If You Tickle Us...

Occasionally it is necessary to address a problem that does not exist. If it ain't broke don't fix it is not a True Toiredike concept and one that sits comfortably only with the alien ways of the Goyim that you fix only that which requires fixing. We in Toire true fashion fix everything, and if it ain't broke we give it a hechsher and raise the prices. Or of it ain't broke and is kosher we remove the hechsher like Frohwein sausages and at a stroke there are only vile sausages tasting like a cross between a rat and the animal a streimel comes from. But that's that. Now we are talking about the far more important non-existent problem of parents not contributing sufficiently towards their children's school fees. Non-existent because according to buffoon yitzchok to suggest otherwise is an 'alien mentality which has no basis in reality or in Torah- based hashkofoh '. So there you have it from the ferd's mouth, whatever the facts you must deny t

'Rabbi of his people, leader of his nation, lamp of luminance, blessed be your arrival for peace' Unless you passed Egerton Road this week and have a smattering of Aramaic and more than that of English you may not be aware of the arrival of the Lamp of Bobov in our midst. And by the time you read this the Lamp will have travelled to radiate its luminance elsewhere so you will have missed out. The reason I bring this to your attention is because I always wonder why is it that we are happy to put into Hebrew , Aramaic or even Yiddish words we would never say in English. Sometimes, like the Yiddish section of the JT, it's because they put into Hebrew characters anything they wish to keep out of sight of the goyim or, worse, the JC. But there's nothing harmful about describing a 50/60 something as a lamp yet the most his followers would ever say about him in English is 'Grand Rabbi'. So why this reticence? I have a couple of theories. 1. They know it's a load of

Because I value the fact that however high and mighty the leaders may be and however much they corrupt their position they still must come back to us for our vote every few years. Cynics may snigger and sophisticates may scoff but if it were all one big con why do countries like China not join in the fraud and hold elections? Why did Russia rig its elections despite that the governing party could have won in a fair vote? Because a fair election is in itself is a challenge for those who cannot bear being reminded that they are appointed by the people and can be removed by the people. I voted to remind myself and those in power who put them there and who can removed them. Because as the son of a father born in the shadow of revolution and who suffered greatly at the hand of the Nazis I feel it a duty to support the democratic process. At times when the BNP is on the ascendancy the task is all the more urgent. Because by participating in an activity that the whole country is engaged in

"Going out towards Hackney by coach for the ayre, the silly coachman carries us to Shoreditch, which was so pleasant a piece of simplicity in him and us, that made us mighty merry." Samuel Pepys's diary entry for 10 May 1666. Silly indeed!

It's about time we holies of holy start holding an 'Idiot of the Week' competition. The contenders would be many and the competition strong. It could go under the name of Stamford Hill's Got Little Talent, though some may object on the grounds that buffoon yitzchok's weekly 'Overheard' epigram counts as originality of the first order. Anyhow, were such a contest to be held no doubt this week's prize would go to the one and only Judith Weil. While she has deserved an accolade many a time for her insightful reports into the even holier and thus madder in Israel, this week she has outshone even herself which is no mean feat. In a headline piece on 'flu, apostrophe compliment of Ms Weil being as she must a kvetch in grammar as in chareidi mores and madness, Weil and her esteemed blockheads at the Jewish Tribune dedicated a significant part of the article on the 'flu (aka s*** flu) to why its proper description is verbum non grata in chareidi circles

I have a non-Jewish friend. Wow! I hear you say. Where did you get her from? What, it's a her!? Does your wife know about it? Shikses have Jewish friends!? How did you do it? What did you say the first time? You know how many times I've tried, but whatever I say doesn't seem to impress them. Antisemites . Sometimes they don't even smile. There's a counterpoint too. Whom are you trying to impress, you shaigetz ? You think that by having a goy for a friend you'll save your skin when Hitler, the sequel rolls into town? You think goyim look up at you because you have one of theirs for a friend? And who is she already? Your Polish cleaning lady probably. A classy English girl like the ones on aeroplanes won't even look at you. So we're not jealous and you can stick her in your mikveh bag. Anyway, what do you think she thinks of you? That you're cheap and you're selling out and just wait till you fall out with her and she'll call you a b

The time of week when I most think of this non-entity of a blog is Friday night. It starts in shul , me sitting hidden away in the alcove that is my place, assuming no one has pinched it or there is no simche with brothers, uncles, nephews and cousins far removed from all over the globe taking up the spare and not so spare seats. It is always my seat, chair is more like it, and a rather wobbly one at that, that goes first as I have a revered minhag passed down to me from previous generation to tuck in kugel and salad after the candles have been kindled and if I turn up to shul late, well, unlike a plate of kugel , whatever is missed is shul can always be made up. The only downside of course being that my seat gets pinched and unfortunately I'm not one of those who shove people off MY seat. First because I don't really have a seat as that was nicked ages ago and second the place I do have to rest my posterior is in reality no more than a tiny space improvised once a week

So much has been written and said about the near collapse of our banks but still I can't resist my two Krugerrands worth, the liquidity of my bank having put paid to tuppences, so here goes: 1. Poor poor Scotland. If Alex Salmond and the SNP had their way Scotland, with its 2 main banks glengarries in hands at the door of the Treasury , would by now probably have been an Iceland no. 2. We may have had to freeze their bagpipes and whiskey vats using anti-terrorist legislation. And what really makes you shiver is imagining those Scottish balls covered with no more than a kilt frozen by the nefarious English. Some sobering thoughts for go-it-alone nationalists having downed a Glenmorangie too many. 2. It was this government and this prime minister as chancellor that took away the regulation of banks from the Bank of England and transferred it to the FSA . But it would be too much to expect some remorse from a gloating prime minister triumphant for 'rescuing&

Firstly thanks to the many nice people who've left comments. Thanks too to those established writers who've written to me privately not wanting to damage their reputation by publicly associating themselves with this blog. I share your concerns and will respect your privacy. Secondly, or, this being Stamford Hill, second of all, thanks to the millions who've yet to discover this site and so the pressure to continue has been manageable whereas if pleas were coming in by fax, email, post and phone not to mention a demonstration on my doorstep as if this were a threatened cemetery in Eastern Europe I would have barely been able to cope.   As things are it feels more like a neglected cemetery in North London which it being one of our own we can tolerate foxes devouring corpses so as to prove that we have nothing against the welfare of animals and all the fuss about circling poor chickens above our heads is no more than fabrication by those who seek nothing less than our tot

Like every blogger I too promised to myself when opening the blog that I would keep it regularly updated but now notice that it is over a month since I last wrote. And it's not as if not much has happened in that time. So I shall try and keep up the momentum.   I was struck by a piece in the latest issue of Hackney Today titled 'Park that nearly wasn't' about the history of the opening of Springfield Park. The entire area of Springfield Park had been put up for sale for development (plus ca change...)

Thursday night, the one before last, I was putting my little one to bed and I said, 'Tomorrow, we can listen to music with our breakfast'. The reason why tomorrow and not today or yesterday is that we were just coming out of the mourning period of the 'Sefirah', meaning the counting days. Counting what? you may want to ask. To which the reply is, 'counting the sheaf', which is not a Jewish version of counting sheep though the rules and regulations governing the Sefirah are of no less a soporific effect. The period of counting starts on the 2nd day of Passover despite that what is actually written in Leviticus is 'from the morrow of the Sabbath'. This being Judaism an argument broke out and Sabbath was taken to mean the 1st day of Passover though not without some dissenters. Anyhow, the counting culminates on day 49 which was last Sunday, a day before the festival of Shevuos (aka Pentecost). Shevuos translates as 'weeks' which kind of makes

To the newly refurbished Stamford Hill library. First impressions are good: airy, light, spacious, new wooden shelving, increase of computer terminals and fresh carpet. The new bank of computer terminals is away from the prying windows of the Portland Avenue side of the library as are the poetry, history and other non-fiction collections. In their place is the children's section which appeared, from a distance, to be much more colourful and playful. I visited the library at lunch time and it was awash with young chasidic men surfing the web. Allow me a digression. If you are a regular reader of frum newspapers you will know that frum men don't exist. They are yungeleit (their italics) in the Tribune, Avereichim in the Hamodia, Bochurim if they are single and always have been, and balei batim if they are married and holding down a job or running a business. Anything else these days, if it dresses in black and white and wears two covers for its head is a rabbi. Teachers ar

Spare a thought for the JC in their list of most powerful Jews in the UK . (How best to describe it? Knackers nominating kackers , vice versa or remove the 'n' from the nominators as well as the nominees?) Last year they almost totally ignored the frum community so this year they had to make even greater fools of themselves by going over the top. Please don't patronise us by putting Pinter at 8 and that oaf Lobenstein in the top 30 and in future don't omit us either. Before getting into the details, what was Michoel Posen doing on the panel with reform and liberal Jews? Did he ask a sha'ale ? And may we know whom he asked? Anyhow nice to know that hypocrisy is alive and kicking and while reform is treif in the Ben Yitzchok column, one need only mention power or money (cf. Holocaust restitution committees) and they become bedfellow Jews for even the holiest. Now to the funny bit which got me tickled. Uncle Joe bless him may be an