The kosher 'pied piper'

I wear a kippah, when it is very cold I wear a baseball hat as well. Walking around in the city and in the Tower Hill area is interesting. From time to time I feel very self conscious because people tend to look at me as if I were an animal at the zoo (I remember one Friday evening a young girl screaming to her mother :"Mummy look, those men wear little funny hats! " (There were eight of us going to dinner following a service.).

Other times I am approached by people on the street asking me if I know where a kosher restaurant is; I have a few 'regulars' I meet on the way home or at the local Waitrose that ask me the time of the next Friday night service or the time Shabbat comes in, etc. I have been asked if I know a newsagent in the area that stocks the Jewish Chronicle (not a regular publication in my reading list!), I have been insulted only once but an elderly gentleman told the three teenagers off because "Men of G-d deserve respects, whatever way they choose to believe in him" (First time in my life I was called a 'Man of G-d')

The best so far was when I was sitting in the open plan of a client office (The London operation of a Japanese bank) and people came down especially to see 'The first kippa wearer at xxxx!'. I tried to recruit one of them for the weekday minyan at Bevis Marks... it did not work.

A voice from the "Desert"

I live on the river not far from St Katherine’s Docks, when I announced to my friends in North West London that I was moving to central London (actually more like the most central bit of the east side...) I had three different reactions :

(a) Are there still Jews there ?
(b) How will you keep kosher ?
(c) Where will you go to synagogue ?

Let me start to reassure my concerned friends that this is not quite the Jewish Desert and I have not completely cut the umbilical cord with Golders Green (when I think about it, the Norther Line has been called many things but I think it is the first time anybody has referred to it as an umbilical cord, do you think this is enough to “bench shecheyanu “ ?)

I go to synagogue most mornings both during the week and on the week end. I also attend regular Friday night services. No, I did not start taking public transport on Shabbat, there are still a few working synagogues left in the area and I have become a member of Bevis Marks.
Yes, Bevis Marks is a working synagogue and not a museum. There are several active minyanim: the regular members on Shabbat Mornings, a ‘mynian club’ supported by a few city professionals during the week, a mix of regular, visitors and anybody else on Sunday mornings and a younger (late twenties to early forties) ‘local’ crowd that comes on Friday nights supplemented by anybody else who would like to attend a service but has been ‘stuck’ in the City too long.

Keeping kosher is interesting. I love to cook and I lived in small communities. Both things help. Kosher stuff can be bought on line, I still have to make friends with Stamford Hill so I share with friends the regular trip to Golders Green for kosher shopping and Selfridges provides an easy to reach source for kosher challot, kosher wine and other kosher groceries (not a huge variety but you get by). Tesco near Liverpool Street has kosher things as well. Overall, it makes me go back to my teen age years when a trip to a city with a large community would always end in a kosher shop. Actually, considering the Golders Green shops are open till late, I can now have my shopping trip after a day’s work without much of a problem.

That leaves us with the last question. Who lives here?

Well, there are still Jews in the East End. I mean Jews who have been living in the East End for longer than 15 years. In the past 15 years the urban regeneration of Shoreditch, Spitalfields, Wapping, Butlers Wharf/Shad Thames and the area of London Bridge close to the river has created a lot of new trendy areas within ‘walking distance’ of Bevis Marks. So journalists, professionals fed up with commuting and Jews from Continental Europe who are working in the City for a while rub shoulders with artists, writers and other creative types. The variety is huge.
Oddly enough, it is almost the best of both worlds, a small community in a big City. Since I moved in the area I have acquired a number of close friends by going to Bevis Marks. My next door neighbour is more likely to be Moslem than Jewish but walking around wearing a kippah is turning me into some sort of pied piper. I have been stopped in a supermarket by a young Frenchman asking me where the nearest synagogue was, I have been approached by a young couple asking me where they could get kosher meat and it could continue.

By the way... did I mention that my commute to work is a 20 minutes’ walk when the weather is good or a 15 minutes bus ride when it is not?