The best correction ever

This correction of a story about Liza Minnelli’s former husband David Gest, published in the Daily Mail last week, is our favourite Jewish celebrity correction. Ever. As a service to readers, we print it verbatim:

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TZIPI’s criminal past

Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni revealed this week that her parents had met under rather unusual circumstances: they were robbing a British train at the time.

Livni’s parents Eitan and Sarah were both activists in the hardline Irgun militia in Mandate Palestine when they became acquainted while mounting a raid on a British train.

They were arrested and served time in different prisons, but the spark of romance had been lit.

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The city sale of the century

Strictly Orthodox property developer Eliasz Englander had a problem. His firm, Citywise, is developing a 106,000 ft scheme at 1 Southampton Row in central London. He needed to put a tower crane on the site, but was informed by builders Bovis the crane had to be erected on Saturday to prevent traffic disruption.

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Supershmaltz me!

Our Food editor sets out to discover what effect two weeks of eating only haimishe shtetl food has on his body

I have always enjoyed Jewish food. There is something intensely comforting about a big, fatty salt-beef sandwich slathered with mustard, a bowl of golden chicken soup with lockshen and a kneidl or two, or a fat slice of challah with chopped liver and a pickled cucumber. Comfort food does not get more comforting than this.

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Yossi eats hay for energy

If you want to see Yossi Benayoun in action, try the 2.30 at Ascot.

Yossi Benayoun, the horse, is named after the Israeli international footballer.

The nag is owned by South London man Russell Trew, who tells the Wimbledon Guardian that, as a West Ham supporter, he was a big fan of Benayoun until the midfielder joined Liverpool.

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Lawyer outed as Jew... again

Another exclusive in agenda-setting local rag the Jewish Telegraph. It reports that Nick Freeman — the lawyer known as “Mr Loophole” for his ability to help celebrity clients escape driving convictions — “has spoken publicly about his Jewish background for the first time” to the paper.

Actually, it is the first time he has spoken about his Jewish background this month.

Or did they miss his JC interview in which he talked about being a member of the New Kahal Chassidim shul?

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Dame Shirley beautified

Tel Aviv University’s Insider magazine has a flattering profile of one of its governors, Dame Shirley Porter, which tells her story very much the way the disgraced Westminster City Council ex-leader would want it told.

The magazine gushes: “A quarter of a century ago, as leader and then Lord mayor of the City of Westminster, she spearheaded vast urban beautification and clean-up campaigns.”

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Passport to a cushy aliyah

First there was The Apprentice. Now there is to be a new show which could well be called The Zionist Apprentice. A production company is hunting for eight young people who will compete against each other on various extreme missions that mirror the challenges undertaken in building the state of Israel.

The winner of Ultimate Oleh will be given a “golden ticket” into Israel — a luxury flat, a new car and a dream job.

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We’re on the telly

A new BBC series shines a light on Britain’s Jews. Director Vanessa Engle talks to our television critic

There cannot be many more surreal moments in documentary history than the scene in Vanessa Engle’s new film The Prisoner, in which a reformed Chasidic drug-dealer wants to demonstrate how easy it is to swallow a condom packed with grade-A substances. With no cocaine-filled package to hand, he uses the next best thing — a pickled cucumber, which he dispatches in one gulp with the help of a sip of water.

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Paddy power’s own goal

Many believe that sacked Chelsea manager Avram Grant was treated harshly by the media because he was Israeli and Jewish. Certainly, he has faced plenty of antisemitic abuse from racist fans.

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Cooked to death - but yummy

New British Kitchen
UKTV Food, Thursday, June 5

In New British Kitchen, John Torode, of Masterchef fame, and Glaswegian presenter Hardeep Singh Kohli investigated Britain’s ethnic food. This week’s episode was on the subject of Jewish cuisine .

While it was fantastic that the wider community got an insight into how we lead our lives, programmes about Jewish food are always faintly embarrassing.

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Mezuzah crime warning

Your car may be protected by an immobiliser and your house alarmed, but there is another important item you need to protect — your mezuzah. 

Rabbis in southern Israel have warned people to be on the lookout for mezuzah thieves. Dozens of householders in Kiryat Gat, 50 miles south of Tel Aviv, found last week that the parchments from inside their mezuzah cases had been stolen. So if a dodgy geezer offers you a bargain mezuzah, you have been warned.

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I’m hopeless at maths. You can count on it

I realised this week that I have a debilitating medical condition. Actually I’ve had it for most of my life but I only recognised the symptoms when I was listening to the news on the radio.

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Lara's dream job: shluffing

Shocking news if you thought the JC’s lovely Showbiz Shmooze columnist Lara Lewington leads a glamorous showbusiness lifestyle.

In fact, she told the Independent’s “Five-minute interview” slot this week, she’s a boring stay-at-home type. “Because I interview celebrities occasionally, people always assume I’m constantly out living a wild lifestyle when actually I’m probably at home cooking dinner and not being very sociable at all,” she said. She added that her ideal night out was “one that ends early so I can get home to bed. I’m really boring.”

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New career? I think I’ve missed the bus

I was shocked to realise this week that I will soon be coming up to my 20th anniversary as a journalist (although I was practically a child when I started, so don’t get the idea that I’m getting on or I need reading glasses or anything like that. Actually, I can still see quite small print if there is good natural light and the page is held precisely 36 cms from my eyes).

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Cambodia's kosher mosque

A prominent American-Jewish family has been helping out poor villagers in a remote Cambodian village... by building them a mosque.

The Lightman family from Massachusetts have been working with the village, Tramoung Chum, since 2003. It started when academic Alan Lightman, his wife Jean Greenblatt Lightman and their Daughter Elyse funded a four-room concrete school.

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Thailand's Jewish problem

JC reader Howard Cowan was browsing the thai2english.com website, which translates Thai words to English and English words to Thai. So he keyed in the word “Jew”.

He discovered that the Thai word for Jew is Yiw — which the web-site defined as “stingy, miserly and cheap”.

Can the Thai ambassador tell us please if this is official policy?

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Jews do better on American TV

House
Channel Five, Thursday, June 5

Americans do two things better than us (actually, three if you include making hot dogs) — medical dramas and Jewish themes in fictional programmes.

So when, as in this episode of House — the Golden Globe-winning medical series starring our own Hugh Laurie — they do both simultaneously, you can be guaranteed a cracking night in.

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Bard was Jew... and female

Is it just possible that William Shakespeare was a nice Jewish girl?

Many have questioned whether Shakespeare’s plays were actually written by the Bard himself, but Shakespeare-ologist John Hudson is among the first to suggest he might have been a female — and a Jewish one at that.

Hudson is claiming that the true author of the works could have been Amelia Bassano Lanier, who lived in England as a Marrano and is thought to be the first woman to publish a book of poetry.

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Boots go to Israel. The world gets more boring

So Boots the chemist is on its way to Israel. I am sure there will be plenty of dancing in the streets of Tel Aviv at the news that Boots No 7 cream (with its anti-ageing properties) will now be available there.

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