By, Jonathan Korn, Editor

A group of 26 Charedi men claim they all belong to a single household after being arrested for breaching social distancing regulations.

The crowd were spotted singing, dancing and holding hands in the middle of Hendon Park last Tuesday morning, much to the consternation of local residents. 

Officers reported that the group spoke poor English, making it hard for police to get the message across that Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai’s death was an insufficient reason to defy lockdown measures and endanger public health. 

Amongst those arrested, one person claimed that the 26-strong crowd was “actually a relatively small family”, and accused the authorities of picking on the ultra-orthodox community, simply because “we’ve shown no respect for government guidelines and treated attempts to save lives with contempt.”

He continued, in a defiant address to passers-by: “This isn’t even all of us. Rocheli is out buying bread from the bakery, and Nethanel is davening in the synagogue…I mean at home, on his own. Not with other people. Obviously. It’s not my fault I have so many siblings. Where else are we meant to take them?”

However, his pleas (and those of the crowd) fell on deaf ears, mainly because they were exclusively in Yiddish.