The Harmony, just over a year old, is what Jerusalem has been crying out for — a chic but affordable perch in the lively, western side of town.

And you can’t beat Nachalat Shiva, west Jerusalem’s dining and clubbing playground, for location — though taxi drivers must be told to head for the back entrance of the Harmony parallel to Yoel Moshe Salomon Street, which is pedestrianised. The hotel sits on the upper floors of a small shopping centre.

It takes a brave investor to create a new multi-million-dollar resort in southern California — and not just because of the recession.

No other holiday playground is already so well endowed with five-star hotels, and in this star-studded state, many of those come with an extra frisson. 

Only in the land of movie legends can you sleep in bedrooms once occupied by Oscar-winners and then eat breakfast at their favourite tables.

Blame it on Nobu, that Japanese chef so beloved of fashionable diners.

Within a decade of him taking a humble, inexpensive and, some would say, unremarkable fatty fish and giving it an extraordinary treatment, he has single-handedly created a world market for black cod.

And it is not just for the sushi crowd — this new addition to top fishmongers’ slabs is now making an appearance at simchahs.

“When we serve it as part of a mixed starter, it’s always the star of the plate,” says Sarah Taylor of kosher caterers Tony Page.

Last weekend’s plush ITV production of Wuthering Heights gorgeously showcased Bronte Country, a wild, dramatic and rather secretive corner of West Yorkshire. For those who have never been, consider spending a few golden autumn days in this austerely beautiful and culturally rich slice of England before the public descend en masse.

The great British public, that is, since the Japanese have already indulged a decades-long obsession with Haworth, where the Bronte sisters grew up.

He is a Tel Aviv hotel chef not a striker, but two Israeli football clubs regard Golan Israeli as their secret weapon.

The 35-year-old’s hummus and kosher steaks are regarded as indispensable by two of Israel’s top teams — Maccabi Haifa and Maccabi Netanya — and he even travels abroad with them to Europe.

For all those nursing fond memories of Juan-les-Pins, that old favourite holiday playground of Anglo-Jewry — as well as for a generation which may not yet have discovered this frenetic but charming little resort — there are three new reasons to visit.

First, the town is home to Europe’s oldest jazz festival, celebrating its 50th anniversary next July. There cannot be anywhere more sublime to listen to good music than the intimate little stage in a pinewood sloping gently down to the Med.

Cape Cod is a lot easier to spot in a picture — all those iconic white clapperboard houses, picturesque lighthouses and wild beaches recalling any number of Edward Hopper paintings — than it is to find in real life.

Unlike the coastal strip of Massachusetts known collectively as North of Boston, where one charming township follows another, this old fishing ground — only latterly reinvented as a tourist destination — is a sprawl of mainland and island communities with no visible centre

She may be the only Jew in the village. But that hasn’t stopped Elizabeth Weisberg creating a voracious appetite for challah, bagels and hamantaschen in the very English rural hinterland of East Sussex.

Many merely buy the ethnic goodies made at the Lighthouse Bakery from local food shops in Lewes, Winchelsea and Rye, but others shlep to the tucked-away hamlet of Bodiam to bake the bread themselves. Hundreds of gentiles, as well as Jews, it seems, have been driven to discover why you need to boil a bagel to get the authentic shine and chew, and how to plait a Shabbat loaf.