Do Stamford Hill's Jews need integration?  An extraordinary
portrait of a closed community explodes the lazy rhetoric of
social cohesion   • The Observer,   • Jump to comments ()  The
Haredi Jews of Stamford Hill in north London are a sober bunch.
They only binge-drink once a year, at Purim, when there is a
religious obligation to celebrate exuberantly the salvation of
Babylonian Jews from a sixth-century genocide. Children wear
fancy dress, men get drunk and dance boisterously. But the
police don't get called out to break up fights in the synagogue.
When it comes to law and order, the Haredim are model citizens.
But if the ultra-orthodox Jewish community doesn't go in for
antisocial behaviour, in relations with people of other faiths
they are not what you could call sociable. A Haredi man will not
shake hands with a woman who is not his wife. It would be an
impropriety verging on lasciviousness and, besides, he can't be
sure she isn't menstruating, which under the strictest
interpretation of Jewish law make