Jeremy Freedman, at The Blogs

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Feb 22, 2022, 12:07 PM

Yenem’s Velt: Spring is here

How can you tell when Spring is here? Of all the seasons, Spring is the one I find hardest to identify. Summer days, Autumn mists, Winter snow (at least for those of us whose memories extend beyond climate change) are all well-defined characteristics. But Spring,...

Feb 3, 2022, 1:26 PM

Yenem’s Velt: Yeshiva Bochur

Think of a world-famous academic institution: Is it Oxford, Cambridge, Yale or Harvard? Or is it the Sorbonne in Paris? Now do the same for Yeshivas: Is it Ponevezh, Mir, Lakewood or Gateshead,? Or is it Hitchin in Hertfordshire? From the homestead take country lanes...

Jan 21, 2022, 11:56 AM

Yenem’s Velt: Milk

Are you a child of the 1960s? If so, you will probably remember advertising slogans such as: “Drinka Pinta Milka Day” and “Cow and Gate, Farmer’s Wife, Double Devon Cream”? In those days milk was clean, white, wholesome and nutritious. In the 1950s, the murky...

Jan 6, 2022, 5:10 PM

Yenem’s Velt: Firstborn

Primogeniture is the process through which the firstborn child inherits the family wealth and titles. Ultimogeniture does the same thing for the youngest child. Primogeniture underpinned European feudal systems for a few hundred years. Despite taking a battering in recent times, there are vestiges of...

Dec 28, 2021, 12:28 PM

Yenems Velt: Horseradish in Beetroot Sauce

Horseradish in Beetroot sauce Walk down the vegetable garden at this time of year, there’s not a lot to see. Our 24hp Kubota tractor has tilled the beds, which are now sown to green manure or covered with muck from the goat-shed. Embryonic buds are...

Dec 20, 2021, 9:57 AM

Yenems Velt: Bursting the bubble

Years ago, I played a part in setting up a hashkomah (early morning) minyan at my local shul. Starting on Shabbat morning at 7.45am, and finishing by 9.30am, it proved very popular; particularly among the substantial ex-pat South African community who had colonised the neighbourhood....

Nov 12, 2021, 11:07 AM

Yenem’s Velt: Jacob Sheep

Tufty

Although their true name is “Piebald Sheep” they are known colloquially as “Jacobs”. They are the ovine mimics of the British Friesian cow, mostly white but with black spots, or patches. They get their common name from the story of our patriarch, Jacob, who outsmarted...

Oct 29, 2021, 4:41 PM

Yenem’s Velt: Voos macht a yid?

Photo: J.Freedman

As I have already mentioned, this is not our first bucolic episode. 40 years ago we purchased a stone and cob and thatched ‘Old Forge’ with a couple of acres, in mid-Devon, north of Crediton, on the road to Morchard Bishop. We had a couple...

Oct 17, 2021, 6:56 PM

YENEMS VELT: When your Rooster crows at the break of dawn…..

Photo: J.Freedman

For thousands of years Jews have begun their day by blessing the Almighty for giving “……the cock (sechvi) the intelligence to distinguish between day and night”. At least that is how many (me included) understood it, following the translation in the old Singers Prayer Book....

Oct 12, 2021, 1:47 PM

Yenem’s Velt: Goats

Judaism has a curious relationship with goats. They have a strong presence in our literature and liturgy. On the one hand we have a warm relationship with them. For example, the Paschal Lamb could be (and more often was) a kid rather than a lamb;...

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About Me

Family Lawyer in Hampstead and Smallholder in Bedfordshire. Keeps sheep, goats, poultry, Shabbat and kosher.

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