of the Jews.
52:20What is their usefulness? And the language is quite shocking, really.
52:25At every opportunity, there's a negative term applied to the Jewish people.
52:31It's this one here, the bad weed that grows in the wheat field,
52:37which Satan had introduced there to Iran.
52:39A stain which had spread so much and which is of dangerous contagion,
52:45not only to the faithful Christians, but also for these kingdoms.
52:53The Marquess advised the Spanish court that the small Jewish community of Iran
52:58no longer served any valuable purpose.
53:02Their expulsion was recommended.
53:07The Marquess is saying to the Spanish court,
53:09this must be done secretly, the Jews mustn't find out what's going to happen
53:12in case they run rings round us and cause some revolt or something.
53:17Uprising, yes, that's a lovely word.
53:18And then the big day comes, and then the actual expulsion is read out.
53:24As the last words of this Catholic and Holy Edict were delivered,
53:28the unhappy ones against whom the proclamation had been made,
53:32of which there were many present, being left both sad, disheartened and confused.
53:37Oh.
53:38I think we can really glimpse, you know, even the person writing it can see
53:42that this must have been a terrible moment for them.
53:45Yeah.
53:46And amongst these are Itak and Abraham.
53:50And Abraham.
53:51Because the arrangement is that they are given eight days
53:55in which to tidy everything up, settle their affairs and leave.
53:59They're not just taken in the night.
54:02No, they're not just taken in the night.
54:03They're off to a concentration camp, but they do have a week.
54:07And they're leaving their houses.
54:09They're leaving their houses, the place that they've been settled in,
54:12some of them for 150 years.
54:14It's a big thing.
54:17On the 16th of April, 1669, the expulsion of the Jews from the city began.
54:24Summoned in secret by the Marquis,
54:26a small fleet of ships lay anchored off the shore below the town.
54:30Among them, a single 500-ton vessel he deemed large enough
54:35to hold all the Jewish people of Iran.
54:38The Marquis readied his men at the gates of the Jewish quarter
54:42and ordered the Jews to leave their homes.
54:46So now Abraham and Isaac are going to be coming out of their house.
54:50They were ordered to leave the said Jewish quarter,
54:52which was their greatest pain and sorrow.
54:56And at the appropriate time, the march began down to find where the ships were.
55:00The vanguard occupied by beautiful horses accompanied by drums and trumpets,
55:05symbolising in form the dignity of the illustrious and loyal city of Iran.
55:09And in the middle was the standard of the Holy Court of the Inquisition.
55:12These were all Spanish people who were having the bands and the...
55:16Exactly. All this pomp and ceremony. It's like an old boys club.
55:19And the Jews holly behind. The terrible thing.
55:21If you imagine it yourself, what it would be like...
55:24Exactly.
55:25...just to leave everything behind. And you don't know where you're going.
55:28No.
55:29And then the most excellent Lord Marquis led them down.
55:32Whereupon they reached the beach,
55:33though they were laden with clothes and furniture,
55:36which they sold with greater avarice, he says, wishing to take away the money.
55:42So they were selling this on the beaches?
55:44It sounds like that.
55:46Like a garage sale.
55:48Yes.
55:48And these were the small things...
55:49And this is their actual possessions.
55:52So we're getting a picture of quite a...
55:55It's quite a scene, isn't it?
55:57Of everybody going down there.
55:59And it says here, it took all day long.
56:01They're being received aboard 466 people.
56:05It says,
56:06His Excellency the Marquis, though the passage of the Jews onto the ship
56:10took most of the day, remained at the spit of land by the water
56:14without alighting nor disbanding the squadron
56:16till he saw that abhorrent people fully disembarked from the beach.
56:22And we know that from Oran...
56:26Which was...
56:27Which is just...
56:28From Oran here.
56:29You can just see it there.
56:30I can barely see it.
56:31I can't see it.
56:32There's an O-R-A-N.
56:33If you go from the A of Barbary, you go up a bit.
56:35Yeah.
56:36This one there is Oran.
56:37Right.
56:38And then they were taken up to Nice.
56:43Oh.
56:44And they only allowed the richest people to stay there.
56:50And 300 were not allowed to disembark.
56:54And amongst those 300 were...
56:57Abraham and Isaac and their families.
56:59Exactly.
57:00And they went on to...
57:01They went on to round the corner here.
57:06It's got a G in those days.
57:09Livorno.
57:10Livorno.
57:11In Italy.
57:12In Italy.
57:13And that is where the next one I know.
57:17Joseph, who was the son of Isaac, lived and died.
57:22And his son, Abraham, went to Amsterdam.
57:29It's quite a story.
57:41They talk about the wandering dew, and they seem to have wandered all the time.
57:45They couldn't put down any roots, not really, because they were constantly torn up and they had to move on.
57:52And it must have been an exceedingly worrying life.
57:59Belonging to the Sephardic tribe, you know, I do think that it maybe is the reason why some collective consciousness,
58:09some distant race memory makes me think, but I have to be settled.
58:15I don't like being unsettled.
58:18I don't like being unsettled.
58:19I don't like not knowing where I'm going or what I'm doing or when.
58:23I don't know whether it's just me and the way I was born or whether it's something of a memory
58:28of being moved on.
58:32I feel more connected.
58:35A consolidation, I think, of my Jewishness.
58:40Like being a member of a family.
58:42I'm going to tell you.
58:46I am to feel like.
58:58See if you look forward to the show.
58:58I'm going to get back on the show.
58:58It will be back on the show.
59:04I will take care.
59:17Transcription by CastingWords