Lost Tribe, The

1 9 8 0 (UK)
6 x 55 minute episodes

Premiering on BBC2 on Sunday 16 November 1980, this six-part serial by Jack Ronder (based on the real life of his grandfather) begins in the Jewish village of Ravalets in Lithuania in 1885.

Czarist troops burst in, break into the Ark of the Covenant, set the synagogue alight and shoot the villagers. But three young men escape – teenager Moshe Kaydan (Frank Baker) and his two brothers. The series then relates Moshe’s story over the next 70 years.

In their trek through the forest, Moshe and his brothers become separated, and he is left alone with the problem of crossing the border into East Prussia.

Making his way to a Baltic seaport, he buys a ticket to America onboard a small cargo vessel skippered by an unscrupulous Scotsman but is put ashore in Dundee, where he joins the “lost tribe” of Jewish immigrants in Scotland.

By 1903, Moshe (now played by Bill Paterson) is living in Edinburgh with his wife Rivka (Anne Raitt) and their five children, barely earning enough in a tailor’s shop to keep them all alive.

But they find prejudice an even greater enemy than poverty and adherence to Jewish laws at home causes further conflict.

Through all the tribulations, the family pride of the Kaydans comes through triumphantly at the bar mitzvah of their eldest son, Zelek (Hugh Fraser).

The onset of World War I brings family ties into conflict. Both of the Kaydan sons avoid conscription in their own ways.

The final episode – “Whaur’s the Milk an’ Honey?”, set in 1943 – found the ageing Moshe Kaydan in wartime Edinburgh, marking the death of his wife, Rivka, in the traditional Jewish way.

Director Tom Cotter was greatly aided by Valerie Green’s costumes, Campbell Gordon’s beautiful interiors, and Alex Scott’s sensitive camerawork.

Moshe Kaydan
Frank Baker (1)
Bill Paterson (2)
Rivka Kaydan
Anne Raitt
Ian Solomon
Ralph Arliss
Mary
Janette Foggo
Queenie
Miriam Margolyes
Zelek Kaydan
Hugh Fraser
Lala
Julia Hills
Sarah
Amanda Boxer
Dr Harris
Fulton Mackay
Leah Rosen
Lorna Heilbron
Isadore Stein
Peter Kelly
Greta
Sally Kinghorn
Marjory
Maureen Beattie

Episodes

Keep Us Alive | There Are No Scotch Jews | Pack Up Your Tsitsis | Even a Holiday | Judgement of Solomon | Whaur’s the Milk an’ Honey?