I Wore New

This has been niggling in the back of my mind for a while already and I have alluded to the thought before here. Aren't we Jews just too nice to be taken seriously? The Muslims stridently screech for what they want, as unreasonable as it might look. By none too subtly, regularly reminding us of what they are prepared to do if they don’t get their way, they are shamelessly pandered to by, frankly, everybody with a healthy respect for their own hide, not least Jack Straw.

We Chassidim do not follow the Olympics closely. Most, I dare say, are not aware the winter games are in full swing. Certainly there is little enthusiasm for the Hellenistic ideal. There is indeed little trace of the Adonis in the fellow who shared the showers with me this weekend in my local mikve. As he massaged soap over his generous limbs he wondered aloud to the equally gross Neanderthal studiously shampooing his forehairs in the next shower what the point of the Olympic games is. There was a kind of triumphant superiority to his repeated mantra; “What difference does it make to mankind that some skier from Austria can go faster than anybody else down a mountain?”

“Yes. Does he deliver emergency medicines at the bottom of a mountain?” That spark from chimp number two proved he had understood the profundity of the argument.

It was a scrawny little Gollum who earned my respect though. He had been washing himself quietly and doing his best to melt into the background as some people do when those with more lung than processing power take the floor. I couldn’t help noticing wryly that only in a Chassidic mikve could a forty year old man wash his hair with Johnson’s Baby Shampoo and leave with his manhood intact.

“It is not about winning” he said and I smugly awaited the old canard about taking part. “It’s about losing.” He had everyone’s attention.
“Think about it. Let’s say each sport has a hundred competitors and you have fifty sports, that means by the end of the games you have fifty winners and four-thousand-nine-hundred-and-fifty losers. And look how well behaved and civilized that whole thing is.”

I think even the moulting bears understood. As I looked at that man his gnome’s forehead had turned into the dome of a learned man and his nondescript face had taken on the allure of a diminutive scholar.

There is, it is true, a certain dignity to being sporting and I do not feel our situation is dire enough here to warrant actively promoting a more active and forceful method of getting noticed. I am however worriedly watching the situation in Israel now with the new Hamas government being sworn in. Regardless of my positions on specific governments or policies in Israel I will not be able stand by and be silent as I see governments, who refuse to deal with terrorist organisations in their own countries, open negotiations with and support for a group who openly refers to the Protocols in its constitution.

In sport there is indeed dignity in losing but in war dignity is in victory or death in its pursuit.

Drawing Muhammad Out

I have a dream. Not quite a nightmare but still one that wakes me and leaves a feeling of angst and unease behind it. I am in a situation of potential danger. Say I’m in the path of a car and unable to move or something like that. The situation is dangerous but not intrinsically critical. As soon as someone sees me a simple action will remove the danger but suddenly I find I have lost my voice. I scream but no sound comes out. My rage and frustration come not from the idea of dying, I think I could cope with that but from the bitterness at being let down by a simple primal act like screaming.

The Internet has made it possible for the quiet voice from the back of the hall to become audible to anybody interested enough to go listening for it. People of a similar mind will soon pick up on it while those who disagree will soon pick on it and before you know it another voice has entered the fray. So where is the Muslim Shaigetz? Where is The Haramzada asking his community where the hell they think they are going with this cartoon business? Is there no dissenting voice, even anonymously? Are red beards better than black and white ones at keeping their subjects in check?

I don’t believe most orthodox Muslims or Jews really understand the concept of freedom of expression and speech at all. The idea you can hate what another says but defend to the death their right to say it does not exist in either of our cultures. There is no doubt in my mind that this crisis (even before it was hijacked by those diligently waiting in the wings for such an opportunity) has little to do with the actual cartoons just as I know that many normal and law-abiding Muslims are genuinely offended by them and that that does not change anything.

It is quite obvious if you hear the Islamic demonstrators speak that they have no idea how unreasonable their arguments come across to a western audience. “One and a half billion Muslims are offended because we do not allow pictures of the prophets already hundreds of years!” is the standard rationale or “How would you like to see baby Jesus with a bomb in his loincloth?” Then there are the others who come back with “Look how offended you are when we make a cartoon of Hitler in bed with Anna Frank.” If our society has not been able to bring home to these people why these arguments are correct but not valid for burnt out buildings and dead bodies then I personally think we should be out there braying for the head of the education minister on a plate.

Our lack of understanding is very possibly part of the reason we are unable to deal with their frustration. I notice that on the talk shows and other places where Muslims are represented the established media tends to choose the unthreatening and ‘normal’ looking spokespeople to represent the Muslim view. As an orthodox Jew I know how ridiculous it must look to the religious Muslim to see a bareheaded, comely woman and a suited, shaved and comfortably sanitised kufr sitting in a studio explaining that the radicals don’t represent the true Islam. So the atheist in a crumpled grey suit, a crew cut and glasses represents Islam by dint of being Arab and having stopped practicing? Gimmeabreak!

It reminds me of how laughable it is to us when our Chief Rabbi in his western suit and carefully nurtured Episcopal appearance goes on the record saying what an inspiration John Lennon was to us all. Not particularly offensive to me personally, I happen to like Lennon, but for many Chassidim “Imagine there’s no heaven …and no religion too” seem to have been far too much of an inspiration to him. So our comfortably assimilated landsmen smile and nod their heads appreciatively of how cultured and normal all we Jews are while my community looks on in bewilderment.

I remember too having my teeth set on edge by President G. W. lecturing the Muslims after 9/11 as to what real Islam is about. With his especially stern but earnest face carefully practiced he patronisingly explained that the fundamentalists do not represent Islam. Who was he trying to convince? Them? Are we westerners so arrogant that we don’t see how ridiculous it looks to a scholar who has been studying his religion for fifteen solid years to have an ex-oil executive who runs a ranch tell him what the nature of Islam is?

To be really honest we should admit that there is no logic to religion, much as the western kufr wishes to convince us there is. To a believer in the absolute truth of his cause the values of free speech and pluralism are pure rubbish and we might as well admit that. Two and two are four and I don’t accommodate the opinion of those who think it might be 177. If there is one God and He said, “See there should be no graven images of me” then what the Danish minister of culture thinks is largely irrelevant and the west would do well to understand that. The only question is how the believer should juggle his conviction with the threat of the legal system’s.

Until the understanding of our western values system and its inherent advantages develops within their community, and it will because it is in human nature to want to be free, western governments should take into account that it is impossible to force-teach abstract concepts and should stick to firm and fair enforcement of the law. Peaceful demonstration is legal so it has to be allowed but calls for violence should be dealt with harshly and decisively. Freedom of speech is not just designed to allow bloggers to cock their hoops at their establishment; it is a cornerstone of the western civilisation that has never before been questioned in the UK in two centuries. I, for one, do not want to go back to thought control under the Imams, the Rabbis, the Archbishop or the Prime Minister and I am utterly convinced Haramzada does not either.

Meanwhile the Danes have promised to print cartoons of the Holocaust that the Iranians are promoting in retaliation. While it kowtows to terrorist pressure it does also fall under the category of freedom of expression and in my opinion prostitutes have to agree to serve any client who wants to come (or doesn’t) and screaming can be part of the show.

And just for the record I personally find four of the cartoons absolutely hilarious.

Pavlov’s smile

My hands are freezing in the biting cold and the wind blows sharply and painfully against my ears, so ridiculously exposed beneath my big black hat. My obligatory navy-blue suit trousers do not offer half the protection of thick denim or corduroy so my legs beg for some added padding while my torso, under an overcoat, a long jacket, tsitsit (a fringed woollen shawl worn under the garments), a shirt and a cotton t-shirt vest, simmers gently. A group of my friends, all dressed identically, are walking a little ahead and I watch as they walk four abreast, laughingly oblivious to the other users on the street.

I observe a young lady out walking her dog step off the pavement into the road, all too aware of the startled jumps and scared avoidment she can expect if she tries to pass the group. She is wearing sneakers and pants and a simple winter jacket and she does not look at all cold. My friends say pork keeps you warmer than beef does. I wonder to myself whether they can pick out the vegetarians from the crowd by their shivering but do not bother to make the point. I acknowledge her as she rejoins the footpath and passes me. I smile to her. She looks surprised. She self-consciously shakes the lead of her dog and walks on looking back at least once I suspect although I do not check.

A tall Pole, new to the country judging by his typical haircut and brandless sneakers, warm as toast in his down-filled jacket and long woollen scarf, edges slightly away so as not to pass me too closely. His head and eyes, however, follow the orbit of our arc, watching me as we pass. I wonder to myself what would happen if I were to smile to him but do not bother as his eyes are by now fixed firmly on the retreating figure behind me. Maybe he thinks she is looking back at him?

A young couple walk past holding hands and laughing. I know them. I see him every morning rushing to catch the bus as I make my way to shul. He works for London Transport he told me and she is a trainee nurse. This morning they are walking unhurriedly together as if on cloud nine, completely impervious to the sub-zero temperatures. I smile to them and they smile back.

His nose is reddened by the cold and his big black hat sits high on top of his head leaving his ears exposed to the elements. He rubs them every two minutes in a futile attempt to warm them. I have often wondered why the Jews on the Hill wear their distinctive clothes as if the function of identification with the group were more important than protection from the elements. His long overcoat and dark pants and shoes actually look right for the time of the year if not the century.

He is walking behind a group of Chassidim who only acknowledge my existence to ensure that Rover does not come close to them. Do they really think I live with a vicious canine threat in the house? I have tried to explain so many times that he won’t hurt them, to no avail. I step off the pavement as I pass them neither expecting nor receiving thanks. He is dawdling slightly behind the other group and leers at me as we pass. I ignore him and continue.

I do sense someone staring at me as I walk on and I am sure he is turning back. Did Rover frighten him? He did not seem scared. Maybe he was interested in me or he wanted something. I turn back and catch the eye of a tall blonde hunk. He smiles to me and I smile back. It feels like a good day. Then a mixed-race teenage couple stroll into view and block him out. Damn them.

Bless His Ass

My youngest brother was born when I was about eight. In a time when mothers were still held in hospital for about a week after they gave birth and a gentleman of the cloth visited every second day. When nurses still called my mother Madam and my father was firmly invited to a compulsory chat with the family-planning advisor. I remember my parents finding that discussion a source of enormous mirth although my own experiences did not cause me to agree that children are the kind of blessing where quantity always counts more than quality and that only a typically delusional goy from a typically dysfunctional family could ever think otherwise. Indeed, if they had invited the blessings already produced by the union instead of my father, my youngest few siblings would most likely not be facing any of their current difficulties (or much else for that matter).

In a large ward, in the next bed to my mother, lay a black woman who had just suffered a miscarriage. Her husband, a big gentle Jamaican of the finest kind was considerately rubbing her back, holding her hand and comforting her in ways I had never seen my parents connect. My surreptitious but enthralled staring must have caught his attention because he interrupted his petting session to call me over and offer me a sweet. My father, ever alert when the possibility of straying arose, hastily jumped up to tell the man I didn’t want what he knew to be a non-kosher candy. The point of coyly hiding the fact that I would not eat it because it was not kosher I still do not know, especially since my peyos and enormous kappel made it quite plain anyway. My children proudly explain they only eat kosher and do not seem to suffer unduly for it.

The man beamingly welcomed us both and in his wonderful islands singsong asked me if I know my Bible. My father’s self-satisfied smile precluded me voicing my well-earned hesitations.
“So tell me dis, boy. Who kill a lion widde jawbone of an ass?”
He could have been speaking Island Arawak for all I understood. I stared at him blankly.
“Go on boy, you tell me. Who was it kill a lion widde jawbone of ass?”
I don’t remember exactly how the conversation ended although I do know that I had the urge to go to the nearest empty bed, climb in and pull the covers over my head.

What stops this story being my party piece is the sobering knowledge that even if I had been able to decipher his question I would have been unable to answer because I no idea what he was on about. In the school I went to and in the family I lived, the Bible was no story. It was most certainly not read for enjoyment. Moreover the story of the Bible is not told in narrative form except to toddlers. Certainly any tales with Dalilahs in are resolutely squashed; as incidentally are any references to pregnancy and intimacy of any sort.

I won’t forget the day a boy in my class asked the Rebbe why we only have to perform a bris on boys and not on girls. This was no call for FGC, rather a proof of biological naïveté. The Rebbe struggled to imply something that would not count as him teaching the boy shmutz but would still serve to jog his memory. He could not because the kid was obviously obviously genitally clueless. The reasonable thing to do would have been for the Rebbe to tell him to wait after the lesson and have a couple of quiet words, but perish the thought. The entire class was a titter and I have no doubt the place behind the toilets in the playground was busy the next playtime.

I know there were boys in my class to whom learning and being good came naturally. For them it was a pleasure to know at what age Yocheved begat Miram and how many times the word 'if' occurs in any given parsha. They were proud to be able to inform Daddy, over the Shabbat dinner table, how the Abrahamic bris was the catalyst for all the holy abstinence of future generations. The fact they had no idea what they were spouting deterred them not an iota. Me? I was staring out of the window dreaming of belonging to a religion where guys killed lions widde jawbone of an ass.

T.S.

The Epicurious

I do sometimes enjoy the holiday season. I find myself swept along by the, acknowledgedly phoney but still comforting, piped cheer that I, as one unfettered by the present-buying mania, can uniquely and wholeheartedly enjoy. Still every now and then I am rudely reminded that, as within our little bubbleworld, I am sometimes more like a tourist than a citizen in this temporarily cheerful landscape.

We orthodox Jews do not celebrate start of the new year in January. There are those that claim that we don’t really celebrate anything at all, in the sense that our friends and neighbours from outside the community do. I think even the most fervent chassid will agree that, spirituality aside, our festivals are marginally less colourful and miles less fun than the secular variety. Although it is true, spirits, albeit of vastly differing sorts, do feature highly in both universes. The other thing the two holidays have in common, in our consumer societies at least, is the obsession with food. Indeed for the New Years lunch I attended with my goyish colleagues I had the specially briefed chef prepare, under the beady eye of a highly unsanitary looking mashgiach (kosher supervisor), the very same festive salad my wife served with the meat on our New Years eve:

In a dry pan over a low flame toast a big handful of pine nuts, shaking continually until they are evenly and lightly browned then stand them aside to cool. Add some light frying oil to the pan and fry off some cubed crusts of bread or challah to get some really crispy croutons. Leave aside to cool as well. Next, deseed half of a large and very red pomegranate into a salad bowl filled with baby spinach leaves - well washed and shaken dry. In a vinaigrette shaker or small container with a lid pour 5 tablespoons each of light cider vinegar and sunflower oil, 1 tablespoon of runny honey, a pinch of mustard powder and some roughly ground black pepper then shake hard. Mix together the croutons, nuts and salad. Pour the vinaigrette over just before serving and you have my wife’s perfect Rosh Hashana salad.

Almost perfect I should say. My younger boy refused to eat any of it because his well-meaning teacher had taught him that if he ate vinegar at all, from Rosh Hashana until after Yom Kippur, he would have a sour year. Cretin! Although I might be tempting fate here, I do have to point out that I did eat it then and it does not seem to have had any adverse effect on my year, although a purist might argue that this might have been the year my star finally shot out into orbit had I only declined those greens. Indeed it would not be the first time my religion crashed with my career and the fact I have managed to carve myself a niche and earn my way only serves to make me wonder sometimes, as I lie in my single bed at night, what I might have become had I gone to university at sixteen as I wanted, instead of the Yeshiva I passionately disliked but my father chose for me.

The mashgiach, sporting his festive melancholy, came over to me as I ate. He must have seen in me a kindred spirit and having finished preparing for me an utterly unappetizing looking plate of cold-cuts he had come to see how his raison d’etre there that night was doing. My company took one look at him and hastily vacated the area leaving me to finish my salad in the company of a fellow heeb.
"Is that all you are eating?" He leered at my plate through smudged spectacles.
"Yes," I replied stoically and prepared to explain why. He did not wait.
"Can I have your meat then?"
"Yes," I replied, "why not? You’ve already got my goat."

War Crimes

The western news media, having been made to realise that their anti-Israeli slant in the last years has led to a raised anti-Semitism, are suddenly carefully ensuring that their pro-Jewish content quota are filled. The BBC, in a clumsy though welcome change, again aired an extremely good Auschwitz TV series which sensitively but factually takes the viewer through the rise and fall of the Nazi regime and shows, in simple words and images, more of the horror than the all grandiose cinematic understatement of Schindler’s List ever could. In the last film in the series I saw some very real and serious issues raised and was made aware of some very disturbing truths about injustices to some victims and the privileges of some perpetrators that are still currently being tolerated or ignored by all - including us.

I chose the word clumsy before some of the other words that jostled to fill that space because I am giving the Beeb the benefit of my doubt. I feel they are impetuously rushing in, with knee-jerk, quick fix solutions to a perceived negative image of Jews in Britain, caused partly by their anti-Israeli propaganda, to play their trump, the Holocaust card, with the stated aim to show the youth how dangerous racism and anti-Semitism can be. The intended mechanism is to try and rekindle some of the sympathy the world used to have for the Jews as they watched them recovering from the horrors of WWII.

It might be partly our own fault that the goyim feel the need to dance around us as if on eggshells. Our brethren across the pond seem to have managed to find a equal, even proud, place in what is fast becoming the new Terra Sancta. Meanwhile we, the Jews of Western Europe have for so long milked the holocaust for all it is worth that it is small wonder that in the eyes of the gentile, victimhood has become our defining characteristic. The British are so afraid of offending our touchy community that even a hard-hitting and in-your-face, obnoxious comedy show like Little Britain, famous for its outrageously offensive caricatures, declines to poke fun at Jews. A glaring omission when you remember that one of the writers of the show and main actors is Jewish.

The problem is two-fold and we ourselves are partly to blame for both. The first is our insistence that being anti-Israeli and anti-Jewish are the same. In a special BBC program from a mosque in London a certain Sheikh Mansour, asked whether Jews and Muslims can get on, is quoted as answering: "I believe that the two can live in peace - but at present not in a natural state. If the weak people, the Palestinians, are forced to do something they oppose, it may work, but it cannot last if it is unnatural." An outrageous answer coming from the Sheik of a mosque in London talking about London’s Jews, yet the editor, tellingly, saw no reason not to choose that particular quote to publish.

The second is the fault of all the Jewish personalities and celebrities who hide or downplay their Jewishness in a tacit acceptance that a foreshortened member is not something one makes a big song and dance about. I cannot think of many current Jewish personalities or stars in Gt. Britain who do not either negate their roots or bend-over backwards to prove how Goyish they can be, only to spring up when the holocaust is mentioned to claim their part of that sympathy vote.

We British Jews are citizens of the UK, conceived and born here. We have our businesses, our jobs, our families and homes here. We should not have our positions or our fate automatically determined by either a state run by people who happen to be of the same race as us or an event in not too distant past - whatever its magnitude. While we might fervently support the State of Israel (or not) that too is but a mere opinion and the right to the holding of these is today the inalienable right of every man (or woman), is it not?

If the state-sponsored broadcaster wanted to create a more positive image of the practicing Jews in London they could be coming to ask us what we think we would like to show. Maybe a film showing how scared a 13 year chassid can be to ride the tube alone or walk home from school in his distinctive garb might be more to the point? Maybe a program showing something of the contribution made to Britain over the last few decades by Jews despite their mistaken wish to downplay their Semitism?

In any event forcing me to buy my equal and fully deserved rights with guilt makes me a lesser human being and that is the true anti-Semitism.

Iron, Lion, Zion: Black Hatted Rebbegae

Reggae is not the music of choice for the standard orthofunction, or, it wasn't...
In my father’s eyes it is not music at all. When he found a Bob Marley cassette in the music stash hidden in my sock drawer my old man, before throwing it out, asked me with tears in his eyes how his own son could listen to a shvartze making animal noises. A rhetorical question I had no inclination to explore at that time and he patently expected no answer to as he proceeded to dispose of my albums of grunt.

As I proceeded to replace them, I am sure I pondered, as I often do today, how comes I am indeed so comfortable in my own little place right on the edge of the gefilte-fish cradle. With the shimmering jellified comfort of soulless shtetility just within reach and the soothing, pounding reggae sound beating its own version of sanity in through the background. In an ironic twist, now it is my own daughter who wants me to order her a Reggae album from the Sonymusic website. To further the irony it is a religious young man’s sweet sound and cherubic good looks that have taken her. The rebberap sound we already have gotten used to from Lipa Shmelzer is now being surpassed in the adoration of a budding generation of orthofannettes by Matisyahu’s rebbegae.

This young man, religious enough to go onstage without his glasses because he does not want to see the girls, should pose no harm to my daughter, though pose he certainly does. Yet as I indulge her unconscious pheremonal desires I am aware, as he is probably not, that I am observing a very slippery slope. His being featured on MTV helps him to overcome the very real hurdle in these girl’s eyes, of being a Lubavitcher and provide a legitimate, fully kosher menu of gyrating, middle-clutching, shadow playing, finger pointing, hip hopping, back bopping, black sounding music. No wonder they love him and I am convinced the happily married young man who has just had a baby hopes they will all learn from him to love his religion and his God.

Alex Strom, with whom I do not always agree, rues in his column this week the lack of entertainment opportunities for the Haredi young male. He makes a valid point, if we overlook the fact that he seems consider the excruciatingly infantile entertainment, that The Aguda he used to lead produced, worthy of promotion. However unlike the weddingsinger stars and very amateur dramatics, the Cheapendale Chevres' overdubbed electronopop to illfitting lyrics and the soulless choirs of overproduced yingelech that we excused as Heimishe entertainment, finally God seems to have blessed us with a Matisyahu.

Matisyahu could be the answer to my dreams. A role model to the artists within the haredi community who have until now felt you have to either suppress it or chase it outside. He can, if he plays his hands right (pun intended), prove to us that it is indeed possible to serve God in many ways and that Lubavitch might in fact have gotten that right.

And wat could be more ironical den dat man?

Adressing Hair

Non-Chassidim tend to be miserably misinformed as to what actually goes on inside our community yet for some reason many seem fascinated by our lifestyle and customs. With my perspective clouded by my own hang-ups I tend to cover up much of what would seem interesting or special to the outsider for fear of having it, and by extension me, labeled quaint. So when Terence, one of my goyishe colleagues, asked to see a bar mitzvah I waited until one of my more secularised friends made one and wrangled him an invite to that.

It was a fairly nice affair and the food was about as good as can be expected with a Kedassia Hechsher (certificate of extreme kosherity). The men, of course, sat separately from the women but the potted separation wall was not watertight so the newly liberated Chassidim could join the closet and repressed homosexuals in discreetly proving their manhood by determinedly peering through the palm fronds at the fairer sex in mastication.

There are very few modern-chassidic families on the Hill. It tends to be individuals who have personally chosen to relax the arbitrary rules somewhat who form the bulk of this grouping. The ultra-traditional uncles, aunts, grandparents and siblings of this proud father were thus decidedly less so although they clumsily hid it behind loud, jovial Mazeltovs and convivial expressions of satisfaction that everybody could make it. The speeches pointedly ignored his parents and determinedly impressed upon the child how important tradition is, what wonderful and holy people his great-grandparents had been and how much he too can achieve if he only opens his heart to experience the sweetness of the true Torah way.

The patronising undercurrents were indetectable to non-yiddish-speaking Terry and he and his friend came away full of how nice and close everybody is, what interesting customs and food we have and what fun it must be to be a Chassid and have parties like this all the time. Terence presented his ‘fail-proof’ gift of a CD voucher from HMV and I chose not to mention that it would most likely be rescued from oblivion by the father of the Bar Mitzva; the boy himself in all probability never having stepped inside a ‘goyishe music shop’.

His companion, a clinical psychologist, who I later learned had been miffed when the waiter informed her that wine was available only for the men, declined to be drawn on her impressions of the gaggle of yachnes who shared her table and her only remark, as my wife and I walked them to the tube, was that the ladies there all seemed to have the same hairdresser. The discussion about Chassidic women and wigs that ensued put paid to talk of any other subject. She, it transpired, had never realised that my wife wears one although she has met her often enough.

“So why does she wear a wig then?” she asked.
I explained that, as her hair is one of the sensual and most beautiful features of a woman, a married one does not flaunt it in public but reserves it for her husband. I added, as we are trained to do, that to the uninitiated it might seem that wearing a wig defeats that objective by giving her a head of even nicer hair but that as psychologist she of all people must understand that paste jewellery might look real but does not straighten the spine and bring a gleam into the eye the way 15 carats of polished diamonds would. Terry, who has dealings with other Chassidim too, was not that easily convinced. He observed that many Chassidic women take their wig off when they come home and replace it with a cloth head cover or snood that is similar to the one Muslim women wear and far from attractive. "Indeed", he pointed out, "I find they are far more attractive when they come to see me than when they are home." My wife then continued to scupper my entire argument by adding that many Chassidic women shaved their heads altogether and the snood must be a far sight prettier than a bald pate even to the most forgiving of husbands.

I could see this discussion going everywhere I did not want it to and hastily nudged my dear wife to inform her of that. With the panache I have come to expect as much as respect she immediately put paid to it by launching into the telling of an old English joke of two women on a bus.
One leans over to the other and says, “I hope you don’t mind my asking but is that a wig you are wearing?”
“No, it isn’t.”
“Oh. Are you sure? I won’t tell anyone.”
“Well it is not!”
“Are you absolutely positive, because..?”
“Oh, Ok then. Yes it is.” She snaps angrily.
After a slight pause the other one murmurs, “Really? It does not look it!”

Hi Jinx

One of the Jewish buildings I visit on occasion is is by unfortunate necessity fairly heavily fortified. This yomtov I was practically unmasked by a security officer, warned to look out for a misfit, who almost took me out. I had to pick up something from inside and, passing by in the evening, decided to make an unscheduled stop to get it. As I approached the door a guard stepped out of the shadows and stood looking at me. I greeted him with a ‘Hi’ and walked on. He followed me up the path and stood a few steps before the door slightly hesitantly, then, as I fumbled with the number lock in the dark, he called me over.
“Good evening Sir. Where are you going?”
“In.”
“Do you belong here?”

In any other circumstances his question could have been the subject of an entire blog. I was more concentrated on the message though than his poor choice of words and I did not take him up on it. And by the way I do strongly suggest the local constabulary have a brainstorm one evening on what the appropriate terminology is in establishing how any particular Chassid fits into the kinetic kaleidoscope of black they happen to be monitoring because the way they put their questions can sometimes be cringeworthy.

“Yes. Why?”
“Do you know the number for the door?”
“Yes.”
“Can you open it for me please?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because I do not have the authority to let you in.”
“I just want to see if you know it.”
“If you would have just stayed where you were you would have seen if I got in?”
My glib logicism did not impress him and he insisted on being shown that I knew the number. I did that and went inside.

He was still there when I came back out, chatting to a colleague on the street who was sitting in a car. He got out as I approached and more or less accosted me, in a friendly sort of way, as I made to pass him.
“Hi.” I said.
“Good evening Sir. Can I speak with you a moment?”
My supper was going to be of the late variety I could see and resigned myself. After the preliminary few minutes of giving my name and address and speaking Hebrew, to show I could, and silently thanking whoever convinced the Muslims to circumcise their males and thus spare me the ignominy of having to differentiate myself, we established that I was not an Arab terrorist dressed up as a Chassid but a bona fide, true-blue man-in-black.

In return for my teaching him a few insider ways of recognising one of us I got me some information of my own. It turns out the guard had had his alarm bells switched on by my atypical behaviour. “Chassidim,” he told me “do not look strangers in the eye, they avoid eye contact with me. They also don’t greet me like an equal but like a child greets a policeman. Your laid-back ‘Hi’ does not fit the profile.”

I had a very long talk with him and I do not know at what stage it stopped being his interrogation of me (if it ever did) and became my interrogation of his of me. I learned a lot from it though and I now know why I always get such special treatment in the airport and why the Israelis take so long in letting me through. I don’t fit the accepted profile for a Hiller and I now know why.

Good Bye.