Rabbi Alex Chapper of Ilford Federation Synagogue was leaning on the side of the bimah during Shabbat when suddenly, he said, “I noticed a smell of burning”.

By the time he had grasped what was happening, several holes had been burned through his tallit (right).
“There are candle bulbs around the bimah, I had been leaning against one of them,” he explained.

His congregants have kindly bought him a new tallit, though without an anti-inflammatory coating. “I’ll just have to be more careful where I stand in future,” he said.