The Charedi community of Canvey Island appear to have been left bemused by a local council initiative intended to help local schoolchildren understand their strictly orthodox neighbours – a concert performed by a klezmer music troupe.
Essex’s Music Education Hub, which is partially funded by the local council in association with the Jewish Music Institute, invited the Don Kipper music ensemble, to play to a number of primary schools on the island, with a concert due to take place during Chanukah.
Joel Friedman, one of the leaders of the Charedi community in Canvey, which is primarily made up of Satmar Chassidim, told the Times that it was “a nice initiative… a good thing.”
However, he said that the Charedi community had only been notified “after all the emails had gone out to schools. They did not contact anyone from the Haredi community first, and I would have liked at least some of us to have been consulted.”
