Porting library from Java to Python
Automatic translators (f2c, j2py, whatever) normally emit code you wouldn't want to touch by hand.  This is fine when all you need to do is use the output (for example, if you have a C compiler and no Fortran compiler, f2c allows you to compile Fortran programs), but terrible when you need to do anything to the code afterwards.  If you intend to use this as anything other than a black box, translate it by hand.  At that size, it won't be too hard.
I'm about to port a smallish library from Java to Python and wanted some advice (smallish ~ a few thousand lines of code).  I've studied the Java code a little, and noticed some design patterns that are common in both languages.  However, there were definitely some Java-only idioms (singletons, etc) present that are generally not-well-received in Python-world.
I know at least one tool (j2py) exists that will turn a .java file into a .py file by walking the AST.  Some initial experimentation yielded less than favorable results.
Should I even be considering using an automated tool to generate some code, or are the languages different enough that any tool would create enough re-work to have justified writing from scratch?  
If tools aren't the devil, are there any besides j2py that can at least handle same-project import management?  I don't expect any tool to match 3rd party libraries from one language to a substitute in another.