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Saturday 10 May 2014

Oofruf

Today, I went to an offruf. Or that's what I thought it was called, until I Googled it..

Actually, it's an aufruf, which is yiddish for "calling up". That's what Ashkenazis call it; Sephardis and Sabras call it "Shabbat Hatan", meaning "groom's sabbath".

The week before the wedding, the groom is given the honour of making a blessing over the Torah. This is followed by a nosh-up (or kiddush, as the rabbi called it), which was held in the same room, and consisted of several tables laden with huge amounts of food for a couple of hundred people, plus whiskey for the boys and cherry brandy for the girls. I don't know why this is, but cherry brandy is the traditional girly booze.

This was followed by a celebratory afternoon nosh-up at the groom's parents house; a couple of dozen of the closest relatives had canapes, and a three course meal.

All great fun ... except that the service at the synagogue lasted two hours and was boring as a Teredo Navalis, and afterwords when people aske me if I enjoyed the service, I told them "No, I was bored stiff, and you?" and they admitted they were too.

Thank God I'm an atheist.

3 comments:

  1. Lol! Trust me it was worse on the women's side...
    Daughter 2
    SilverSpoon London

    ReplyDelete
  2. Did you see the "prayer book" that ladysolly was using?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Oh yes, her love of Jane Austen has reached religious heights!
    Daughter 2
    SilverSpoon London

    ReplyDelete