GATESHEAD, England – Boys in hoodies dance on roofs, clutching bottles of cheap wine as their tzitzit jiggle. An elderly man wearing a black coat that fans out behind him dances with nobody in particular. Gangs of young men dressed as Redcoats rampage through the streets. The biggest fox you have ever seen crosses a road clutching bags of candy.
This postindustrial town sitting across the Tyne river from Newcastle is the last of Europe’s great yeshiva towns, often referred to as the Oxbridge of Britain’s Jewish community. Its
8,000 Jewish residents – almost all
ultra-Orthodox (or Haredi) – are concentrated in about a dozen streets in the Bensham neighborhood, huddled around Gateshead Talmudical College, aka Gateshead Yeshiva. The college is among the most prestigious in the Orthodox world, and the largest in Europe.
