Barrington Black and I did our square bashing in the army together. Perhaps not the most scintillating reminiscence — especially since he went on to become a Royal Army Service Corps lieutenant and I got invalided out for flat feet.

If you’re Jewish and on Facebook or Twitter then I bet there’s one word that’s been showing up on your timeline a lot recently. The word is cringe.

We cringe at That Dreadful Woman From Radlett and The Neurotic One From Edgware in Jewish Mum of the Year. We cringe at Caprice and Stacey Solomon being presented as Jewish spokeswomen. We cringe at Jews in the news or on a cruise.

It may go down in diplomatic history as one of the swiftest love affairs on record. Sherard Cowper-Coles was Britain’s ambassador to Israel for just 22 months before he was whipped off to the most improbable successor appointment — as the UK’s man in Saudi Arabia.

Sadly, there are not many Jews who fought in the Second World War who are still able to march. But those who can will be polishing their medals to parade down Whitehall on Sunday, in honour of their comrades who fell in the 1939-45 conflict and those before and since.

I don’t know if Kay D’Arcy is Jewish. Probably not. But there are undoubtedly a great many Jews who are like her — well past retirement age, overflowing with chutzpah, and possessed of the “showbiz gene”. And many of these could, and just might, follow her example.

Sadly, there are not many Jews who fought in the Second World War who are still able to march. But those who can will be polishing their medals to parade down Whitehall on Sunday, in honour of their comrades who fell in the 1939-45 conflict and those before and since.

Come and see Nicole Farhi's autumn winter collection 2012 and let her style you at an exclusive shopping event for JC readers on Tuesday November 20th.

With little more than a hair’s breadth between President Barack Obama and challenger Mitt Romney, the US election is too close to call. However, whatever the outcome, there is already one certain winner – Jon Stewart.

The presenter of The Daily Show and American television's satirist-in-chief has had a good campaign.

Ninety-five years ago, on November 2 1917, British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour wrote his famous letter to Lord Rothschild, expressing the support of the government for the “establishment in Palestine of a National Home for the Jewish people”.

It was a major step towards the eventual founding of Israel.