Meah Shearim (“Hundred Gates”) is a typical European-style walled ghetto in West Jerusalem, just north-west of the Old City. It is populated exclusively by haredi (ultra-orthodox) Jews. When I saw it in 1965 (which was before the Six Day War – a watershed for the Middle East) it was Friday afternoon and delicious smells were wafting from every open window as the lady of the house cooked the meals to be eaten cold the next day (even turning on the gas is deemed a violation of the Mosaic Commandment: “Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy”).

58 years on I doubt that much has changed.

Meah Shearim is the stronghold of the anti-Zionist, pro-Palestinian movement Neturei Karta (“Guardians of the City”). Its sympathisers have been known to attack members of the IDF (the Israeli Army) who stray into the enclave. They speak Yiddish in their daily lives, use Hebrew only in prayer, and stick stamps on their letters upside down as a mute act of protest against the State of Israel, insisting that Israel will only be restored when the Messiah comes.

Residents are understandably annoyed at the tendency of rubbernecking tourists to treat their ghetto as a bit of a zoo. There are prominent Polite Notices begging you “…with all our hearts, please do not pass through our neighborhood in immodest clothes.” In the 1960s, violators risked getting stoned.

Whitby residents, aware of our town inexorably morphing into a vampire theme park, will have nothing but sympathy with that point-of-view.