Returning to her childhood home for the first time in 15 years, Deborah Levine has used the week-long visit to research the history of the Jewish community in Bermuda.

"I believe that, out of all the Jewish people who have lived on the Island, our family is probably the only one that had been here for four generations,'' explains Mrs. Levine, who is the granddaughter of the late Myer Malloy, Bermuda's first real estate agent.

"My great-grandfather was Alter Malloy who came here at the turn of the century. Originally from Russia, he was a tailor who had emigrated to the States, and then came here in response to an advertisement for a job. I think he was known as `David' here.'' Mrs. Levine, community relations director of the Jewish Federation of Tulsa, Oklahoma, plans to incorporate her research on Bermuda's Jewish people in a small, travelling museum.

"I hope that by undertaking this project, I can underscore the love my family has always had for Bermuda,'' she explains. "I think it's fascinating, the way they have been intertwined with Bermuda's history and, although it's sad that we no longer have any Malloys here, I hope that a written record will go some way to alleviate that -- it's a sort of `thank you' to the Island. I was about nine when we left Bermuda, and it was like leaving the Garden of Eden!'' Never a large community, and tending to keep a low profile, the numbers of Jewish people resident in Bermuda probably reached a peak when the US established Navy bases here. Other Jews, proficient in a variety of languages, also arrived with the British censorship team based here during the war.

A small, but poignant contribution to the cause of world peace occurred shortly after the end of the Second World War, when Myer Malloy led the concerted effort to help survivors of the holocaust as they passed through Bermuda on their way to start new lives in the US.

"I have a copy of a sermon delivered by a visiting rabbi who acknowledges that Myer arranged for those poor people, some of whom were very, very ill, to hold services for Yom Kippur here. Thanks to the then Bishop of Bermuda, this apparently took place in the Anglican Cathedral.'' Mrs. Levine, who last year won an award from the Catholic Press Association for her book, "Teaching Christian Children about Judaism'', says she has been "overwhelmed'' by the welcome she has received on her return here.

"I got into a taxi the other day and asked the driver if he had known my grandfather and he said, `Oh yes, he was the estate agent who first made it possible for poor people to buy their own homes'. So many people remember him!'' Writer researching history of the Jewish community From Page 25 Mr. Myer himself, Mrs. Levine explains, started humbly enough, selling wares from a suitcase around the Island -- and, later, famously accepting a horse and buggy as a down payment on a piano.

Her grandfather (known as Bermuda's "friendly auctioneer'' and whose motto was `Own Your Own') and his family, who instigated developments such as Harrington Hundreds and Hillview, scored quite a few other firsts on the Island, introducing the hire purchase system, opening the Bermuda Trading Company which sold a cheaper line of furniture, then the Stop and Shop (forerunner of the supermarket concept) and bringing in Frigidaire and the NCR system into Bermuda's stores. After a spell in the King Edward VII Memorial Hospital, the community-minded citizen presented a large ambulance in appreciation for the care he had received. At the time of his death in 1963, he was putting together plans for Bermuda's first shopping mall.

"My father stayed for seven years, taking over that project which became the Bermuda Mercantile, combining grocery store, pharmacy and a Sears. His old friend John Chiappa bought the real estate company and that became Dorchester Realty.'' When the Malloys realised there were enough Jews here to form a congregation, they started BASE, which is the English translation of the Hebrew for "house'' and met mainly on the Base for major calendar events.

Mrs. Levine, a graduate of Harvard, whose mother taught Latin at the Bermuda High School for a time, and now has her daughter at Smith College, says her family have come "a long way'' since her grandfather left school at the age of 12.

"But he put money aside for his grandchildren to go to school -- he was very set on education! He never knew Hebrew, only Yiddish, but his wife, Ida, was a member of the Swig family which was very prominent in the States. He had,'' she adds, "a great love for the Bermudian people. I have no idea if there was any discrimination. There were so few of us, and as far as I know, the family was always treated very kindly.'' Mrs. Levine hopes eventually to write a book on the history of Jewish people in Bermuda. Anyone with any information is asked to contact her, c/o P.O. Box HM 510, Hamilton HM CX.

"I think this is an important project and I feel that if I don't do it, the history will get buried in the passage of time. Any contributions on any aspect of the Jewish experience in Bermuda, or information on individual people and families would be very gratefully received,'' says Myer Malloy's granddaughter as she continues researching another strand of one of the world's oldest religions.