Meet North London Israelophile Liran Nathan. You could soon be seeing a lot more of him.
The Orthodox 20-year-old from Stamford Hill will be appearing on the new series of Channel 4’s exotic reality show Shipwrecked, which started on Sunday.
Mr Nathan was voted by the public to join the 10 original contestants on the Cook Islands in the South Pacific to have the chance to compete for the £70,000 prize.
“The whole experience is hard to put into words,” he tells People. “The hardest bit was being away from everyone I know. There were no showers and you had to bathe in the sea,” adds Mr Nathan, a self-confessed neat-freak who is now back home.
What made him audition? “The weekend before I saw the advert for the show I was on Tel Aviv beach. I thought: ‘I would love to live here for three months’. It wasn’t very much like Tel Aviv but I loved it.”
Keenly aware of his Jewish identity, Mr Nathan says he managed to keep kosher and Shabbat during his time on the island. “I also put a Magen David up in the island chapel to make it more multifaith.”
A former JFS pupil, Mr Nathan works for the family jewellery business. “My family were very supportive.”
The next episode of Shipwrecked is on Saturday at 11:25am Channel 4.