And further, by these, my son, be admonished: of making many books there is no end (Ecclesiastes 12:12) A pdf version of this essay can be downloaded here [*] Years in brackets refer to an individual’s or book author’s year of birth Thought experiment for the day: Anyone born 1945 would be pushing towards 80 and mostly past their prime. So name any Charedi sefer written by someone born post war that has or is likely to enter the canon, be it haloche, lomdus, al hatorah or mussar. Single one will do for now — IfYouTickleUs (@ifyoutickleus) July 27, 2022 A tweet in the summer which gained some traction asked for a book by an author born from 1945 onwards that has entered the Torah and rabbinic canon or is heading in that direction. I didn't exactly phrase it this way and some quibbled about 'canonisation'. The word does indeed have a precise meaning though in its popular use it has no narrow definition. Canonisation, or ‘entering the canon’ is generally understood to...
If previously we've been in a lather this time we're truly up in arms. We have been nothing short of defamed and slandered and turned from people of the book to people of the crook. And all under the guise of love and marriage.
Ok, let's calm down. For a start why was the programme even called A Hasidic Guide to Love and Marriage? Do they not know that round here Love and Marriage don't quite go together like a horse and carriage? For a start horses have been banned and more to the point because that would be putting the cart before the horse. We Chasidim don't fall in love and maybe tarry, maybe marry and probably call the whole thing off. We marry first, what’s sure is sure, and then maybe fall in love. Or maybe not. Either way we get to the other end of life just like everyone else so does it really matter which route we take? It's like going to Manchester on the A1 and not via the M6.
What?! You go that way? Are you meshige? You know how long it takes? It's much quicker on the M6. It takes about 3 hours that way. What are you talking about, 3 hours? I do it in 2 and a half easily and my brother in law...
Ok, ok, we're not starting on that. Next we'll be debating the quickest way to Heathrow so let's just get back to love. If we don't fall in love, well then she eats salad in the kitchen and he bites his nails while trying not to release hot air with his phylacteries on and yet we still have kids and marry them off on a reference of someone who lives down the road, round the corner on the left, and we then die like everyone else. So big deal if we haven't loved along the way. It's not as if life and death depends on it. Like still going to Heathrow through Shepherd's Bush...
Right, from now on we make no detours and we stick to the holy mess. In truth this programme was never going to be a fair representation for some because come to think of it for those who complain nothing will ever be fair unless it's drooling in tears and schmaltz with 'look how wonderful we are' scrawled all over it. You know a bit like the Tribune and the Hamodia. They never get those type of complaints because they of course capture us to a tee and portray us just as we are. No warts and no blemishes unless a huge amount of money is required to get the blemished free from incarceration in Japan. In which case they are presented as being immersed while in jail in Torah and Worship and queues of pious young men start forming at the Japanese embassy for a visa. That however is a different matter and I did say we're sticking to the point though it doesn't really count as a detour since jail was very much part of the script.
You see if ever proof was required for the maxim that the strength of one's opinion is in inverse proportion to one's knowledge of a subject then the discussion in Stamford Hill of the programme was it. 'We have been slandered', one person who hadn't seen the programme told me. Someone else said, “they'd never do that to the Muslims.” I politely enquired how many hours a week he spends at his non-existent television and he retorted, “me volt shoin gehert,” we would have heard already.
It's not just the content of the programme upon which our army of latent reviewers turned their fire, they also knew the effect it would have on the viewers. “They’re going to think we're all like that”, was a common complaint, which was in turn laughed off with, “they hate us anyway.” In one debate someone piped up, “I actually spoke to a goy who thought it was a marvellous programme” which drew a response of, “How many goyim do you know? I know ten goyim and they all thought it was disgusting.”
“And, meshige, did he really have to show in front of the camera that he's got £2,000 in cash? What will they make of that?” I mean they guy's been done for money laundering for goodness sake. Do they really think you launder copper coins in little bags like a newsagent holding up the queue in the bank? “I hear they each received £25,000” and so the conversation turns to the '000s reportedly received by those who made an appearance which inevitably ends with someone exclaiming, “So, why didn't they ask me?”
Even this is nothing compared to the reaction in our press. Do spare a thought for the poor 'rabbi' who feels terribly hard done by having to view a programme on Stamford Hill without himself weighing in. It’s almost like watching the FA final without a ball in sight. In the JC he thought that the programme “took advantage of vulnerable people and it exploited them. It's disgraceful. Now nobody will go in front of a camera again.” Does that include the 'rabbi'? Hallelujah! And please not in front of a digital voice recorder either and not even a ring-bound notepad.
I'm not really being fair because he does care for the 'vulnerable' thought it's difficult to figure out who he is referring to. Gaby Lock, vulnerable? A maverick, certainly. Nutty as a fruitcake, more than likely. But vulnerable? Let the 'rabbi' put himself up for debate with Gaby and we'll soon see who is the more vulnerable of the two. I don't think one would call Avi Bressler vulnerable either even if he sets the Shabbos table in his rather appealing boxers. Their only vulnerability I can think of is if they were to have the misfortune of applying to have their child admitted to one of 'his' schools. Vulnerable indeed.
Then there was Alex Strom who after an intro that the Tribune is not the place to review a TV programme went on to do just that because people have "heard and read" about the programme. Yeah, and smelt it too. Strom's bombastic conclusion was that "it is totally unacceptable for individuals to make themselves available to all and sundry and take upon themselves the responsibility to speak on our behalf. This is especially true if it involves allowing camera crews to explore a world that they cannot and are not meant to understand."
That is fine except that we all know who they are who purport to speak on our behalf and they do not include anyone on the programme who spoke for no one but themselves. In truth, what troubles Strom and the 'rabbi' is that these people are talking at all. As far as they are concerned our role is to doff our hats at authority and let it do the talking on our behalf. They of course would present a true picture. That shiduchim work a dream. All you do is stand in a queue and everyone gets their turn at wearing a shtreimel and sheitel. Ok, a Dutch girl called Tikwah might end up with Gaby Lock, a Yemenite girl to a boy with a divorced, jailbird of a father and the next son if he's lucky may end up with an Israeli girl wrung out of some match maker. But still it does work.
Notice too how we are a world that "cannot and was not meant to be understood." Which world is that exactly? The world which according to Gaby is run by the most arcane of rules while himself he is incapable of a routine of 3 meals a day? Where the men go off to Uman while the women are left to peep from behind the screen? Where the men sing round the table and the women stay in the kitchen? Where a match is decided on the length of the jacket and rim of the hat? Only the cold hearted bigwigs could fail to be moved by the pain etched on Avi's face as he spoke about his loveless marriage of 16 years and recounted the loss of his father when he was seven and that there is only a single photo of them together. Mind you, Avi's mum knew better than to marry another Gerer misogynist and second time round went for a full bodied masculine type. So at least we know whom Avi takes after.
Prize for understatement of the week must however go to Rabbi Dr Irving Jacobs who in the JC said the programme echoed Nazi newspaper Der Stuermer's antisemitic caricatures. Phew! What next? Is refusal of a place at a local school like the Nuremberg laws? The rip-off cost of meat like medieval Jew taxes? It is interesting though that the non-Jewish newspapers gave the programme generally good reviews but “Yeah, don’t be so naive, that’s only what they say in public…”
Truth said I do have some issues. A fiddler on the roof may have been too great a cliché, but why a cat? As pleasant as the klezmer background music may have been they haven’t been listening to it round here for some 50 years or so but great job they didn’t have on some of the stuff we do listen to. And why was the beginning in those faded colours similar to the films my aunt has of us as kids some 35 odd years ago?
Overall however we should celebrate a programme that ignored the anodyne world of our machers and oppressors and instead showed the fringe world of Ginger, Bradley and Shimmy Goldstein welcoming visitors with as much nosh he could get past the airport scales without paying for overweight. It is a world that many pretend does not exist. A world that is growing in numbers and in confidence. And a world that couldn’t give a toss for the ‘rabbi’, Strom and their ilk and it is this that really worries them.
Let’s be proud that only Stamford Hill has the vibrancy and multitude of characters to fill an hour of viewing. They’d never get this off the ground in Golders Green for they don’t do humour at Reb Chunes where they’re too busy expelling the ex-Stamford Hillers looking for greener pastures in NW. Of course they’re also too straight to harbour any jailbirds but let’s not go down that route because I did say I’ll stick to the point.
A lovely piece of writing. Have a good Shabbos
ReplyDeleteAs a shiksa living near you all in Stamford Hill I thought the show was delightful, eccentric and warm.
ReplyDeleteI was getting desperately worried that you hadnt mentioned "The rabbi" - but you didnt let us down. You really should go for an OCD assesment.
ReplyDeleteVery well written - loved the line people of the book to crook.
Well I suppose this is the biggest proof that we need people like "the rabbi" and Joe to represent us respectfully to the secular public. Love em or hate 'em, they are intelligent and do a great job PR'wise.
Didnt see Rabbi Pinters' comments in the JC, but that is a genius statement to bring it to light that the BBC actually took advantage of two vunerable individuals and exploited them.
ReplyDeleteYes! they are vunerable, not financialy, but one is mentaly vunerable and the other emotiotionaly.
This is a brilliant insight and really turns the tables, as opposed to attacking these two sad people.
I never thought of it that way, why did the BBC - from the 3000+ families on the Hill find the very bottom of the barrel - I mean the bottom when you scrape.
Anyone with a bit of common sense can see after 5 minutes with Gaby that the guy is a fruitcake. To keep on filming a documentary with him is EXPLOITATION.
Lets be honest, we have our fair share of issues we need to sort out in the Hill, but none of these were mirrored in the "documentary", all that came out was that we are a bunch of lowlife, low iq, naive criminals.
As a half-baked Golders Greener, always totally in awe of the outward religiousity of my brethren in Stamford Hill, I find your posts always exuberant, touching and, although subversive, always excellently written and filled with the spirit of veahavta l'reyacha kamocha. I often find myself clandestinely clicking away on my computer at work and waiting impatiently for the next installment...as I imagine they must have done in the days of Dickens..(if that is not an insult - is he kosher in the realms of Stamford Hill?)
ReplyDeleteYou make the place seem much more human and approachable. You are obviously single, and believe me I never thought I would utter these words in a million years, but after reading this post, can I ask you is there anyone else like you, who is still single, if not necessarily eligible, in Stamford Hill?
oops - it's supposed to say...'you are obviously not single'..
ReplyDeleteGG Anonymous, beware what you wish for. I know the author of this blog, trust me you would NOT want to partner up with him or anyone like him.... One of the trademarks of psycopaths and conartists, is highly intelligent and articulate smooth talk. Please dont fall for this.
ReplyDeleteThe author of this blog is a very bitter and dangerous person.
You have been warned.
Guardian Angel: Aha - you must be the author! I can't quite believe that a reader, no less a Stamford Hill reader, would leave quite such a large dose of lashon hara on the author's website...but ,hey, obviously I am completely naive about the blogging etiquette (halacha?) in Stamford Hill...
ReplyDeleteThe Shavuot article doesn't seem to have the tone of a psychopath...Chag sameach
Anonymous, you really make me laugh. This blog is based on Lashon hora, hate, jealousy and slander, and you come to me with that claim?? You prob. deserve someone like the blog author.
ReplyDeleteI come here for a good laugh, but you seem completely misguided.
I can only warn - do as you please.
article by Joe Shefer
ReplyDeleteI sat down and watched one of the most open and honest documentaries I’ve seen in a long time. Paddy Wivell managed in a space of an hour to humanize Britain’s Chasidic Jewish community, which is typically closed to all interaction with the outside world.
The documentary follows Avi Bresler, who has served four-and-a-half years in prison for money laundering, separated from his wife and is trying to find a shidduch or match, despite his tarnished reputation for one of his sons; Bresler is not your typical orthodox man.
The Jewish Chronicle newspaper was quick to pick up on the fact that the film followed what they described as a ‘renegade chasid’, awarding the documentary a measly 2 out of 5 and charging it with misrepresenting the community.
Yet what Paddy Wivell’s film has achieved is quite the opposite. He has managed to document a human side to Hasidim. Even orthodox Jews, who from the outset seem so rigid, inward looking and proper have the same temptations as everyone else in society. They battle with temptation, emotion and financial difficulty and struggle especially in matters of love, marriage and finding relationships.
The Jewish Chronicle’s reaction to Wivell’s work is as much testament to the success of the film as opposed to its shortcomings. Britain’s national Jewish paper is at best a Jewish Daily Mail. It’s editorials and commentaries are nearly always focused on anti-Semitism and the paper is obsessed with guarding its own jealous, neatly manicured view of Jewish life in the media.
What Wonderland did was to breach this carefully produced narrative and show the real side of the Hasidic community. Wivell showed that Orthodox Jews, who wear funny clothes, speak with a yiddishy accent and practice an almost medieval form of segregation are the same as everyone else.
The JC says claims that “Avi is no more representative of the Chasidic community than Amy Winehouse is of young Jewish women.” The paper is wrong. Bresler is a typical hasid. He wakes up early in the morning to pray, he cares dearly for his family, he wants the best for his children and has of course made mistakes in his life.
Film’s like this can only benefit the Jewish community in Britain, because they breach the kind of isolation which fuels xenophobia and racism in Britain. Avi Bresler the Hasidic Jew is more like me than I ever knew. Wivell’s film is a masterpiece. It is well shot, well edited and touchingly and sensitively produced. At no point do you get the impression that any of the characters are being pushed to bleed their hearts out to the camera. It is simply honest and should be commended. The film isn’t a straight forward representation of Stanford Hill’s Jews, but that’s the point.