Author Grahame Davies

There are the names - Adler, Lipman, Prag; the inscriptions in the unfamiliar outlines of Hebrew; the little stones placed on the graves by visitors as a mark of respect; and the dates - based on a calendar which counts from the time of a covenant older than the Celts.

All these things tell of how the Jews played out part of the drama of their history in the land of another small people - the Welsh.

Or perhaps, thinking of the relative age of the two peoples, it would be truer to say the Welsh had played a part in the millennia-long drama of the Jews.

Some years ago, having visited the cemetery for the first time and having started to inquire into the history of the Jews of Wales, I wrote a Welsh-language poem based on these reflections.

It was published in English translation in the Cardiff Jewish community's journal. The warm response to this, prompted me to seek for further similar material from other Welsh authors.

Initially, I planned a small anthology of poems about Jewish subjects by Welsh writers, thinking that, with the single and often-quoted exception of Saunders Lewis, they would display the values on which the Welsh often pride themselves: respect for other cultures; compassion for the suffering; solidarity with the oppressed, and an instinctive feeling for the spiritual.

Researching further, I found I was wrong on two counts.

Firstly, the categories expanded to include prose and drama as well as poetry, so that I finally settled on defining the collection as a literary anthology.

I also expanded it to include Jewish literary responses to Wales, of which there are a surprising number.

Secondly, and more importantly, I found Welsh responses to the Jews were not anything like as uniform as I had expected.

Certainly, I am glad to say that the broad mass of material displayed the empathy I expected to find.

But by no means all of it does: there is material ranging from the well-meaning but patronising, through the insensitive to the prejudiced and downright offensive.

Among the items finally collected for the book The Chosen People: Wales and the Jews, were: the tale of the Welsh Calvinistic Methodists' optimistic (and, not surprisingly, unsuccessful) mission to the Jews of London and Palestine; the sensational Cardiff Jewess Abduction Case of the 19th Century; the history of the anti-Jewish riots of the Gwent Valleys in 1911; the fascinating tale of the Zionist Movement in Wales; the intriguing Welsh connections in the revival of the Hebrew language and the prominent Welsh role in the establishment of the State of Israel which involved David Lloyd George.

The range of material makes generalisations rather redundant.

But it would be true to say that the Welsh involvement with the Jewish people has been often moving, often dramatic, and, in some cases, of real historical significance.