Lifestyle features

Hidden cost behind the growth of Charedim

By Simon Rocker, February 9, 2012

Halls Green, outside Sevenoaks in Kent, was once a woodland activities centre for children, run by a Christian charity. But the newest residents will not be spending their days abseiling or shooting arrows.

The teenage boys of what is now the Yeshivah Gedolah Torah Veyirah will study in the garden of England, a world away from the inner-city streets of London's Stamford Hill.

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Interview: Julia Hobsbawm

By Lynne Franks, February 9, 2012

Lynne Franks: Tell me about your background.
Julia Hobsbawm: My mother was a refugee from Vienna and came to the UK just after the Anschluss in 1938, to Manchester, and spent the first three years here trying to get as many relatives out as possible. My father [the historian Eric Hobsbawm] was originally from Berlin.

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Keeping the faith - or a marriage of convenience?

By Jessica Elgot, February 2, 2012

In Rabbi Jonathan Romain's conversion class, there have been couples converting together, religious Christians, an ex-Muslim convert, policemen, soldiers and housewives.

But although converts come to him from all walks of life, as the Movement for Reform Judaism's conversion expert Rabbi Romain has identified some key trends.

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My life's routine. So I tried being a stand-up

January 27, 2012

For a man approaching 50, 2011 turned out to be a year of personal growth and discovery when I might have assumed I knew all there was to know about myself. Never particularly ambitious and more interested in knowing a little about a lot than being a specialist (and therefore not a bad person to have on your table at a supper quiz), I have tended not to wander far from my area of comfort.

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The age-gap peril we'll all have to face

By Jennifer Lipman, January 26, 2012

In Nightingale's South London care home, you'll see Singer sewing machines, old family photographs and other trinkets associated with the past.

With about two-thirds of Nightingale's 200 residents suffering from dementia, the intention is to trigger memories, acknowledging that the needs of today's elderly people are different from their predecessors'.

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Successful parenting? She's discovered le secret

By Simon Round, January 20, 2012

Anyone who has ever attempted to dine out with a toddler in tow will know that it can be a stressful experience. Small children have a tendency to shout loudly, to refuse to eat unfamiliar foods, and occasionally to jettison unwanted items on the laps of people at neighbouring tables.

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The man still seeking justice a century after the Dreyfus Affair

By Gerald Jacobs, January 20, 2012

Writer, composer, art expert, educationist - George Whyte modestly concedes, when it is put to him, that he is a man of many parts, and adds: "All of them Jewish".

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If you build schools, will they come?

By Jessica Elgot, January 19, 2012

In the playground of Ilford Jewish Primary School, Chinese pupils race with boys in kippot. At King David in Birmingham, the Ivrit prize in assembly could go to Shimon or Shabina.

For the schools which must accept non-Jewish pupils, the atmosphere is harmonious, albeit after considerable challenges.

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Enter the pop-up shuls and made-to-measure minyans

By Simon Rocker, January 12, 2012

At Kol Nidre this year, a visitor would have been able to walk into Hendon United Synagogue in north-west London and comfortably find a seat. Twenty years ago, for one of the 25 biggest congregations in the country not to have been full would have been inconceivable.

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Interview: Yair Lapid

By Jenni Frazer, January 12, 2012

Imagine a cross between Jeremy Paxman and Jonathan Ross, with a twist of Daniel Craig-style good looks and a soupçon of Ian McEwan, and you are on the way to de-coding Yair Lapid.

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Some communities struggle, others are rapidly expanding

By Marcus Dysch, January 5, 2012

Britain's Jewish communities are changing.

Spread the length and breadth of the nation, from Aberdeen to Exeter, they range from small shtibl-style gatherings to 2,000-member synagogues.

But while many of us have a general understanding of where our largest communities can be found - in north-west London, Stamford Hill and Manchester - and an impression of which communities are struggling -

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He wants to unite Jerusalem. And you thought your job was hard

By Anshel Pfeffer, January 5, 2012

I first met Mark Sofer in a humid Mumbai car-park in November 2008. The multiple terror attacks on the city - which included an assault on a Chabad centre - were still in progress, Israeli security teams were scouring mortuaries to discover how many of the country's nationals had been killed, and the Israeli ambassador had agreed to give an impromptu briefing to reporters outside the consulate.

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When footballers first ruled the world

December 30, 2011

I was looking at a photograph of George Best when I had my eureka moment.

It was 1968 and, as a young entrepreneur in my 20s, I was running a company called Star Posters, which had just launched a series of products aimed at the new, affluent youth market - Frank Zappa sitting on a lavatory seat, Jimi Hendrix "making love" to his guitar.

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Interview: David Gerbi

By Jeremy Josephs, December 29, 2011

It's official - Dr David Gerbi still has his sense of humour. And given what happened to the 56-year-old psychiatrist earlier this year, that is quite surprising.

Two days after Yom Kippur, Gerbi had to leave Libya in a hurry after hundreds of protesters called for his deportation. He even received death threats. His crime? Defiling an "archaeological site".

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Welcome to Poland - it's where my family were killed

By Richard Zimler, December 22, 2011

My mother's father, Itzhak Gutkind, grew up in a three-storey townhouse in Brzeziny, a small but bustling city at the heart of Poland's textile industry.

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Interview: Theodore Zeldin

By Anthea Gerrie, December 16, 2011

Theodore Zeldin believes conversation has the power to change the world. Not a chance remark, and certainly not small talk, but the kind of meaningful exchange of ideas we tend deliberately to avoid in social situations.

Now the celebrated philosopher and historian is travelling the world holding talk-fests where people begin to discuss a topic with a complete stranger,

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Interview: Prince Hassan of Jordan

By Adam Lebor, December 15, 2011

It is a rare Arab leader who says the Arab world can learn from Israel. But Hassan bin Talal, Prince of Jordan, is a realist, a pragmatist and one of the most outspoken reformers in the Middle East.

He praises Israel's "tenacity of purpose - to draw your line in the sand and say, here I will stand, to promote a shared public interest, in which all my population can participate.

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The Nobel winner who was told he was a disgrace

By Nathan Jeffay, December 9, 2011

It could be the closing scene of a feel-good film. But it will happen for real, tomorrow afternoon. Israeli scientist Dan Shechtman, mocked for years for his off-the-wall theory, has not only been proved correct, but he will climb to the podium at Stockholm Concert Hall and receive the Nobel Prize for chemistry. The award is often shared by several people , but he has it all to himself.

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Obama's Israel policy could mean the end of his presidency

By Jenni Frazer, December 8, 2011

If you cut David Frum, there is every possibility his blood would run Republican Party blue.

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A year after the Carmel fire, the anger still burns

By Nathan Jeffay, December 2, 2011

There were flames everywhere, clouds of ash, and a smell that left you gasping for air. There was fear, as people ran from their homes, and tears, as 44 people died.

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