Strictly Kosher - Episode 2 | Our Life

jewish traders settled in manchester over 200 years ago it's now the fastest growing community in europe [Music] we're leading up to the festival of yom kippur the day of atonement it's when jews symbolically throw away their sins and fast for 25 hours even jews who don't observe any other festivals will refrain from work joel is hosting his end of yom kippur party [Music] are we all hungry ian have you been fasting today good good lovely [Laughter] today's the day of atonement so we've fasted all day we've been to the synagogue now everyone's come to break the fast and some of my muslim friends they fast for a month and it's fantastic we only have to do it for a day so who who's the lucky ones there you have to repent for all your sins we've got a lot of sins so what we're going to do shortly is we're going to go and find a lake somewhere we're going to throw ourselves in it cleanse our bodies and then jump 25 hours is a long time any room for a little one i'm not a religious person i know what i should do and what i shouldn't do but i think at the end of the day if you're a good person you've got everything i went to a jewish school but we were never religious i had a bar mitzvah hey i remember wearing a brown flared suit big flared trousers and they had to uh cover me platform shoes i loved that suit i took a little pouch with me with my sins but there were neighbors passing me with wheelbarrows religion is a faith and i've been born into that faith and yes you're proud of your heritage but we live in a modern era with over 30 holidays a year only the most religious jews fully observe them all five days after yom kippur is sukas the jewish harvest festival full observance demands buying a bundle of leaves and a rare citrus fruit known in hebrew as an s-rug to be jewish is is part of your life not part-time is full-time it's living by a set of rules which have been laid down that's what you aim for if you want to be fully jewish but all of them are different prices depending on the quality of the s log without blemishes and that's a nice one but these have all got pitums which is that and that's quite delicate if that's knocked off that invalidates it completely you might as well not have one might as well have a lemon there's no price limit on devotion the very best esrig can cost hundreds of pounds apiece you've got because i'm the cheapskate you could have the sister the basic one i'll do a half price which is 30 pounds is that the cheapest yeah i don't do less would i pay 500 pounds for a soft fruit i'd rather a leather jacket the esrig is one of four plant species required for succus the others are willow myrtle and a palm leaf called a lulav [Music] it's the one here is actually it's closed but it's got the leaves goes like this if you wanted something which is top of the range the rolls-royce of a lot of you could be talking a hundred pounds because as he said it's not cheap to be jewish it always comes with a price tag anyhow so that is the ultimate test of faith i think to see how much you're really gonna be willing to part with what's your cheapest are you looking for one for yourself yeah look at that beautifully closed each and every single leaf over there they're all fantastically close you've got yourself a lovely little okay please don't hit anyone hard with this this costs 60p from tesco's and this as we've just seen cost anything from 25 pounds to 300 pounds that's what they call jewish inflation [Music] serves as a reminder of the 40 years the jews wandered the desert after leaving egypt in biblical times the more religious choose to spend eight days under the stars in a flimsy hut my girls at work say to me are you sitting in a shed but like when i'm sitting in a shed they mean suckers what i said yeah we eat outside in our shed for a week we open a roof we put all fancy chains on it and they think we are absolutely mad but we do and the boys sleep in it my boys sleep in it it's our little sucker not part of the house we have it outside much better to be a nice sucker than watching x factor i mean my sucker isn't very big so i can only have about eight or ten people in it but we drink and we joke and we laugh and we sing it i'm a very busy person and i'm probably the exception to most orthodox jewish women because a lot of them just do stay at home and make halal and you know got in a shower people i don't i have to do everything it's not men only everything's men only this isn't men if it wasn't for the women who would make the whole well that's what we do all we do is cook we'd starve without the women [Applause] the manchester jewish community prays hard and plays hard jewish unity is also one of the themes of sukhos drawing together jews with different levels of knowledge and observance just about giving the kids a good time it's always look i've got nothing against clutch limbs and traditions which doesn't interfere with the next person i know i'm not observant but i don't feel guilty retired businessman jack eisenberg lost his faith after surviving the holocaust now he spends much of his time telling school children about his experiences you see auschwitz had a selection sister they select the people to work in the west to the gas chambers jack was 19 years old when he came to manchester in just one of 300 jewish orphans who survived the horrors of the holocaust they're a dwindling band of brothers and every week jack meets up with fellow survivor sam lasquear if i have rice i don't want chapati do i you know what i like don't you food was created by god where does kosher come into it well i know from experience the world think in life the biggest pain is being hungry the biggest pain yeah it's hungry how can any of us complain about fungi you can't explain it no you got to feel it yeah if you're hungry you submit to anything anything you do anything for a piece of bread we came over together in 1945 we were about three thirty of us in manchester and we always kept together but unfortunately there's not many of us left i am a survivor i don't mind being called the survivor i with you i've got a tattoo on my arm the trauma that has not gone away it'll never go away i think i'll live with it for the rest of my life still haunted by the experience jack wants to return to poland to find out why he was the only survivor in his family [Music] that's where we differ i don't want to go to poland i've been once i saw where i lived we went to treblinka i was announcement and this is it that's for me it's enough but to me to go to starship i could live there because that's where i was born that's where my parents were and i sometimes experience honestly i must tell you how in the cash shave but who's that and i don't know they don't mind no because i embrace them they are struggling for breasts i'm slowly finished we all gone together because i'm here because of my father who said jack maybe you should we should split and you should go into hiding that's what i mean that's how you survive the fact that we are still it was still here is a miracle in itself for many jews in manchester there's one place they truly feel at home israel burnett's daughter leanne has lived there since she got married now she's got news for her mum we're going to israel to see the new baby please god and we're going to do simon leanne and two gorgeous little boys and we're on our way i'm not on oh camera god probably the one and only in 25 years bye-bye bye have you gone now my daughters lived there for three years and i've been to sea on those occasions with the little boys and her way of life is not like it is here for me but that's what she's chosen [Music] that's their life i hope they come back though i don't care how they're happy i want them home this little car gets to me as well this would be a last one i'm gonna be going down with it [Music] i think most jewish people have jerusalem at the heart of their lives it's the heart of our prayers and i don't think we should be embarrassed because of it [Music] as well as our country it's where we can feel at home in we haven't got a problem with the food you're with a fellow jew and that's how it is it's much easier to be there [Music] a lot of the commandments are only a pertaining to the land of israel so living outside israel you're not a fulfilled jew to me it's a holiday place it's fun it's very very modern clubs restaurants it's a young country and it's a fantastic place to holiday but it's no holiday for burnett she's come to israel to help her daughter's family they live in one of the most orthodox areas of jerusalem this is hanov very very very religious area nobody has a television no one has a video so you won't see my daughter or the grandchildren on this program they actually live up there on the third floor in an apartment really really nice this is my usual trip here when i'm with my daughter shopping cooking helping her making chicken soup it can't be without the mummy's chicken soup [Music] new baby nappies everything's kosher in the supermarket it's a lot easier to have to check i just buy it if most people now are moving more to the right where they are becoming much more religious my daughter and son-in-law to other people that i like my friends at home would say she's more orthodox than me she wears a hair covered i don't and he learns in the issue of my husband doesn't he work so cute they have about a thousand babies blessed are born a month here which is a lot of babies so every other shop is a babywear shop that's how it is what a waffle uh in england at least i'd have a car to get about in but this is an absolute joke we've got three she's on the third floor we've got three flights of stairs to get to back in manchester joel lever is getting into shape for a hard day on the front line of fashion be careful what's underneath it's very very frightening oh saturday morning come in here [Music] transform yourself ready for the day and you can do it vigorously pretend them in a washing machine i'm not filling out ammo are you sure you tell me well i'm a self-made man i was 15 and i went to work for a department store in manchester and they started me on the bacon counter nice jewish boy works in a bacon counter i think i was drawn to fashion i buy i sell i design if i can earn money i'll do it to coin a jewish phrase i'm in the shmatter game you beat me to me there's always a wedding there's always a bar mitzvah there's always a bat mitzvah there's always something jewish people love clothes this is a it's a good luck charm and every jewish household has one and you put them on the side of the door and it's got a scroll inside i have one on every door in the house most jewish people do based in the heart of north manchester monami has been catering for fashionable and from ladies for 25 years you've had quite a few religious ladies in this week but one thing religious women don't wear they don't wear reds because red draws your attention to a woman yeah no you can have red hair you can have a red shade told you in french to take this let me take this off [Laughter] that is stunning you can put a black top under that with sleeves and then it becomes kosher i think a lot of jewish people are in the rag trade because it comes naturally to them um and if you've got a little bit of a flare about you you're good at it do you know my favorite tune what's that the singing of the tilt why did i not know how does it go do we know that tune catching catching pitching [Music] oh dear she's heavy she must have act well we cater for everyone's in that fab we start from birth right through until exit time i don't do shrouds but i do everything else how do i look i've always been a businessman i was about eight or nine and it was a lady who lived across the road from us and she used to sunbathe in the back garden of course she was topless and so i charged the other kids in the street a penny and i helped them onto the garage roof and we all used to peer over this is my irish mother and that is my jewish son and i've known for a long time so how long have you been with us i've known you 28 years she's a marvelous sales girl people come here to see you you're like a monument that is awful no well you are people come here you get presents bought for you of course you get presents they're coming to see how you're and when they come in to see how you are they spend money spend money and your love for sanded out until most of my girls now are late 50s early 60s and they come to work because they enjoy it the customers love them and we do we work as a big family the jewish race has been going thousands of years and yes you're proud of your heritage but we live in a modern era and what they used to do in the desert 5000 years ago they did because they knew no difference joel's shop has always traded seven days a week but now he started to get angry letters from the religious community about opening on the sabbath there are many shoma shabbat people either unaware that your clothing store is jewish owned they would feel sick and disgusted knowing that they are supporting a store which is open on the shabbos um i believe in live and let live and i get infuriated because what they're trying to do is they try and turn me into being more religious i don't want to be more religious right what are we doing well the more religious people observe shabbos by totally downing tones some people don't turn the lights on they don't drive they don't do anything that's is mechanical yeah everything's three what about the players you leave them a bit longer no no cut them cut them just to the bone yeah okay i don't work on a sabbath now it used to be i never observed it at all and i used to work on sabbath and maybe it's the influence of me be working working down in this area and and being amongst jewish people you've been friends with people for 25 30 years now obviously they're non-jewish the christian this that the other and then you invite you around and say hey clyde we're having a meal or having this i don't know you say i'm sorry i can't come to your house anymore what do you mean why because i've suddenly gotten religious i've studied eating culture food and whatever oh right that to me is a no no you know you can't do that to people okay young man very good i know about shabbos because i was brought up till the age of 17 in a religious atmosphere family religion that was their life jack eisenberg's life changed with the outbreak of the second world war he lost his family in the holocaust but he survived to make a life in britain now he's going back to visit his past we are going to poland stash of the town who was born because don't forget i am the only survivor of the small family of the four of us i can ask myself the question why me why are you not the others [Music] jack was born in 1926 one of three and a half million jews living in poland at the time it was the largest jewish community in europe stashoff will always be in my heart that's where i lived with my parents and my little brother smilkin we lived here this was my grandfather's shop he lived upstairs and downstairs he had like a food food shop in 1942 stashoff was a town of twelve thousand people half of whom were jews trapped in a ghetto this used to be the synagogue in the this square was 99 percent orthodox [Music] after three years of occupation the nazis ordered the evacuation of the ghetto a day known as black sunday that's where the bridge was the day before jack's father isaac took his family to the river and gave him a choice that would save his life my father said to me look you're the oldest son you don't have to say yes it is up to you what you want i suggest you don't come with us why because in case something goes wrong that evening i went into the hiding into the arctic that's it that was the last time nice you're sick yeah the following day his family were among 7 000 jews sent to belsek extermination camp out of the train undressed and straight to the gas chamber yeah and i tell you that's what happened to my family there are no jews left in stashoff today jack one of a handful of survivors from the town has never forgotten the family he left behind especially his little brother schmelke he was nine years old [Music] gushed what kind of a world is that what has he done wrong yes he has he was a jew that's what his guilt he was a jew [Music] [Applause] in jerusalem there's nothing quite like a jewish wedding whether you're invited or not you just go with the flow here in jerusalem everyone just turns up at weddings and they just go once you dress the party it's fine picture this wedding where it's the nearest and dearest me from manchester i haven't even been invited the next thing pushed me in dance with the bride i just thought bernett what are you doing burnett's manchester has a handful of kosher shops in jerusalem there are whole districts many are settled by ultra-orthodox jews from eastern europe but there's always a few friends from home here as well the manchester my friend's daughter for manchester italia without shopping my upbringing was very religious my mum never wore a shadow but it wasn't like it is today first of all you have to be quiet not you have to wear a shadow don't uh and that sort of thing so you have to fit into this sort of little box if you don't cover your hair with a wig you can look quite cute and trendy with a scarf oh my god you have to have a nice face to do this don't you have to look now oh i can't wear that oh i look like i'm fine fish or something look a making chicken soup oh no tell you what about the ones that go like that i just love it do you like this um if you live in manchester you wouldn't take it off you'd wear that on your head all the time geshen anglia the more religious areas of jerusalem have strict rules of modesty dictating not only dress codes but also the segregation of men and women i have been on a road where there's been women on one side and men on the other side fat simply said to me if i saw my middle boy in the street when he was in yeshiva do not hug him do not go near him but that's what they're like you have to really respect them yeshivas are men only colleges of jewish learning israel has become the place to be for many religious boys from manchester well yeshiva is basically a college where you would spend up to 10 hours a day studying mostly the talmud and areas of jewish law [Music] therefore it sets you up for life because you get a good knowledge before you get married and then you know how to run your own home bring up your children supposedly and thousands of boys are there all learning in these white shirts and it's like a uniform with a black suit from the black hats i think this is gabby's friends for manchester gabby and they're coming here to looking for girls i think i've been here since august 29th in yeshiva here we start 7 15. we do have a break in the afternoon for about two hours that's why women don't do things about that we just make bread do you miss manchester i miss the friends that are still there but i love it in israel absolutely love it here we're slowly losing gorgeous boys it's going to be just me myself and i will be back then it's a new thing now a boy should go into try and do some learning before university my youngest one's going in july we're gonna start off for two years could be six it could be seven gaby asked for a souvenir bringing back a potato cook up i don't want to say i'm gonna lose my son because i won't a lot can get into the system and they don't come out the heads of the fish you have that on wash your shoulder parents will see them once or twice a year and they'll be married finished [Music] joel lever keeps kosher on his regular visit to manchester's oldest jewish bakery i don't think there's any chance of my children wanting to go on a yeshiva or seminary in israel because we don't live that sort of life all right moss yeah you're gonna make some bread with emma and ollie my children have been brought up in a kosher home and they're taught everything they need to know about judaism as they grow older then it depends what path they want to take they might want to go religious and they might want to not be religious okay get your three strands you do a plot like that yeah defines a jewish religion friday night is nothing without a color bread i mean to have a color on the table is very very important do i like hala do i look like i don't eat bread i love color yeah there we go lovely fresh color i think that um understanding the food that's associated with the jews is very important but i think more important is understanding the religion for the non-jewish person looking into jewish life and it must be really really confusing for them and i think for a jewish person being involved in jewish culture i think it's just as confusing when did you know you wanted to be a masturbation from about 11. got all to the car just have a look in the mirror [Music] she likes what she likes but at night she gets all the clothes out don't you and you lie them all out ready for the next day she's gonna take over daddy's business aren't you turn around a lot of jewish people are in the rag trade because it's inherited because the parents were in it so when a lot of the immigrants came to england they were in the rag trade i don't really want my kids to follow in my footsteps i think it'd be a lot easier for them if they had a profession yeah stunning well do you fancy you're in it i fancy you're in a bin bag you don't mind me putting my hand up joel is still getting complaints from the orthodox community for opening on the sabbath he's decided to respond with a letter of his own i get these poison pen letters i get nastiness uh and i don't like it and i've had enough of it and that is the letter i've written to the paper not nasty not horrible it just covers how i feel keeping kosher is a lifetime commitment newlands is a jewish care home and their kosher credentials are in the hands of part-time rabbi zevi saunders my dad is a rabbi i've watched him and followed him around and people saying he thought i had the skills and and then i got a job as a junior minister and i just thought okay well i might as well become a rabbi hello ladies anyone all right good afternoon sybil [Music] hello betty some rabbis have to do a lot of pastoral work go visiting people some rabbis have to lead the services some rabbis don't keeping the kitchen kosher means checking eggs for blood vegetables for insects and even lighting the gas because this is age-old jewish tradition that jewish people should cook for jewish people jews do not eat bugs in their fruits or vegetables so as lettuce is well sometimes riddled with little bugs and first of all soak them in salt water and then i will inspect it by the sunlight if there is any left maybe that's why jews love eating more than drinking because drinking is easy you just take out a bottle and drink whereas here we have to show love and affection to our food so far they're quite clean there's a little check for dirt at the tops oh that appears to be a small little creature of some sort but anything exciting never found a snake or anything rabbi's job is to be nosy stick his nose in whether it's called for or not to see how things are really going so i like to say as a rabbi you've got to be a jacob's ladder kind of a guy yes your head can be in the clouds but you got to have your feet firmly on the ground you live in this world got to know what's going on for thousands of years the word of god has been written down in taurus scrolls and parchments even today in manchester the work of a scribe is far from obsolete the head of the academy in which i was studying gave me an option of the three categories the scribe the jewish slaughterer and the circumciser and of course i don't really like the sight of blood but on the other hand writing yes that sounds very interesting and uh yes i would like to follow that please and obviously the rest is history the whole thing is labor from beginning to end that makes notes of no consequence because even one letter can invalidate the whole rigmarole of course if it was to become invalid and that person was to wear these to fill in for the next 30 40 50 years then the sin by not having kosher to fill in would not be his fault whatsoever it would all be my fault so as i say that is a burden which is very very heavy to carry we met in my sister's house and then we knew it was right and we got engaged after two meetings two days and we have been married for 34 years bullying hara and it couldn't be better after having written for 30 odd years i'm afraid i would need a long time to calculate how many had actually written in that time but suffice to say many many hundreds if not thousands of mezzus over that period of time our youngest son is a zaharia who is married to hannah our middle finger i would have liked at least one of the children to to have become a scribe but no none of them was interested and our the consensus amongst them was that it's too solitary and they're social creatures and and they felt that it just wasn't for them it's monday morning at the western wall in jerusalem this is the holiest jewish site in the world jewish people worldwide face this wall in their prayers i'm going to go down the right hand side because it's the lady section it can't be with the men because i've got to put my note in got to give us a docker say a few of my davening my prayers and then i feel better because that's what israel's about you all everyone comes here [Music] i'm putting my little note into the wall because that's what i want to do and it's quite yellow so maybe it'll be answered all my prayers i think jewish people have been hated over the years i can't answer the question why my boys have occasionally been out in the city centre and had a school cap flicked off their head but we just think it's ignorance we think that there's not enough knowledge of what it is i've had a swastika drawn in the ice on my car i've had jew written on the side of my car which i thought oh yes i have a jew quite correct how did they know in the jewish prayers there is mention we the chosen people i want to be not chosen i wish i was in my passport nationality human race in 1942 16 year old jack eisenberg escaped certain death by hiding he was discovered after two weeks and sent to culture in poland as a slave worker for a german armaments factory called hassan it's behind the building left this used to be assad and that's where i worked for nearly two years you were not classed as a human being no water no heating and it's a thought you're not fit to work anymore so they killed you the future if there was a future i could have been collected again in the last minute put on a train into an extermination camp eighteen-year-old jack's luck ran out by the winter of 1944 when he was put on a cattle train to germany they pushed it in like sardines the older people started falling on top of me and very soon i was covered with bodies and i had to dig myself out and then two days later we arrived in bergenberg [Music] it's burnett's last night in israel and she's come to say goodbye to all her friends most are from manchester and they've all exercised their right in israel's law of return to settle here would you like some soup most of these people here tonight are attached to manchester united manchester manchester manchester manchester husband manchester united now i miss martin spencer when i'm in israel we have the most amazing wonderful friends that all lived in england well let me tell you they just make me and michael one of the family this is my home grounds full stop full stop no it's a bit too heavy mob for me but it's fine yeah we're more more like banettes modern other ducks he's what did you see michael into black leather it's quite hard to be in both worlds but you have to be and some very religious people can't they think the world should be made up of jewish people jewish sharps jewish people jewish clothes jewish this jewish that it isn't even in israel not everybody's the same you can't when people say you've not come back sometimes son damned i need a holiday when i come back three of them under the age of two please god leanne will have lots of babies whatever hashem gives her she will have that's what they believe in that's what she wants i'm not having them i'm bringing them up she's doing it it's not for me and the mum keeps dumb [Music] is that just for the camera that's great because he's jumping with the excitement when he sees me for joel it's just another day fighting the flab morning i need ten minutes of keep fats but nice keep it tight this is what i like easy exercise don't need to take my jacket off always shoes well i'm trying to lose a bit of weight the lazy man's way unfortunately i'm a foodie and being jewish you know the food's very nice and you know what i i can feel trousers slightly looser three two one happy birthday uh today zuna's birthday and she's 80. she's wonderful she's fantastic uh oona's been with me virtually since day one my god two cameras luna is my irish second mum and she's fantastic it's not often you find someone like this you know and he's tried it he's tried to get rid of me ever since me letters in all right let me let us in um and it's titled customers said rabbi had told her to avoid my shock that's terrible yeah it's terrible but you know again it's rules for one and rules for another it's not getting more religious i just think there's more religious people about um because the community is growing alongside a growing jewish community is a boom in betrothals this is a wedding invitation that's happening tomorrow right that's the next invitation that's happening in four weeks a wedding invitation that's another wedding invitation that's happening in two weeks this is an engagement invitation that's happening next week so all the things that we're getting invited to that's all we do tonight burnett is going to rabbi zevi saunders engagement party it's a romantic story his fiance erica corman is american in order to seal it all we do it in an old traditional way by kenyan sooner i'm giving you something which is a piece of a garment floor first of all to mario be a good husband to her care for her cherisher just as breaking the plate is a final gesture so too is their engagement oh i'm so excited for these two how did you meet we met on the internet internet dating we uh i sent an email on a jewish dating website and then i ignored him and then because i saw a rabbi and he's from manchester that's so far away forget it i'm not gonna respond she turned me down on two websites and the third one i got her and i thought oh british british accent well that's also always really cute well i like europe about four or five of the girls that i've been out with uh i think i've always been dumped no once i ended it but all the other times they ended it with me no she didn't want to do that somebody once mentioned to me that they think people find me overpowering perhaps and dominating not in a bad way but sort of you know sort of very overbearing perhaps xevi was with erica for 22 days but they never touched but he finally popped the question on a day trip to edinburgh i asked her to marry me on the 20th of december at edinburgh castle and i asked her if i could anoint her as my queen and so great guy yeah yeah i know she said yes very important to marry off the children and a lot of them get married very young and you wonder why would a girl get married at 16 or 17 but they just do because please god they want them to get married and have children and keep going and keep going get more children and more children that's how it is we're trying to give out the plate to all the single gorgeous girls so there's nobody here tonight well i'm uh weddings are a major part of our religion we have thank god canaan a horror a lot of jewish weddings no jewish weddings no babies and we need babies to carry on you

Channel: Our Life

Views: 379,594

Keywords: our life, documentary, world documentary, documentary channel, award winning, life stories, best documentaries, daily life, real world, point of view, story, full documentary, history

Id: Dsvxzom6z1w

Length: 44min 12sec (2652 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 03 2021