London Synagogue Auctions Off Celebrity Underwear
With Passover just around the corner, goodwill is aplenty: Some charities are delivering seder meals, and others are arranging for holiday invites. The New North London Synagogue however, is taking a different approach. They are auctioning off autographed celebrity underwear on Ebay.
Simon Hattenstone, a writer for the Guardian, decided to request celebrity underwear as a way to raise awareness for needy individuals who seek refuge in the Masorti synagogue. “Look, I’m not a seedy old hack,” Hattenstone wrote in his column. “I help run a drop-in centre for destitute asylum seekers. These people have no money for the basics in life. One of the things they most lack is underwear, so we’re drawing attention to it with an auction of celebrity underwear.”
While he relates that procuring the unmentionables from the stars was somewhat difficult, matching the pair to the name isn’t. Actress Emma Thompson’s black stomach-flattening Spanx came with the note that reads, “These are the knicker equivalent of Fort Knox”. Songwriter and poet John Hegley’s briefs feature a poem about ants and pants. The singer Fergie of the Black Eyed Peas sent in gold, metallic boy shorts. And writer Nick Hornby and his young son adorned a pair of boxers with stickers and a feather.
Undergarments apparently from actress Helen Mirren, actor Daniel Day-Lewis, and illustrator Aline Crumb are also on the block.
With the description of each lot comes a note about the New North London Synagogue’s Destitute Asylum Seeker Drop In: “Destitute asylum seekers live here in fear, terrified of being forcibly returned home. They are not allowed to work and don’t even have the money to buy underwear which is basic to human dignity. Our celebrities will both raise funds for them and draw attention to their plight.”
Bidders can procure their very own gently used memento until March 31.
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
2X match on all Passover gifts!
Most Popular
- 1
News A Jewish Republican and Muslim Democrat are suddenly in a tight race for a special seat in Congress
- 2
Fast Forward The NCAA men’s Final Four has 3 Jewish coaches
- 3
Fast Forward Cory Booker proclaims, ‘Hineni’ — I am here — 19 hours into anti-Trump Senate speech
- 4
Film & TV What Gal Gadot has said about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
In Case You Missed It
-
Opinion The ADL reversed its support for Trump’s student deportations. You should too
-
Fast Forward Senate rejects Bernie Sanders’ proposal to block some weapons sales to Israel
-
Fast Forward Sotheby’s to auction earliest known kiddush cup
-
Opinion Trump’s new tariffs on Israel are a BDS dream come true
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.