Yesodey Hatorah girls’ school in Stamford Hill, where at least 150 people celebrated a wedding last weekend. Photograph: Hollie Adams/Getty Images
England’s lockdown rules are being flouted in ultra-Orthodox Jewish areas, with large weddings taking place each week and schools continuing to operate, according to community insiders and local residents.
Last week police discovered 150 guests celebrating a wedding at the Yesodey Hatorah girls’ school in Stamford Hill, north London. The school denied knowledge of the event, which was condemned by the chief rabbi and the Union of Orthodox Hebrew Congregations.
On the same evening, police attended a hall in Belz Terrace, a few minutes’ walk from the school, following reports that a large wedding was taking place there. However, officers were satisfied that the event was a communal service, which is permitted, rather than a wedding and no action was taken. According to a communi
For the sixth Rebbe of Lubavitch, Rav Yosef Yitzchok Schneerson the “Frierdiker” Rebbe or the Rayatz who lived through a period of unprecedented upheaval and transition for the Jewish People, American freedom and liberty were privileges he did not take for granted. During his historic 1929 visit to the United States, the Rebbe addressed the large crowd that greeted him declaring, “May the Almighty bless this great country which has been a [place of] refuge for our Jewish People.”
The Rebbe’s links to the country and to his chassidim there were well-established prior to the 1929 visit. Recognizing the necessity of organizing Chabad communities outside of Russia, the Lubavitcher Rebbe had formed the Agudas Chassidei Chabad of the USA and Canada and remained in constant contact with his followers there. When the Rebbe was jailed by Communist authorities in 1927, it was his American chassidim who mobilized US government officials to lobby the Soviets for his release.