Readers, you may remember that, late last year, I got dumped by my girlfriend Mandy when she finally twigged I wasn't going to be able to provide her with the things she really wanted: my ultra-rare Frankie Say Arm The Unemployed T-shirt from 1984 and box set of nine Seinfeld DVDs.

Mark Ronson is reminiscing. "My grandmother was so funny. She's not around any more but when we were kids we'd go over to her house and she'd only have two periodicals on the table: French Vogue and the Jewish Chronicle". He smiles. "Those were like her Bibles."

The memory is partly prompted by the fact Ronson is talking to the JC, partly by the fact he is back in London.

We are arranged in a circle, surrounded by pots of coloured paint and plastic stencils, ready to create designs for Purim T-shirts. The place is northern Israel, minutes from the Mediterranean. Ages range from 18 to 25. In the past few days we have been donkey riding in biblical costumes, taken part in adventure activities in the Carmel forest and toured the Mini Israel theme park.

What makes a Jew? This is the question at the heart of Israeli filmmaker Ronit Kerstner's documentary Torn.

Thanks to Joshua Foer I have several images floating around my head that I cannot get rid of. These include Claudia Schiffer swimming in a giant tub of cottage cheese, a man sitting on a toilet wearing only a snorkel and Paul Newman in my kitchen chopping elk sausages.

Susy Stone

Educated at Henrietta Barnet School in north London and graduated in French from London University. She taught at JFS and later became headteacher of Bell Lane Primary School in Hendon and the Akiva School in Finchley.

If ever there was a time for the Jewish community to learn from its history, it is now, as many face economic difficulties and poor job prospects.

Tributes flowed around the world when the iconic Bloom's restaurant in Golders Green finally closed its doors in 2010.

But while the likes of Steven Berkoff, Maureen Lipman and Giles Coren mourned its demise, others questioned how such a supposedly popular eaterie, which first opened in Whitechapel in 1920, could end up going into liquidation.

No kosher butcher, no kosher baker, and not even any Shabbat candles for sale.

What do you do when you want to keep kosher but your nearest kashrut-friendly store is three hours away by car?