My family belongs to Neturei Karta, which is the most extreme community in Stamford Hill. They’re the people that go on the pro-Palestine marches because they don’t believe Israel should exist until the Messiah comes. Someone I know well was arrested for burning an Israeli flag.
It wasn’t a great place to grow up and my family was what I’d call fanatical. The school I went to was considered the very worst in Stamford Hill. The education was extremely limited. We had lessons in English for three hours a day, but we didn’t learn much science and we didn’t take any GCSEs. The main focus of our education was on Jewish studies – obviously not studying the Torah, as girls don’t do that – but on preparing to be a Jewish wife and mother, to make a man happy. I wasn’t a very good student; I was accused of daydreaming a lot.
What I really wanted was to become a doctor, and I was never shy about voicing that. But in that community, it was an impossibility. I knew my destiny was to get married and have a bunch of children, which excited me because I love children and am good with them. I always assumed I was going to have a big family; it was all I knew. I’m the youngest of 12, which isn’t unusual or even considered large. One sister has 14 children and my aunt has 17. I have more than 100 nieces and nephews, and can name them all. A family with fewer than eight kids is considered small.
When I finished school, I became a teacher there – despite having no qualifications. It’s really the only job a girl can get: teaching or childcare. And at 18, I got engaged to a boy my family had arranged for me to marry.
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