Getting ready for Purim around here

Getting ready for Purim around here.

We're all getting ready for Purim around here, the Jewish festival for both children and adults alike but predominantly children since this is the one occasion when all the kids are allowed to indulge in fancy dress and the adults can let themselves go as well. It's time to cast off those winter inhibitions and welcome Spring which maybe a couple of weeks away but now is the time for new beginnings, new seasons and a good old fashioned party to welcome in March.

It now seems an age ago since our kids took an active part in Purim parties at their school but now they're all grown up and I can only look back on those days with fond recollections trying hard to remember all of the imagery that accompanied those merry days of March. Purim is normally the catalyst  for wild celebrations in nearby Stamford Hill, North London. And boy do our orthodox friends know how to have a good time. It is, quite literally, the most astonishing knees up you're ever likely to see.

On Sunday week, the streets in Stamford Hill will burst into a  profusion of colourful floats slowly wending their way steadily around the streets and then seeming to go on for most of the day.  A rich procession of dancing children seem to be suddenly surrounded by wonderfully stirring music and the huge crown of Esther.

So let me tell you more about our chasidim Jewish friends. The orthodox Jewish community is both vibrant and flourishing. For years and years, decades and decades Stamford Hill has been the home of learned rabbis, mouth watering bakeries, cholesterol busting delicatessens and deeply religious schools. It is indeed the melting pot for both ancient and modern Judaism, where spiritualism meets the rest of the world in the face and smiles broadly.

This year though Grodzinski's, the focal point for challah(plaited bread), spectacularly delicious cakes, beautiful biscuits and now quite the most amazing salad bar, is back in business after a lengthy period of modernisation. The new Grodzinski's is bigger, bolder, lighter and brighter and considerably more varied and diverse.

There can be no denying that Grodzinski's now offers its customers a superabundance of dainty delicacies and the most incredible variety of dairy products. For years the Jewish community have been almost spoilt for choice and it is this choice that gives the Jewish community its unique character. In a world of increasing racism and intolerance, Stamford Hill makes you immensely proud of both Judaism and being Jewish.

Stamford Hill is a splendid vision in black and white. Gentlemen in thick black coats, hats and Cossack style hats proudly march around the local streets and roads with a very knowledgeable air about them, a lifetime devoted to study and earnest conversation with their neighbours. With thick black, whitish, greying beards and tallit(the shawl embracing their shoulders), the sense of community and communality is quite obvious.  They stop on street corners exchanging cheery banter with friends and families. There is an obvious togetherness and unity here that has endured for as long as anybody can remember.

In a sense the Orthodox Jewish community is the most supreme role model for what can be done when religion finds a common voice and identity, running with it and taking it as far as they can. The critics say that the Stamford Hill chasidim are just inherently snobbish, distant, aloof and utterly disapproving of everybody around them. It could be said that they simply choose to alienate themselves from the rest of the world because that's the ideal arrangement and nobody should ever tell them how to live their lives.

True they do seem to live very enclosed, sheltered lives with no interference from any other organisation, group or threatening political force. So it is that the men, women, girls and boys from Stamford Hill go about their everyday activities with an almost admirable duty and splendid sense of faith. Purim simply strengthens that unbreakable bond and belonging that the Jewish orthodox community have always felt.

I came back from my run around the Woodberry Wetlands quite literally wet, drenched and soaked to the skin. There was a faint drizzle in the air followed by the sweetest flavour of Spring in the air. The rain began to intensify and increase in volume. Then it began to fall almost characteristically and customarily. It rained with strength, purpose and vigour, slanting diagonally across my face and then fizzling out almost reluctantly. We'll all wake up on the first day of Spring and find that the rain may have gone.

 Then a weak and watery sun lent the whole of the Wetlands the aura of a Constable masterpiece. For a rare and precious moment  Manor House looked exactly like the Lake District or some picture postcard fenland. There were wind swept trees  shaking poetically and dripping reeds shivering in the Wetlands water. The branches on those trees still look like very thin fingers and everything looked very skeletal and haggard, threadbare and deeply tragic.  

 It was as if March were playing its signature tune. A thin veil of rain swept across my face and, strangely enough, it did feel good. There is something very invigorating about a shower in England. It washes away the bleariness in your eyes and the grogginess in the rest of your body, So by the end of the run, although sodden through, I knew that I'd overcome that early morning fatigue. Suddenly I'd been sharply awoken from the previous night's slumber, body and soul in perfect harmony, exhausted but still happy.

A couple of years ago we had the most remarkable mini heatwave in March. None of us knew where it had come from but we were grateful all the same. On second thoughts it  probably felt warmer than it should have done for the time of the year although to be honest it was extremely mild and was never, on reflection, a heatwave. It simply felt warm I suppose. It is impossible to know what the weather holds in store for both Manor House or Stamford Hill but we do know that in a couple of weeks time the street carnival that is Purim will fill us all with the most immeasurable delight.

Besides any festival that gives us kids dressed up as pirates, policemen and Superman has to be commended. They will drive around in their Purim decorated buses with music blaring out resoundingly and spirits permanently buoyed by this most special of days. The buds of March are slowly showing their very discreet colours at the moment but by the end of this month it's safe to assume that the gentle melodies of the early morning Springtime blackbird will just serenade us all the way through to April, May and June. Oh yes what a feeling. Britain and the world in bloom.