Chas Newkey-Burden's Blog, page 6

To Israel in the spring

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I’m on my way to Israel. The trip was arranged by Wizo, as part of the prize for my Commitment to Israel award.

We’re going to see charity projects in Tel Aviv, Jaffa, Haifa and Jerusalem. We’ll also hang out at a cable television station, go behind the scenes at El Al and tour the Knesset (the Israeli parliament).

I will visit Menachem Begin’s resting place and also spend time in the mystical city of Tzfat, the home of Kabbalah. I’ve often dreamt of visiting Tzfat. I’m so excited to actually go there. I’ll take my Zohar.

I’m going to eat at Dr Shakshuka, and I expect I’ll have an Aroma ice coffee at some point. Probably some Popping Candy Bamba, too. I’ll be staying in Herzliya.

I’ll update this blog when I can during the trip. I’ll be tweeting when I’m over there too. You can follow me at @AllThatChas.

This is my fifth visit to Israel, but it’s been three-and-a-half years since I was last there. Ayin letziyon tzofiyah.

Simon Cowell on left-wing lunatics

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Before The X Factor and even before Pop Idol, Simon Cowell made three fleeting appearances on our TV screens.

Here, we see him in super-confident and opinionated mood on Right To Reply in 1987. The highlights are his comment about ‘left-wing lunatics’, the way he really warms to his theme at 1:16, and, of course, his ‘t-shirt’.

In 1990, he was a contestant on the ITV game-show, Sale Of The Century. He is less comfortable in this appearance and it gets wonderfully awkward between 2:22 and 2:41.

Simon. What is going on with your shirt here? I mean seriously. Thank goodness you progressed to tight t-shirts! Was this where you got the idea for The X Factor?

Follow me on Twitter. Read more about my biography of Simon Cowell here.

Tour guide Bibi

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Would you like to see the trailer for a one-hour television show, in which Benjamin Netanyahu acts as tour guide for a visit to Israel?

Course you would, you cheeky minxes! Well, here it is…

The audacity of hypocrisy

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Who said men cannot multi-task?

Barack Obama can. As well as managing the chaos and bloodshed created by America’s invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, and sending drones to blow civilians to bits in Pakistan and Yemen, he still manages to find time to lecture Israel about “aggressive” settlement building in the West Bank.

What a guy.

The real Israel

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Yesterday, a car carrying four Palestinians crashed in the Jordan Valley. Their vehicle, which was speeding, flipped over and fell into a wadi.

Israeli soldiers rescued the injured Palestinians and flew them to an Israeli hospital, where their lives were saved.

This is a beautiful response – and typical of the real Israel. Read more here.

The ‘kernel of Zionism’

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Kooky conspiracy theories about Zionism are as old as Zionism itself.

Take this, from a Soviet agent as he interrogated Menachem Begin in the early 1940s:

‘Zionism in all its forms is a farce and a deception, a puppet show. It’s not true that you aim to set up a Jewish state in Palestine, or that you intend to bring millions of Jews there. Both these aims are utterly impracticable and the Zionist leaders are perfectly well aware of it.

‘This talk of a “state” conceals the true purpose of Zionism – which is to divert the Jewish youth from the ranks of the revolution in Europe and put them at the disposal of British Imperialism in the Middle East. That’s the kernel of Zionism. All the rest is an artificial shell, deliberately made to deceive.’

Lunacy!

Next month I am returning to Israel for my fifth visit. I am going to visit the resting place of Menachem Begin, my favourite Israeli leader.

The week our village became famous

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Last week the village we live in flooded. I wrote this poem about the experience…

The week our village became famous

You cannot reason with the weather,

It will always reply: Whatever!

The waters came on Monday morning,

Fulfilling our severe warning

We went down road to have a look,

The village was a babbling brook,

Everyone had heard something,

Bout how far water would come thumping

Then flocked the cameras and the notebooks,

To our newfound babbling brook,

They put our village on the map,

As the creeping river put us in a flap

Sandbags, sheeting, planks of wood,

Would they even be any good?

It was the best thing short of boats,

As our homes acquired moats

From obscure to almost a-list,

Our village was suddenly famous,

But the water meant no harm,

At night it had a certain charm

The moon danced in the rippling lakes,

The prettiest scenes that can make!

One night the power off it went,

Which turned out to be heaven sent,

The hum of the village went to silent,

Life had never felt less violent,

The moon became our only floodlight,

The week we fell under the spotlight

The princes came with smiles and sandbags

What a pair of lovely lads!

Some relief by royal appointment

The week our village experienced anointment

Yet each of us were somewhat regal

As the water made us equal,

Mother nature – a curious leveller

Can make you kind as well as cleverer

Neighbours’ smiles,

They were our saviours,

The week our village became famous

Jew Town, India

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Chris went to India recently and one of the places he visited was Jew Town in Mattancherry.

It’s home to the oldest active synagogue in the Commonwealth of Nations, the Paradeshi Synagogue. Very pretty!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I also love this photo of him feeding a temple elephant in a village in Kerala.

 

 

Guest post: an Israeli 90s child

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Hi. My name is Noga and I live in Israel.

I’m a 90s child. I like to be recognized as a 90s Girl because I grew up during the time where children didn’t have cell phones or iPods. We had a Tetris, a Discman and a tiny Tamagotchi which died every few days because we forgot to feed it. I was (and still am) a Disney child; I grew up loving Ariel and Belle; dreamed that “someday my prince will come / someday I’ll find my love…”; thought about Prince Charming arriving to rescue me.

However, growing up in Israel during the 90s… well, let’s just say this was a different experience.

You call it the Second Intifada; I call it terror. I don’t remember a lot from that time; all I remember is the cold fear that took a hold of me every time I had to climb a bus. All I remember is the cold sweat I would broke into every time I had to ride my dad’s car near a bus. I remember that clenching fist of fright when I was in a crowd of people.

I remember all the suicide attacks during those years. It was the time where I was afraid to leave the house, afraid to go to my grandmother’s house who lives in Jerusalem. I was thirteen, maybe fourteen. I was in high school; those were supposed to be my best years. Somehow, sometimes, all I remember from those years is the gripping fear that something might happen to my loved ones; I don’t think I ever actually worried for myself.

As a child you are never aware of the politics involved all those horrid incidents. You never understand why some people want you dead; why buses should be a scary vehicle and not because of its size; why you have to hand your bag to the security guard every time you want to buy a new dress in the mall. We had – and still have – a dark humored saying that goes like this:

On a glass door on one of the stores at the mall there’s a piece of paper. On that paper you read: “In our store, we have a day with a suicide attack and a day without. On and off. Yesterday there was one.”

You can realize how un-funny it is, when you really think about it.

Nonetheless, it was still time of fun. Admit it or not, at a certain point you start to ignore security guards who stand in front of mall entrances; you learn to ignore the numbing terror and learn your life. All you want to be is a normal teenager; to forget the fact that your country is at war; to push every unnecessary thought to the back of your skull. And so I can remember one afternoon during high school, where my entire year decorated the walls. I remember how movie-like it felt; music was heard everywhere; there was loud laughter and simple, genuine joy.

I don’t care that my childhood wasn’t perfect. I grew up knowing there are people who want me dead, even though they do not know me, and this is an awareness no child should ever be familiar with. However, I don’t regret living here. This is my country; this is where I was born and raised; where I can take a bus and drive to the Western Wall whenever I feel like; where I can find a snowed mountain in the north and a desert in the west; where we have the lowest place on earth.

This is where I grew up and I will never trade it for the world.

Jew Town, India

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Chris went to India recently and one of the places he visited was Jew Town in Mattancherry. 

It’s home to the oldest active synagogue in the Commonwealth of Nations, the Paradeshi Synagogue. Very pretty!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I also love this photo of him feeding a temple elephant in a village in Kerala.