sashinka | observation orientated, with a twist of lime | a blog

My Night On The Town in NW4
 
No, really. It's not often I leave zone two, but when I do it's for the heady countryside that's Hendon Central.
 
When I first moved to London, it was my dream to live in Hendon. I wanted to live in a Really Jewish Area. Growing up "south" (Manchester, Jewishly, anyway, has a big north/south divide) meant that I was destined to live in a place that had a Jewish community, sure, but not a majority. My parents had escaped from the insular north (I'm not sure this is the language they'd use) for the freedom of the south, and didn't understand why I would come back from Bnei Akiva (yep, I was a BA-girlie. I can crochet kippot at a rate of knots) with house details because I wanted them to move to the ghetto and get me some of that boy-there-are-a-lot-of-Jews-here-I-must-be-at-home-blues. Of course they weren't having any of it, perhaps wisely so, but I yearned to live in a semi on Park Road in the thick of things.
 
So as soon as I got my coveted job in London, I found a houseshare in Hendon with three lads I should probably say little about. Let's just say cleanliness wasn't even next to anykinda-ness, and I ended up moving out because we got mice. But I loved Hendon. I loved walking down the street and seeing loads of Jewish people and not even knowing who they were. I loved it that all the local shops were full of slightly pushy people angling for a deal. I loved it that there were a dozen flavours of kosher restaurants, even if I would eat out anyway. I just loved it.
 
Of course it faded, and the faction-fighting gossipy stuff got to me in the end, and I moved to Kentish Town. But I still have fond memories of a flat I couldn't afford on Brent Street, the friends I made and the general sense of belonging.
 
This is all a very long intro to say that - don't ask me why - I went to Isola Bella on Brent Street for dinner tonight. From the very moment J and I parked the car (legally, I'll have you know), and we heard overdressed women barking at each other "darlink, don't cross there, it's not safe" I had the feeling I have when I go to the bottom of the Edgware Road. It's like being on holiday in your own town. It's like being in Hertzlia or Tel Aviv and out for dinner with your whole extended family and everyone's in a bad mood and no-one knows why. Because of the war, perhaps?
 
So even though it's the nine days, during which life is technically slightly subdued, it's also a real ocassion to eat out milchig. Apparently. It was like a party in there, I tell you. Kosher restaurants are strange, in London, anyhow, because there are not so many of them, so they have to be all things to all people. We got choice inertia just reading the menu: thai, italian, french, salad, fresh bread, diet... take your pick. Tough to decide. There's a sense of slight panic in the whole place while people tussle with their choices. And the portions are huge. And the service is "Israeli" to say the least. And it's loud. Louder than being in an East End club on a weekend night. And there's more curly hair than you see in any other postcode. Which obviously, by me, is a good thing.
 
I feel: both at home and alien. Part of me knows and is this world. Part of me wants to be in a hip bar in Camden. There's a sense of urgency about the whole place: the conversation about property prices and business deals, chassanahs and shul business floats above us all.  And of course if any of you say these things I will probably regard it as anti-semitic.
 
So I'm saying: I'm past and present rolled into one. I'm a New Jew and an Old Jew at the same time.  I'm men in shtreimels and women in funky sheitels, I'm English, I'm Jewish, I'm yiddishist, and maybe a little bit Israeli, and loud and quiet, and shy and confident, and sure and not sure. I'm a heady mishmash of all manner of things.
 
And all this because I went out for dinner.