Friday, December 17, 2004

What to do if you're a cultural Jew...

About three times in the last week, friends/acquaintances/people I meet at parties, have said varying versions of the same sentence: "I'm Jewish, but I don't like going to shul. I'm not religious. What can I do in London?"

This is my list:
  • hang out at the Heeb Film Festival this weekend, at the Everyman in Hampstead. They're showing free shorts most of the time, and the sofas are velvet. Need I say more?
  • sign up for the YadArts mailing list. They're strapline is "radical diaspora culture in the present tense" and they do a range of club nights/gigs/art stuff that is edgy and cool and inherently Jewish, but not in a crass way
  • go to Jewish Book Week in February. This is the most Jewish-intellectual fun you can have with your clothes on. Two years ago I heard the most entertaining exchange between Melvyn Bragg and Will Self where Will kept calling Melvyn Lord Bragstein, and outed himself as a "deracinated Jew" and "only Jewish Quarterly". Last year Jaques Derrida was there (he was alive)
  • go to Limmud. Called "the Jewish Edinburgh Fringe", the biggest event is conference in Nottingham over the Xmas week, but there's also day events all over the country - I think about ten next year
  • sign up to the Joseph's Bookstore mailing list. They're in Temple Fortune (NW11) and do a whole range of events ranging from cultural to literary and back. Cafe Also is next door, I think they own it, and it's kinda like 1920's Vienna, but cooler
  • if you are of a holocaust/twentieth century Jewish history bent, then check out the events at the Wiener Library/Institute of Contemporary History. I've been to a couple of these, because I'm contractually bound to do all things Holocaust-related, and the other attendees are a mix of age ranges, and many of them speak with mittel European accents
  • get coffee in Hampstead on a Saturday or Sunday morning. The Coffee Cup is best
  • if you're interested in music, check out the Jewish Music Institute's website; they do a whole range of courses, and gigs and klezmer and all that kinda jazz
  • if you're of the evening class/short course bent, try the London Jewish Cultural Centre, the LJCC, which I think grew in some post-political way out of the Spiro Institute. I heard Andrew Davies talking about writing the screenplay for Daniel Deronda, it was fab. Go by tube; the few available parking spaces are grasped by people with bigger cars and more parking-nerve than you'll ever have
  • if you like writing, then do any creative writing course at The City Lit (creative writing is a subsection of humanities, in their world). While this is not a foolproof way to do Jewish stuff, everytime I've done a class, about three Jews have outed themselves to me, and become firm friends
  • likewise, the one time I went to Skyros, on the last day, the six people I'd hung out with all outed themselves to me as Jews. One was a South African woman whose great aunts were all called Essie and Effie and Emmie, like mine. One was a biker who lived on Cricklewood Broadway who told me that the day after his Barmitzvah at Lauderdale Road Synagogue, his entire family converted to Christianity. One was a guy from Manchester, covered in amazing dragon tattoos, who told me his Mum was from Broughton Park, but when she married out, her family disowned her. One was an angsty accountant from Stanmore who couldn't stop talking about his therapist. So if you're into a personal development shtick, this is for you. Dina, the woman who founded it, did once say to me, "I guess I did kinda base the whole concept on Ha-bow-nim Summer Camp." There's even toranut (washing up duty)
  • There was a kinda Jewish scene happening at Powers Bar in Kilburn on a Thursday night. Don't know if there still is
  • keep watching for the launch of the London JCC - it's gonna be funkier than you can imagine. In a Jewish way

    This list is a work in progress, so I'd value any suggestions you have.
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