Diary 39
Diary 39 - No sticky back plastic in sofrut
I have a Blue Peter badge for being a sofer
... yes, you heard it - a Blue Peter badge. How exciting is that?
Blue Peter contacted me because of my work as a sofer. One of the presenters, Joel Defries, was doing a feature looking into his Jewish roots, and wanted to find out more about both Jewish religious traditions, such as Synagogues and the Torah (five books of Moses), as well as the Hebrew language. Following a pre-production visit, the Blue Peter team came round to the house on a cold December morning to film.
I showed Joel the quills, ink and parchment I use to repair Torah (no sticky back plastic is ever used!) and compared the unfixed and fixed areas of a Torah I was currently working on for a synagogue in Bromley. He’d never read Hebrew so I taught him to sing the first three words of Shirat Hayam (the Song of the Sea) - but that bit ended up on the cutting room floor - wonder why? I showed him the M'gillat Hashoah (another cutting room floor casualty). Finally I attempted to teach Joel to write his name in Hebrew. Joel in written as Yo'el in Hebrew. Joel had a good go at writing it, but the last two letters didn’t come out very well, leaving him as Yo, which he rather liked.
The episode was screened on 27 January 2009 to coincide with Holocaust Remembrance Day and was a very well made programme with very good graphics and high production standards. The hardest thing about filming the segment was making sure that we explained all the Hebrew terms so that a child with no background knowledge could understand what we were talking about.
Below a low res clip of the segment from the show I made years ago - I'm trying to get a better version.
Blue Peter contacted me because of my work as a sofer. One of the presenters, Joel Defries, was doing a feature looking into his Jewish roots, and wanted to find out more about both Jewish religious traditions, such as Synagogues and the Torah (five books of Moses), as well as the Hebrew language. Following a pre-production visit, the Blue Peter team came round to the house on a cold December morning to film.
I showed Joel the quills, ink and parchment I use to repair Torah (no sticky back plastic is ever used!) and compared the unfixed and fixed areas of a Torah I was currently working on for a synagogue in Bromley. He’d never read Hebrew so I taught him to sing the first three words of Shirat Hayam (the Song of the Sea) - but that bit ended up on the cutting room floor - wonder why? I showed him the M'gillat Hashoah (another cutting room floor casualty). Finally I attempted to teach Joel to write his name in Hebrew. Joel in written as Yo'el in Hebrew. Joel had a good go at writing it, but the last two letters didn’t come out very well, leaving him as Yo, which he rather liked.
The episode was screened on 27 January 2009 to coincide with Holocaust Remembrance Day and was a very well made programme with very good graphics and high production standards. The hardest thing about filming the segment was making sure that we explained all the Hebrew terms so that a child with no background knowledge could understand what we were talking about.
Below a low res clip of the segment from the show I made years ago - I'm trying to get a better version.
The episode - a Blue Peter special was called Joel’s Journey and just before it was screened the director sent everyone who participated a really nice graphics thank you card below showing loads of images from the finished programme. I’m there with Joel in the top left hand corner.
Perhaps I should have used a Torah that had finished it’s repairs, then I could have said those immortal words ... “here’s one I made earlier”.
Below: Promotional card for the show. Joel and I are in the top left corner © BBC.
Photos below © Mordechai Pinchas.
It wasn't actually my first ever Blue Peter badge (I got a round competition winner one for drawing a picture of Glen Miller for a portraits competition when I was a one little - not sure what a twelve year old was doing drawing Glen Miller) for - but it was certainly the most important one; as it was the one they give you when you've actually featured on the programme. I'm given to understand that the clip was then used in the Jewish Museum in London for when schoolchildren visited; as every so often I'd get recognised as that
sofer
- as seen on Blue Peter.
Mordechai Pinchas
GO TO DIARY 40
Mordechai Pinchas
