TV doctor Miriam Stoppard was visibly moved by a visit to a 16th-century synagogue in Cochin, India in the latest episode of BBC’s The Real Marigold Hotel.
Dr Stoppard, together with fellow Jewish participant Lionel Blair, was taken to the Paradesi Synagogue as part of the show's celebrity trip to India,
She had earlier recalled how her Orthodox father had regarded her as “dead” when she married out.
But when she was shown the Sifrei Torah in the ark, she said; “Seeing the Torah just plumbed into my own memories of my family life and parents… I would like to say to my dad ‘But I came back today.’”
With tears in her eyes, she said she had been moved “to be somewhere where Jews were treasured and loved and protected and could live happily without any fear of reprisal.
“I sort of said to my dad, ‘Please forgive me’, which was extraordinary and I have never felt that in my life.”
