New kind of wedding card

Time was when you would have to think ahead when buying a wedding present — ie leafing through the John Lewis list for items within your price range.

Well, thanks to enterprising Israelis, from now on you will  not need to buy a gift until you arrive at the venue.

If you are attending a simchah at the Gan Oranim hall in Tel Aviv, you will be able to insert your credit-card into a machine, tap in a sum and leave a gift for the bride and groom.

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I’m modest, so fly me

There are plenty of things to consider when booking an airline ticket. What is the best price? Does it fly direct to your destination? What is the food like?

And then there is: how does you airline rank for modesty? The Rabbinical Transportation Committee in Israel has ranked international carriers on modesty, particularly in the films they offer.

Flights that score best are those which screen no films. Those offering films on personal screens also score well, although the rabbis advise  a personal “foldable curtain”.

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Disharmony at Bnei Akiva

Religious youth movement Bnei Akiva has walked into a row with irate parents… because it is getting too frum. BA has decided to segregate its annual singing competition at Givat Shmuel, near Tel Aviv, which has always been mixed, prompting irate parents to send hundreds of letters of complaint.

Senior rabbi David Bigman said Jewish law did not forbid listening to a woman singing, “as long as the song is not intended for sexual provocation”. Sexual provocation? Surely not at a BA singing competition?

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Jews vote for voting

Whether or not you vote may well depend on your religious orientation, according to a study published in Social Science Quarterly.

The survey of 1,712 adults concluded that people who see God as being directly involved in world affairs — for example, evangelical Protestants — were less likely to vote. However, Jews who see God as a little more laissez-faire tended to go to the polls more regularly.

The Labour Party may hope Christians are nearer the mark, because if current opinion polls are correct, it looks as if only God can save Gordon Brown now.

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I was lost in the Amazon jungle

Israeli Yossi Ghinsberg nearly died in the Bolivian rainforest. He tells us of his miraculous survival

Yossi Ghinsberg is sitting in the bar of a hotel in Central London, sipping a glass of red wine and picking at a bowl of crisps. Simple enough pleasures, but Ghinsberg feels he will never again take them for granted. For he is one of a rare group — those who have been lost in the Amazon rainforest and lived to tell the tale.

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The final insult from Lithuania

Crossing Continents

Radio 4, Thursday, July 17

A Match Made in heaven

ITV1, Sunday, July 13

A Lithuanian commission is currently investigating war crimes. A good idea you might think. After all, Lithuanian civilians are widely thought to have cheerfully joined in with the Nazi death squads which all but eliminated the hundreds of thousands of Jews who once inhabited the country.

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I went on TV to find love

Dan Shell agreed to let an ITV camera crew follow his attempts at internet dating. Any regrets?

Finding true love can be a tricky and unpredictable journey. It is a process that most people like to conduct with a degree of privacy. However, 38-year-old Dan Shell has decided to allow the television-viewing public to follow his romantic progress.

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The way we deal with rubbish is, er, rubbish

It’s going to be a rubbish column this week. This isn’t to say that the quality of the writing won’t be every bit as effervescent (or not) as usual, just that the subject is, well, rubbish.

Why am I writing about rubbish? The fact is there is a lot of it about these days. We are creating more rubbish than ever before which means that local authorities are struggling to do everything within their power to dispose of the mountains of waste as efficiently as possible.

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Mind your language, Eli

There are signs that the Israeli government might not be treating the process of welcoming and integrating immigrants with a great deal of importance.

Why? Well, the newly appointed absorption minister, Eli Affalo, does not speak a word of English. That may prove significant when one’s job entails a large number of conversations with English-speakers.

A source close to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert defended the decision, saying: “Speaking English is not part of the criteria.”

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Williams: Heavens can wait

The Archbishop of Canterbury has said he will not be taking to the heavens in an aeroplane — with one exception.

Rowan Williams told Green Futures magazine that he intends to keep his feet firmly on the ground in an attempt to leave as small an ecclesiastical carbon footprint as possible. He is, however, making one exception. “The only fixed flight this year is a trip to Auschwitz. After that I’m looking at travelling by train in Europe.”

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UJIA’s dinner dilemma

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A novel correction

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Can faiths agree on punishment?

Beyond Belief

Radio 4, Monday, July 7

Sunday Life

BBC1, Sunday, July 6

In a sense, Beyond Belief is what we pay our licence fee for. Who but a publicly funded broadcaster would invite thinkers from Islam, Christianity and Judaism to sit in a radio studio and chat for half an hour about what their faith says about punishment?

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Parade? What parade?

You may have been among the thousands attending the “Salute to Israel” parade in London on Sunday. So how did London’s paper, the Evening Standard, report the event? Well, the paper carried a centre-spread photo showing Spanish football fans celebrating their Euro 2008 triumph  in Piccadilly Circus on Sunday night.

The caption read : “In among the sea of red and yellow is a lone Israeli flag, presumably left lying around after a parade earlier in the day to celebrate 60 years of the state of Israel.”

Yes, that was it.

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Sharansky talks pants

At the Conservative Friends of Israel annual business lunch last week, Shadow Chancellor George Osborne said he had vivid memories of Soviet dissident and retired Israeli politician Natan Sharansky walking across the Glienicke Bridge in West Berlin on his release from prison in 1986.

Mr Osborne said: “When I met him years later, I asked him what he was thinking as he crossed the bridge, and he said: ‘I had lost so much weight, and because my belt had been taken, I was terrified my trousers would fall down’.”

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Israeli - and big in Beirut

Israel and Lebanon may not be on talking terms right now, but Lebanese music fans can’t get enough of an Israeli transsexual singer (and, no it’s not Dana International).

Say No More, a dance track by Aderet, who had the operation 10 years ago, has been at the top of the playlist this month on the Beirut Nights internet radio station devoted to dance music. Said Aderet: “They know I’m an Israeli singer, and that it’s an Israeli song. It feels great.”

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Potty about Zionist plots

The Diary enjoys a preposterous Zionist conspiracy theory, and this week we have two crackers.

Steven Spielberg’s Oscar-winning D-Day epic, Saving Private Ryan, was Zionist propaganda. According to an Iranian documentary about Hollywood cinema, the eponymous soldier was called Ryan because of the similarity of the name to “Zion”. Moreover, claims the documentary, “prominent films like Saving Private Ryan highlight the role of Jewish soldiers. By exaggerating this role, the Zionists seem to be trying to achieve legitimacy for their post-war actions.”

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How I could look like a frum George Clooney

I noticed while browsing the internet a few days ago that George Clooney has (or certainly very recently had) a beard. So did Keanu Reeves. Does this mean that beards are now in?

Ever since I started shaving, I have been toying with the idea of growing a beard. I haven’t done so for two reasons. I really enjoy shaving and would therefore feel deprived if I couldn’t wield my Bic any more. Also, beards generally look rubbish.

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An inquiry into His Bobness

What’s So Great About... Bob Dylan?
Radio 4, Saturday, June 28

It has been ages since Lenny Henry made a good programme. I think the last one was probably Tiswas, the weekend kids’ show which ran out of steam some time in 1982.

Yet this Radio 4 nugget contained all sorts of things you do not normally associate with Henry — it was intelligent, thought-provoking, articulate — and there was not a single silly voice in the entire half-hour.

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Rabbi... or is that Robbie?

When Chief Rabbi Sir Jonathan Sacks arrived at BBC Television Centre last week for his Thought for the Day slot, he had problems gaining access to the studio.

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