Eli Spitzer

An explanation of ultra-orthodox Jewish non-compliance with social-distancing regulations in the age of COVID-19.

Headlines in recent days were dominated by the extraordinary news of Jeremy Corbyn’s suspension from the Labour Party by his former Brexit secretary and successor as leader, Keir Starmer. Of course, this has been of particular interest to the Jewish community, and both the Jewish and national press has been filled with Jewish voices expressing…

I started this blog a little over a year ago, partly a way of getting certain things off my chest, but, more importantly, because I hoped it would make a contribution to developing a new kind of conversation in the UK and world Charedi community. As I articulated back then, my goal is breaking up…

Our community recently received a gift of sorts from OFSTED, when it formally stated that it would no longer penalise primary schools for not teaching about all 9 protected characteristics. I’m told that this has been the Department for Education’s recommendation for a number of years, but, until last week, OFSTED insisted on their own…

A number of readers have called me out over articles where I have discussed the role of women in the Charedi community in a cavalier way. While it is true that almost every well-run institution in Stamford Hill, to quote myself, is ‘run by women who are feisty and articulate’, that doesn’t do justice to…

The latest news from the holy land is bleak. Once cited as a model example of Covid-19 suppression, Israel is now suffering from one of the world’s worst second waves. Yet another country faced with the awful choice between plague, on the one hand, and economic collapse and nationwide house arrest, on the other, looks…

I‘m afraid I have some disturbing news. Living amongst us, indeed in the heart of our capital city, is a group of people who can only be described as barbaric fiends. In this community there is ‘not a single man who is in any way psychologically normal’ and they are all, for good measure, ‘profoundly…

For the past five years, the ‘Chinuch crisis’ in the UK has centered on the battle between OFSTED and schools. This confrontation has played out on two levels. The first concerns the poor quality of secular education in many boys’ schools, particularly chassidic chedorim. The second is the requirements of the Equality Act 2010 and…

My last article was about our collective inability in the community to speak up to a minority of bullies who have taken upon themselves the mantle not only of bossing us around, but also speaking on our behalf to outsiders. No better example of the latter phenomenon can be found than the recent disinvitation of…

'The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity'W.B. Yeats Most of my readers will be aware of the article I recently wrote in the Jewish Chronicle. I don’t need to elaborate any more on what I said there, even though the Chronicle, in its wisdom, declined to run some of…