In January, we asked readers to help us identify the 100 people who exercise the greatest influence on British Jewry today. Entries could be made on the grounds of religious or communal impact, cultural and social leadership, financial support or fundraising contributions, or in shaping perceptions of the community in the wider world. Where applicable, non-Jews could be nominated.

An expert panel of communal figures then spent weeks discussing your suggestions and making a few nominations of their own. They faced the tough task of assessing who should come where in the final list of 100 names.

The panel reflects a wide range of views within the community. But chairman Ben Rich explains: “We intentionally avoided seeking to pretend the panel can represent every interest group. Instead, there is a strong bias towards those whose job it is to understand how influence works and real power is exercised.”

Thus as well as Mr Rich, a senior public-affairs professional, the panel comprises Orthodox and Liberal rabbis, a PR consultant with many communal clients, an experienced fundraiser, a long-time “professional volunteer”, the Daily Mail’s City editor and two savvy political operators.

The Power 100 is the product of hours of passionate debate. The final list was compiled after a long lunch at the JC offices at which last-ditch pleas were made for some of those “bubbling under” — and even for certain names not previously on the list. Equally, there was heated opposition over the place within the 100 of some candidates, whether too high, too low, or “should not even be there”.

Today, we start the countdown to Britain’s most influential Jew by listing the last 30 names on the Power 100. The list continues next week, with the top places revealed in our issue of April 27. Then we will welcome your views on the list.

#78: Samuel Green

The 24-year-old South Londoner makes the list partly for his role as mazkir (national director) of the Federation of Zionist Youth, Britain’s largest Zionist youth organisation, which has a current membership of 1,700. And under his alter ego of Antithesis, he pursues a musical career as a rapper and a DJ. He released his first album in 2003, and in 2005 launched Kol Cambridge — the UK’s only radio show dedicated to Jewish and Israeli music. Kol Cambridge is now broadcast on London’s Shalom FM.

A new language is emerging on the streets — and no, it’s not Yiddish. Nathan Jeffay investigates

Are you shoms? And if you are, is it by decision or default? Maybe you are butters, which is a significant disadvantage if you are into row-sing. Still, if you are a shtarker, you probably do not indulge in row-sing.

Confused? All the above words are examples of a unique street slang currently used by Jewish teenagers and twentysomethings, particularly the more religiously observant ones.

There is “certainly a special lingo in use among people of from schoolkids upwards in the community,” says Samuel Green, aka Antithesis the Zionist Rapper. He comes across it on a daily basis in his job as the head of FZY, the Federation of Zionist Youth.

So, for those who are not familiar with this form of street-talk — let’s call it J-slang — what did that opening paragraph mean? Shoms is used when a someone wants to ask a friend whether a girl or boy they are attracted to refrains, for religious reasons, from touching members of the opposite sex.

It comes from the Hebrew shomer (shomeret for a girl) negiah — a phrase straight from halachic texts and meaning “observant of touching laws”.

Using this original form could make the speaker sound overtly religious, and possibly prudish. Say “shoms” instead, which could plausibly be an English street-term, and the speaker’s hip credibility remains intact.

Or as 21-year-old Rebecca Fisher, a student from North-West London and a Bnei Akiva “maddie” or madricah (youth leader), says: “‘Shomer negiah’ is a formal and legalistic term, and I guess I refer to the halachic state of not touching the opposite sex as ‘shoms’ because it’s a more affectionate way of referring to a difficult [area of] halachah. It’s a more jokey way of using frum terminology, very common in religious circles, and it brings it to a more human level.”

There are two types of shoms people. Some are “shoms by decision”, ie those who are in a relationship, or who apply their religious principles to avoid physical contact when someone is attracted to them. Then there are those who have so little luck in love that it is easier on the ego to claim religious conviction than admit romantic failure. They are “shoms by default”.

After your shoms status is established, the row-sing can begin — a term that merges the dual activities of flirting and courting. Of course, row-sing is made more difficult if one of the parties involved is considered butters, or ugly. This expression is the Jewish version of the more mainstream slang word, bu-uz.

Hip-sounding

The use of this slang is so commonplace as to be almost automatic. “I think I hear some of the words more than I use them, but they have definitely infiltrated my vocabulary without me realising,” says Sheli Levenson    , a 20-year-old student from North-West London.

Rachel Okin, director of sixth-form activities at FZY, says: “I use them [the words] when sending out text messages to our 17-year-old members to catch their attention, and my sister and her friends, all of that age, use them constantly.”

According to Okin, the word butters is a particular favourite. But one type of person who would never use it, mainly because they have sworn not to eye up the opposite sex, is a shtarker — a devoutly religious person who has studied at a yeshivah or seminary.

Shtarker derives from the Yiddish word for “strong,” and is used to lend a certain cool to a person heavily involved in religious study. The male shtarker will spend a lot of time in the base, a hip-sounding word appropriated from English and used in place of the long-winded Hebrew phrase “beis hamedrash,” meaning study hall.

There is a fair amount of complexity in the way slang words such as shtark are used. As 20-year-old Londoner Karin Kesztenbaum says: “I wouldn’t say ‘shtark’ with people who I know haven’t gone to sem’ or yeshivah, but with people who have it’s a really easy way either to tease someone or a shorthand for a particular experience. It could also be a compliment — this depends on context and tone.

“Slang is useful for shorthand in general, because most words come with a lot of unsaid meaning that you assume the person you’re speaking to shares.”

Just to complete the whole shtarker picture, if the onset of piety has been sudden, the person in question is said to have flipped out. If the transformation has been induced by contact with the outreach organisation Aish, the shtarker is said to have been Aished.

Then again, too much time at the yeshivah or sem’ could lead to frying out — the shedding of piety after an overdose of study.

This, in turn, could result in a lapse into cotching, a cross between relaxing and aimlessly lounging about. The term comes originally from mainstream Essex slang.

All these terms fascinate academic Tony Thorne, the former head of the language centre at King’s College London and one of the country’s leading authorities on slang.

He says: “Young people always have a need to categorise each other, which is exactly what they are doing through language along the issues that are important in their community.

His definition of slang is “a language that is sophisticated, innovative and ubiquitous; not merely a means of transferring information, but a vehicle for humour, a symbol of solidarity and an essential component of social ritual.” But he recognises that with Jewish slang, something far more subtle is going on.

Words like shoms and shtarker, he believes, allow users to reconcile their desire to be young and cool with the wish to define themselves, and everyone else, by a criterion that is generally considered uncool — religious observance. Expressions that do this are deployed across the religious spectrum. Even if they do not apply to you, there is always someone else to pigeonhole.

Tony Thorne is particularly taken with the word row-sing, a term, he says, that is unique to Jews. And he highlights butters as another instance of innovative use of language.

“This is a fascinating adaptation,” he says. “Bu-uz is black London/Cockney. Jewish youngsters have made it more genteel.”

He adds: “This is a great example of how slang is not simple use of terms acquired from the media, but complex use of words from a varied pool.”

Most of all, however, Jewish slang provides an instant way of telling the speakers that they share the same background.

“It is useful when you’re getting to know new people,” says Karin Kesztenbaum. “It’s an automatic link. That you speak the same language means that you’ve done the same sorts of things, probably know some of the same people, maybe have thought about the same issues, and care about the same things.

“It’s like an underlying security that you can find something to talk about because you have something implicitly in common.”

A glossary of J-slang

Shoms (adj.) — refuses to make physical contact with a member of the opposite sex

Shoms by decision — as above, out of religious conviction or principle

Shoms by default — as above, but because no-one is attracted to them

Row-sing (n.) — flirting/courting

Butters (adj.) — ugly

Shtarker (n.) —

an intensely religious person

Base (n.) —

beis hamedrash, religious study hall

Flip out (v.) — to become religious

Fry out (v.) — to become very unreligious

Aished (adj.) — newly religious as a result of involvement with the outreach movement Aish

Cotch (v.) — to relax/lounge around

Forget hip hop’s typical boyz in the hood – the new stars have a Hasidic history, explains Matt Ford.

No hip hop album is complete without a salutation to the creator somewhere on the sleeve notes. but rap nods to God are usually pretty hard to take seriously.

When 50 Cent dangles a big gold crucifix between his sirloin steak pecs to mumble loving rhymes about his AK47, it’s almost as far from the Gospels as wearing soft slippers to kick a man to death is from compassion.

But God is out there. And among the hoodies and baseball caps at rap gigs are an increasing number of Shalom Motherf**ker T-shirts, with more than a few girls wearing designer bra tops made from yarmulkes, the traditional Jewish skull cap.

Jews aren’t new to rap: the Beastie Boys and members of hugely influential 1980s act 3rd Base are Jewish; Def Jam was co-founded by Rick Rubin and Lyor Cohen. What is different is that now they are specifically identifying themselves with their ethnic culture.

Mixed Bunch
There’s 50 Shekel, 2 Live Jews (featuring Dr Dreidel and Ice Berg), Hasidic MC and beatboxer Matisyahu (who performs in traditional garb) and MOT, managed by Meshugge Knight, a take-off of notorious Death Row Records boss Suge Knight.

The video for Chutzpah’s first single from a self-titled album is called Chanukah’s The Bomb and features the crew rolling in a limo with a roof-mounted menorah (seven-branched candlestick). The Hip Hop Hoodios, who take their name from the Spanish word for Jews, rap: ‘My sound is fresh / Like a pound of flesh / My nose is large so you know I’m in charge.’

Of course, there’s a big element of parody and irony to all this but the message these groups are sending out is serious. Naomi Wolf, cultural commentator and author of the influential feminist book, The Beauty Myth, has called them and their fans the ‘Hebesters’: twentysomething Jews who are ‘about as far from the neurotic characters  in a Woody Allen film as you can get…Here is what they are not: self-deprecating, dweeby, asexual or yearning for goyishe [non-Jewish] validation.’

Their heroes are Sarah Jessica Parker, Seth from The OC and actors Orlando Bloom and Adam Sandler – and their influences are being felt in Hollywood, with Kabbalah becoming increasingly popular. Hebrew Hammer, a ‘Jewsploitation’ comedy parodying the ironic popularity of Blaxploitation films, was made in 2003.

‘Just as…identity is, for young black people, no longer associated simply or by any means predominantly with slavery, we are coming to terms with the Holocaust in our own way,’ writes Wolf.

Holocaust History
Jewish MC Remedy, from sprawling hip hop crew The Wu Tang Clan, penned a Holocaust-inspired track, Never Again, on the band’s 1998 album The Swarm. The track was inspired by his grandmother’s stories of members of his own family who died in the Holocaust and contains a sample of the Israeli national anthem and the lyrics: ‘My own blood / Dragged through the mud / Perished in my heart / Still cherished and loved.’ Remedy has performed in front of 15,000 Jews in Moscow, at a Holocaust survivors’ dinner in LA and regularly goes into Jewish schools to perform with students.

Taking a Stand
Antithesis, a 22-year-old rapper and Cambridge University student who has performed on the BBC’s 1Xtra, says: ‘It’s hard to relate to lyrics about gangs in LA and New York and so people are simply starting to relate the music to their own lives.’

‘Hip hop has taken off in Israel with rappers such as Subliminal, who are hugely influential. Because of everything that’s happened to the Jews, there’s a tendency to keep our heads down. It’s great to hear someone standing up, not being aggressive or anti-British, but proud of their Jewishness. People email me and write: “You’re saying just what I think” – and I love that.’

But this outspoken voice is not without its critics and Jewish rap is on the frontline between liberal and hardline Jews in Israel.

When hope for an Arab-Israeli peace were lost in the bitter violence of 2000, Israeli rap – which had previously been a fringe art form – stormed the charts. MC Subliminal has become a voice for popular anger and has attracted criticism for his militancy. ‘It’s a war of words,’ he told the BBC. ‘And I’m on a mission to let the world know our side of the story.’