Starting on the second day of Pesach, a group of six or two families will legally be allowed to meet outdoors, but Sedarim with family members who don’t live at the same address will still be illegal. Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis told the PA news agency, “It’s very painful for us. It is very difficult.”
He said British Jews would have “loved the opportunity to be outdoors to have the festive meals” and that they will be celebrating “in a pretty lonely way” again this year.
He recalled telling the community last year, “Next year it’s going to be all different.”
London Mayor Praises Charedi Vaccination Center
London Mayor Sadiq Khan praised a charedi vaccination center in Stamford Hill this week, telling the Jewish News, “What’s fantastic about today is Hatzola, who are so well respected in the local community, have been working with the NHS and Hackney Council, encouraging a vaccine take-up.”
“This kind of clinic gives people confidence because they are getting the vaccines from people they trust,” he said.
Elections for mayor will be held in May. Stamford Hill Shomrim president Rabbi Herschel Gluck told The Jewish Press: “Khan is ahead in the mayoral polls. The Jewish community realizes that he will continue being mayor. He has reached out to us and has certainly been a good friend of the Jewish community.”
Shmorim President Demands Safer Streets
Shomrim president Rabbi Herschel Gluck has joined a growing number of voices demanding that Britain’s streets be made safer for women after the abduction and murder of Sarah Everard earlier this month.
Rabbi Gluck told the Jewish Press, “Over the last month there have been about seven attacks of a similar nature in Stamford Hill. A spike in these attacks started before the Everard attack. Women don’t feel safe on the streets. For many years, women felt very safe in the streets here. But over the past month there have been targeted attacks on Jewish women.”
Yet another attack occurred last Thursday evening. A 20-year-old woman, who was 27 weeks pregnant, was followed for a mile by her attacker until she walked into a gated housing complex to visit her father, a teacher at Talmud Torah Chaim Meirim Wiznitz School.
The attacker threw a pillowcase over her head and punched her repeatedly. She was rushed to hospital and is now in Israel. A 55-year-old man has been arrested.
Rabbi Gluck told The Jewish Press, “She is deeply traumatized. I am concerned that the child can already feel the trauma. It was not just an attack on her. It was an attack on her unborn child as well. We are having conversations with police and politicians to make sure women can feel safe on our streets again.”