Stamford Hill: the postcode at the heart of the coronavirus crisis telegraph.co.uk - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from telegraph.co.uk Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Two-thirds of London s ultra-Orthodox Jewish community had Covid last year - nine times the national average and around 0.3 per cent of those infected died, a study has shown.
Researchers at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine found the rate of past infection was at 64 per cent in the community of around 15,000 people.
This compares to rates of 11 per cent in London more generally and just seven per cent across the UK, according to estimates by the Office for National Statistics.
Suspected infections in the community peaked in early March, just before the first lockdown, when rates then began to fall sharply, before rising again in the autumn once restrictions were lifted.
Dozens of illegal Jewish Orthodox weddings with up to 300 guests have taken place in London during England s third national lockdown, whistleblowers claimed today.
More than 50 ceremonies have allegedly taken place in the capital during lockdown with lookouts used to raise the alarm and money put aside for potential fines.
Sources told Jewish News the weddings were happening all over with the bride at one in Stamford Hill, North London, said to have been positive for Covid-19.
It comes after a school being used as a Covid testing centre was revealed to have hosted a secret wedding for 150 guests which had to be broken up by police.
THE ALLEGATIONS
A source intimately involved in the Orthodox wedding scene, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said: “These illegal weddings have been going on for 10 months. We’re not talking about one or two. We are talking multiple weddings every day. All have 150-200 guests. At one wedding the bride was Covid-positive.”
THE VENUES
There are four venues that are used regularly, several sources confirmed – “anything that has a hall”. One is the taxpayer-funded Yesodey Hatorah Senior Girls’ School in Stamford Hill. “It’s the one that was caught,” said one person.
The school’s long-time principal, Rabbi Avroham Pinter, died from Covid-19 last spring. The new principal is his son, Chaim, who became a director of the Union of Orthodox Hebrew Congregations in July last year.