Inside story of David Bowie

The late, great rock star may not have been a candidate for aliyah but there could have been a David Bowie who was Jewish.

In the late 1980s Rabbi Amanda Golby was doing the rounds as a prison chaplain in England when she ran into a prisoner professing to be Jewish who said that his name was David Bowie.

"I was not actually sure that he was Jewish," Rabbi Golby said, "and there were indeed many who claimed to be Jewish for various reasons. Anyway, I asked 'David Bowie' if it was really his name, and he said it was not, and he had changed it by deed poll so that when his various misdemeanours were written about in the local paper, his mum wouldn't be embarrassed among her friends."

So was he of the tribe? "Probably yes," she concluded.