The Upsherin Ritual and The New Year for Trees

Most people are familiar with the Jewish new year, Rosh Hashanah, but less commonly known is the festival of Tu B’Shevat – the new year for trees, which takes place on the 15th day of the Hebrew lunar month of Shevat which in 2023 falls at sunset of 5th February till the evening of Monday … Read more

Make Some Noise! Images of Purim & Percussion

This year I was invited to a Purim party held in London’s Stables Market, organised by the Chabad Rabbi for Kentish Town and Camden, seen below and appropriately for Camden Town sporting a fuchsia-coloured punk mohawk wig. The Jewish Festival of Purim is a celebratory story of survival over annihilation. The Megillah records the story … Read more

Purim 1984 in Hendon

I’ve been sorting through boxes of old photographs and came across a series of images I took back in 1984 when I was in my 20s. I had decided to revisit my old primary school, Hasmonean on Shirehall Lane, Hendon. It was and still is a small Jewish primary school, established in 1947. My purpose … Read more

Purim, ritual and ancestry

Out of all the Jewish festival and holidays, Purim, which begins this evening, is one which resonates with me fondly. There are several reasons for this. Firstly, the original story of Purim took place in Ancient Persia, apparently in the 4th Century BC.  My family originally hailed from Mashhad in Iran, so there is a … Read more

Ancestry & Ritual: Persian Jews in 1950s London do Christmas lunch …

When my father died I made sure I kept his old box of loose, predominantly black and white personal photographs. I found them more interesting than the bound albums which had more formal, traditionally “presentable” images often taken at weddings and bar mitzvahs by commercial photographers or selected posed photographs on holidays and birthdays.  Here … Read more

the wise son and the wicked son

Tonight is the eve of the Jewish festival of Passover. Traditionally the first night is marked with a big meal – a Seder  – where you recount in a certain order the story of how the children of Israel were liberated from slavery in Egypt (also innocently referred to in the text as the “House … Read more