Expanding Our Sporting Horizons

Confined to my sickbed this past week and a half, the miserable alternatives offered by HOT (Israeli cable TV) have more or less compelled me to take an interest in professional cycling and to renew a former one in darts.

Watching the Tour de France reach its exhausting conclusion gave me cause to wonder why there has never been an Israeli participant in this, the greatest test of stamina in world sport.

Indeed, it is a question I posed to the kiosk brain trust, on Rothschild Boulevard.

After all, why shouldn’t the Israeli male, who displays such outstanding determination, resilience and tactical astuteness in his IDF uniform, be able to bring those very same qualities to the hard saddle?

The reply – delivered, of course, by chairman (self-appointed) of the trust, Avi (well known to readers of melchett mike) – was instant.

“That type of professional cycling demands a special type of self-discipline and denial. And it is one that we Israelis simply don’t possess. We are far too sociable, and incapable of such lonely individualism. Your average Israeli might be able to start his Tour training rides at the crack of dawn, but he’ll be off his bike in a flash at the first sight of people drinking coffee, eating croissants and chatting!”

Hankies to the ready . . . but, if Israel has shown us anything, it is that nothing is impossible for “us” anymore. Still, knowing Israelis as I now do, it is hard, for once, to disagree with Avi.

"Jocky Wilson . . . what an athlete." (Sid Waddell)

Now, I am unashamed to admit that I have always been a big fan of TV darts, especially when accompanied by the quite wonderful commentary of Sid Waddell, a Cambridge University graduate who has shown that you don’t have to be sub-working class to enjoy this most watchable of sports (or games, if you wish to argue the toss). During one particularly tense match, the Geordie proclaimed: “There couldn’t be more excitement in here if Jesus Christ walked in and ordered a cheese sandwich.” Brilliant.

I now started to wonder why no British Jews have ever taken up a career with the arrows. It can be extremely lucrative if you reach the top, you don’t get dirty, and hardly even have to bend down. There are two separate professional world bodies – any self-respecting Diaspora Jew will require one that he doesn’t belong to – and the rule book of neither prohibits consumption of vodka and orange, or even a good pure malt, instead of beer.

But, whilst Jewish guys might be able to handle the dart thrower’s compulsory chains and rings, they would never smoke B&H, Embassy or Rothmans, and would look ridiculous in those “tent” shirts.

And what about the sobriquets? Amongst world champions, past and present, have been Eric “The Crafty Cockney” Bristow, Steve “Housewife’s Choice” Beaton (right), and Phil “The Power” Taylor.

Who would we have? Neville “The Calculator” Rosenberg? Lionel “Mummy’s Boy” Frankel? Melvyn “The Doormat” Levy? It could just all get very embarrassing.

So, even though I ran it down a little in my last post– as not exactly a competition of sporting giants – perhaps the Maccabiah Games, held “in private” in Israel, is the best sporting option after all for British Jews.

The Good, the Sad and the Ugly

There have been two stories dominating the news in Israel this past week. While the first demonstrates everything that is good about today’s Jewish State, the second shows it at its most ugly.

And the good story does not relate to the start of the eighteenth Maccabiah Games. I can’t get too excited about a “Jewish Olympics” . . . which, for me, is about as interesting as an Islamic beer, or Christian Klezmer music, festival.

Indeed, to call the Maccabiah amateurish would be unkind to much non-professional sport. In the men’s 100 metres final (stumbled across whilst channel-hopping), all the sprinters were in their blocks and the starter’s gun raised . . . when this guy appears out of nowhere, unchanged and remonstrating. Not having the heart to send him, un-run, back to Canada (I think that’s where the nincompoop was from), the sprinters were made to get out of their blocks and wait while he changed in front of a ‘live’ national TV audience. The commentator’s observation, that “something like this would never happen at the real Olympics” (in fact, it was pure Hasmonean Sports Day), was more than a little redundant.

Like the role of British polytechnics (now renamed “universities” . . . though everyone knows what you really are) – to enable those who can’t get into a ‘proper’ university to obtain a (worthless) “-ology” – the primary purpose of the Maccabiah is to allow yiddishe mamas whose children could not become doctors, lawyers or accountants, but who had a little sporting ability (a lot for a Jew), to kvell (gush) about something:

“Have you heard?! Darren’s been chosen to represent Great Britain in kalooki!!”

What Mrs. Shepnaches omits to mention is that: kalooki is a card game, Darren is only 37 – and should still be participating in active sports (like lawn bowls) – and he is only going to be representing Great Britain’s 280,000 Hebrews (less than half a percent of its total population).

The Maccabiah is all a bit sad, and perhaps the time has come to question its relevance and its future.

No, the stories that I am referring to are the victory of Israel’s men’s Davis Cup tennis team over the world number ones, Russia, last weekend, and the charedi (ultra-Orthodox) riots in Jerusalem these past few days.

For a sporting “minnow” like Israel – which, less than four years ago, was on the brink of virtual disappearance from the international tennis map – to beat the mighty Russia 4-1 and reach the Davis Cup semi-final (in Spain, in September) is little short of sensational. Indeed, alongside Maccabi Tel Aviv basketball team’s five European Cups, it must go down as one of Israel’s greatest sporting achievements (and further poetic justice following Sweden’s spineless capitulation to Islamofascists in the previous round).

More importantly, however, and as opined by David Horovitz in his weekend Jerusalem Post Editor’s Notes (aptly subtitled “Wonderful things can happen when everybody pulls in the same direction”), it demonstrated how – as we have seen in so many of Israel’s “against all odds” military victories – a spirit of unity and solidarity can enable this miraculous little country to far out-punch its weight.

The riots in Jerusalem, conversely, illuminate the ugly side of Israeli Jewish society and a chasm of as much concern, if not more, than that between Jew and Arab. And it is one which serves to further weaken the country in the eyes of its many, queuing, detractors (see, too, Horovitz’s weekend editorial). Thousands of charedim went on the rampage after a woman belonging to a radical anti-Zionist hassidic sect, and believed to be suffering from mental illness, was arrested on suspicion that she had almost starved her three-year old son to death. Tens of police officers were injured in the clashes, with over half a million shekels worth of damage caused to municipal property. The rioters’ leaders remained silent.

These anti-Zionists do not recognise the sovereignty or legitimacy of the secular State of Israel, and – like other, merely non-Zionist, charedim (for a brief background on charedim and Zionism, click here) – pay relatively little or no tax (the vast majority don’t work), and (with a negligible number of exceptions) do not serve in the military. If I were the parent of an IDF combat soldier, I would want to know why my son has to risk – or had to sacrifice – his young life, when charedi boys of the same age get away with sitting in yeshivot (Talmudic seminaries) all day?

And please don’t insult us with the disingenuous nonsense that learning and praying have been as much a part of Israel’s great military victories as the heroism and selflessness of its young soldiers. I had to suffer more than enough of that from the feebleminded Jewish studies ‘teachers’ of my childhood and youth. We saw how much good prayer did us in Auschwitz and Treblinka. In fact, if charedim had (perish the thought) been leading this country at any one of  its many times of existential crisis, we would all now be fish food somewhere at the bottom of the Mediterranean.

I don’t hate charedim. I am from charedi stock, and most ‘connected’ to my Galician and Lithuanian roots. Indeed, should I ever be viewed as truly chiloni – secular, in the rather extreme Israeli definition of the word – I might consider it time to head back to the Diaspora.

I am, however, convinced that charedim have rather lost the plot in modern day Israel. The hassidic choice of clothing, especially, which had some rationale in Eastern Europe, is positive madness in a country with an average summer high (even in Jerusalem) pushing 30°C. No wonder Stuey and Dexxy bark when they walk past! Even the most sacred and entrenched of Jewish traditions – and the wearing of such garb could never be classed as that – have been adapted to the relevant environment and other circumstances.

There are communities of Ger and Belz hassidim living in in a spirit of peaceful coexistence in my Sheinkin area of Tel Aviv, considered the ultimate symbol of modern, chiloni Israel. I was shocked, however, to be told recently by one of their number that that he doesn’t consider chilonim to be Jews.

Anyway, my suggestion to all of those charedim who don’t like it here in Israel, do not recognise and respect the country’s laws, and/or who oppose the very basis of the State – like the Neturei Karta filth who demonstrate against Israel alongside the most hateful of anti-Semites, attend Holocaust-denial conferences in Tehran (right), and who, on Thursday, paid a visit to Hamas in Gaza – is that they return to live in the shtetls (small towns) of Poland and Eastern Europe. Perhaps life will be better for them there, where they will be more or less self-governing and left to their own devices.

Charedim such as these, living in Israel, are no better than parasites. And to add chutzpah to injury, whilst considering themselves not subject to the law, they – again, like all charedim (about 8% of Israel’s citizens) – try to influence how the rest of us lead our lives.

They can’t, however, have it both ways. If they expect to enjoy the fruits of Israeli citizenship, they must obey and fulfil the same rules and obligations as the rest of us. If they are unwilling to, I am certain that the Poles, etc, will welcome them back with open arms (or, at least, blades).

Sometimes, I think that they deserve each other.

Hasmo Legends XII: Flops, Greater and Lesser

It is something of a truism that Hasmo boys fared far better in maths and sciences than in the arts and humanities.

This owed rather more, however, to factors extrinsic to Hasmonean – such as the greater emphasis placed on the former in most (especially more traditional) Jewish households – than to the pedagogical skills and talents of the school’s maths and science teachers.

In fact, Hasmonean should have churned out ambitious would-be physicians, scientists and mathematicians “for fun”. But, for all the geniuses that we all knew from our Hasmo days – the four and five As maths and science A-Level students – how many went onto careers (never mind distinguished ones) in those fields? With the raw talent at their disposal, Jack, DJ, Steve, Flop and crew should have produced numerous top academics and professionals, but these ‘educators’ did not foster love of their subjects, merely high levels of competence in them.

In spite of my late father having been a brilliant mathematician and physician, I was hopeless at both maths and the sciences. Indeed, Hasmo’s science labs were as uninviting to me as its gym was for some of the more pasty NW11 and N16 frummers (the sensitively-named, by Chich, “spastics”). I hated the places (my only enjoyment being to poke a sharpened pencil through the inviting – what other purpose did it serve? – slit  in my neighbour’s high stool).

So, if you have been eagerly anticipating a warm melchett mike reminiscence about Hasmo’s maths and science teachers, stop reading now – revisit, instead, my posts on Cyril, Chich, Sid, and Big Al – because, with the exception of DJ, I was utterly indifferent to nearly all of them. (As always on melchett mike, however, if you have warmer recollections of these individuals – or tales of those I have failed to mention in detail, or at all – please post them as comments below.)

As well as the absence of truly unforgettable characters (such as the aforementioned), my indifference was also due to the attitude and/or incompetence of Hasmo’s teaching staff in those, my weaker, subjects. Like the advice on how to make a million dollars in Israel – make Aliyah with ten – it is oft said about Hasmonean (correctly in my view) that, if you came with ability, you did well; if not, they would let you rot.

I have received more “When are you going to do Flop?” queries, since my first Hasmo Legends post, than I can recall. I have been rather reticent to write about Lionel Finkelstein (middle row, extreme right [ignoring the little fella], in the staff photograph in Hasmo Legends I), not out of any sense of loyalty to him, but because he is still apparently squawking and spluttering his way through the physics syllabus on Holders Hill Road. I was even contacted by someone senior at today’s Hasmonean, specifically requesting that I let him off the hook for that very reason. And the truth is that I originally agreed . . . though I am no longer quite sure “Whyyyyy”.

No Nobel Prizes in Physics for guessing how Dr Flop earned his nickname. I vividly recall even the (what should be) perfectly straightforward Ticker Tape Timer experiment – for measuring velocity – going horribly and repeatedly wrong. And it was often Hasmo’s poor, meek lab assistants, Mrs. Kadoo, though more usually the hapless Michael (I don’t think he had a surname) – neither of whom were ever heard to utter a word – who would have to shoulder the blame for this incompetence. Indeed the oft-heard bellow, from the physics laboratory, of “Miiii-ccchael” usually bore all the reasonableness of Stalin’s scolding of his mistress, Getya Keksov, for the relative failure of his Second (1933-1937) Five-Year Plan.

Flop, in appearance a kind of Semitic Brian Blessed, was a strange bloke to say the least. His behaviour could vacillate between the genial and the almost cruel (sideburn yanking being his punishment of choice), and his fondness for Bissli snacks (barbecue flavour) usually resulted in more finding their way into his unkempt beard – nestling there for the remainder of the school day – than into his not insubstantial stomach. And those squawking noises – “Urrrggh, Isaacson . . .” – have not been heard outside the Star Wars movies or Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds.

Inadvertent followers of Reb Nachum of Golders

Hasmo’s other physics teacher was the unassuming Nachum Ordman (middle row, seventh from left, in the aforementioned staff photograph), the younger, more reserved sibling of Jack, head of maths. It is a little known fact that the ubiquitous Na Nach mantra and stickers, visible all over Israel, relate to Nachum’s slight stutter rather than – as believed by those loony, pogoing Chassidim – Rabbi Nachman of Breslov. Nachum always seemed the most gentle of men, so it would be a shame to waste any more melchett mike inches on him.

Another oddity of Flop-like proportions was Hasmo’s biology teacher, Steve Posen (middle row, third from left). Apparently, Steve can still be seen belting along Bell Lane (Hendon), destination unknown (even to him), sporting his bright red shirt on Rosh Chodesh. Steve’s behaviour also spanned the full gamut, one minute warm and approachable, the next wielding his favourite slipper as if he had shares in Dunlop. Even his attitude towards the biology lab’s living creatures – and I don’t mean Hasmo boys – could suddenly swing, with no apparent warning, from the gentle to the brutal.

Steve’s straight-man sidekick in Hasmo’s biology department, Liam Joughin (back row, fourth from right), would observe his colleague’s oddball performances with a deadpan expression, never betraying the absolute incredulity he must have experienced on a near daily basis. A man neither loved nor loathed, Joughin was best known for his dry sense of humour and expressions such as “leave it a-lone” (despairing at Hasmo boys’ insistence on fiddling with apparatus before experiments had even begun) and “minkerisation” (Joughin for mincha, the afternoon prayer).

In fact, so remarkably normal, by Hasmo standards, was Joughin – and a good teacher to boot – that one had to wonder what he was doing at the nuthouse, when he could so easily have been enjoying a position amongst “his own” at a decent English grammar school.

At one stage, Joughin shared the role of Deputy Headmaster of Hasmonean with chemistry teacher, David Jacobson (front row, third from left), known to all merely as DJ. My opinion of this man is well known to readers of melchett mike, and I don’t intend to darken my summer mood by expanding on it here (though, again, readers’ comments and stories will be gratefully received).

Whilst Hasmo’s other chemistry teacher, Kevin O’Connor, seemed a genuinely nice bloke, even the Dalai Lama could not have tempted me to spend a second more in DJ’s classroom than I absolutely had to, and I “dropped” the subject as soon as I could.

For five long, unforgiving years, I sat in the maths B group of Simon Lesser (back row, fifth from left). If he had explained his algebra and geometry in some obscure dialect of Urdu, I would have had no less idea of what he was on about. And, for half a decade, my end of year maths results always hovered around 30 to 35 percent.

Less than six months before the O-Level examination, one of my mother’s bridge four, Wendy Lederman, who taught maths at Hasmonean Girls’, offered to “have a go”. I got an A. What that says about Mr. Lesser’s teaching (as well as Mrs. Lederman’s) I leave to you, the reader.

At some point, we stopped being deterred by the lines Lesser would dish out like an overzealous Nigerian traffic warden slapping out parking tickets in Central London,  and – unsentimental teenagers that we were (how sentimental could we be about a man who would make us write “Homework must be done and submitted on time” two hundred times and more?) – started taking advantage of his failing eyesight and hearing. Our class even formed an instrument-less jazz rhythm section, employing mouths, hands, heels and desks to perform improvised compositions, as Lesser – in an attempt to decipher figures – pressed his nose against textbook or whiteboard.

In cricketing terms, Jack Ordman (front row, second from left) was Hasmonean’s Geoffrey Boycott or Graeme Hick: one of the finest maths teachers of his generation, but – like Boycott and Hick, batsmen who didn’t quite fancy it against the very toughest of bowlers – Ordman only took on the ‘challenge’ of the A group. This was the kind of perverse arrangement typical of Hasmonean, allowing Ordman to preserve a very fine, but somewhat misleading, average.

“Uncle” Jack did, however, teach Gemara to our delinquent Yeshiva Stream group after school, displaying that very same caution and/or fear that prevents him from going down as a true great: for the last fifteen minutes of every class – in an attempt to wake us up with some actual interaction before our journeys home – he would conduct a question and answer session on halacha; but, whenever we would pose even the most slightly problematic of questions, he would proclaim “Boys, I am not a rabbi. The school has got a very good one. Ask Rabbi Cooper.”

This seemed to defeat the very purpose of the session . . . though, couldn’t that be said of nearly everything that went on at Hasmonean Grammar School for Boys?!

[REMINDER: In keeping with Hasmo Legends ‘rules’, comments must be truthful, with true identity of commenter provided.]

Next on Hasmo Legends, Part XIII: A Legend (Osher) Strikes Back [followed by The Background]

Moti, you ain’t no Motty!

Slimy, spurious psychics (see June’s Mook of the Month) aside, the hotly-contested title of Most Offensive Israeli, contrary to popular belief, does not go to the swindling taxi driver who besmirches all of his fellow countrymen within an hour of tourists landing at Ben Gurion Airport.

And, though I despise them with a passion, neither does it go to the HOT (cable company) customer disservice representative who cuts off callers – I am convinced deliberately – after keeping them on hold for 45 minutes.

Its recipient is not the arrogant American “settler” who should have done us all a favour and stayed, together with his ugly fanaticism, in Teaneck or Borough Park.

Neither is it the Charedi (ultra-Orthodox Jew) who gives little or nothing to the State but still believes that he has the right to dictate to all of us who do how we should live our lives.

And it does not even go to the Neanderthal beach predator in his Speedos (three sizes too small, naturally).

No, the title of Most Offensive Israeli goes to none of the above. And the toughest challenge of Aliyah is not, as is commonly thought, the lower salary, the stifling hot summers, or even the rudeness . . . it is having to suffer the Israeli TV sports commentator.

During Wimbledon fortnight, which ended yesterday, Sport 5 (Israeli cable TV) commentators appeared to feel compelled to employ every nonsensical cultural stereotype about the English . . . but got even those wrong. So, for instance, when Andy Murray’s fourth round match ended at 10:39 p.m. last Monday, we had to endure interminable silly references to the English spectators having to wait for their dinners of “kidney pie” (for those fortunate enough not to know, it is steak and kidney).

And those same commentators were remarkably incapable of distinguishing between spectators’ Englishness, Murray’s Scottishness, and all of their Britishness (for me, after being knocked out, Murray immediately reverted to “miserable Jock”).

Whilst his knowledge and understanding of his subject may be negligible, however, the Israeli sports commentator – like so many of his compatriots – delivers his ignorance with the conviction of the world-renowned authority.

I once, in a Tel Aviv pub, confronted Sport 5′s Avi Meller (right) – a self-proclaimed expert on English football (on the basis that he once, apparently, spent a couple of years in London) – for never mentioning Leeds United’s David Wetherall, then in his mid-twenties, without the epithet “ha’vatik” (the veteran). Meller said he was grateful to be corrected . . . and then continued as before.

Having grown up in a country steeped in sporting tradition (even if a losing one), I won’t deny that there is more than a little snobbery in my disdain for the local sports coverage. But what right do Israeli commentators have to refer to Liverpool footballer Steven Gerrard, as they continually do, as “Stevie Gee”?!

Not for the Israeli sports commentator the phrase “A picture is worth a thousand words”, nor the sacred rule – applied by the very best TV journalists and commentators the world over – of “Letting the pictures speak for themselves”. No, he prefers to speak (usually bollocks) for the pictures, with the result that many will only watch them with the sound turned down. Moreover, his predictions – which are, generally, ridiculously reactive to the toings and froings of a particular match – are invariably and uncannily wrong.

Israeli TV’s football studio pundits are even more insufferable than its commentators, the ex-pros having to be suffered most being the Arse’s Arse (Hebrew for medallion man) Itzik Zohar and that most arrogant of gobshites Eyal Berkovic.

Zohar (left, during one of his eight [including four as substitute] appearances for Crystal Palace) has not let his “glassing”, last year, on Tel Aviv’s Rothschild Boulevard – which left him requiring 52 stitches to his face – dent his formidable ego (many believe the unknown assailant to have been a vengeful boyfriend or husband).

Neither does Zohar’s ignominious inclusion in Crystal Palace fans’ all-time worst eleven – believe me, he had some competition! – prevent him from pontificating about Champions’ League football. Yes, this is the very same Itzik Zohar to whom Palace fans used to sing: “One Itzik Zohar. There’s only one Itzik Zohar. One Itzik Zohar. One too many.” When Crystal Palace fans sing that – and to one of their own – it is time to consider not only hanging up one’s boots . . . but also why one ever put them on in the first place.

Zohar, however,  is a positive breath of fresh air when sitting alongside Berkovic (right), who delights in publicly, spitefully rubbishing Israeli League players purely on the basis that they are not as good as he once was. Many Israelis’ fondest memory, however, of the career of Berkovic – who, as one of the country’s all-time great footballers, should have been a national treasure – is of the time his West Ham teammate John Hartson kicked him in the face during training. That the actions of the yobbish Welshman were understood by many here tells you everything you need to know about this odious little tosser.

Domestic football appeals, almost exclusively, to the lowest common denominator of Israeli society (see my second ever post on melchett mike: Ran Ben Shimon: A Deeper Malaise). And most of my fellow expat Brits regard it in much the same way that the former Liverpool manager Bill Shankly did his city rivals: “If Everton were playing down the bottom of my garden,” he memorably quipped, “I’d draw the curtains.” Rather more intelligent, professional coverage by the Israeli media, however, might change (if slowly) its public perception.

The glowing exception to the embarrassment that is Israeli television sport is the excellent, charismatic Sport 5 presenter Modi Bar-On (left), who would give even a Des Lynam or an Adrian Chiles a run for their money.

But, oh, what Israel would give for an Alan Hansen or a John Motson (right) . . . though, in these climes, “Motty” might have to do something about that sheepskin coat!

Do I, or don’t I?! (melchett mike’s Marriage Poll)

“We are just waiting for you, Michael” came the excited chorus from my mother’s friends, over lunch in Netanya last week.

Thankfully, the septua- and octogenarians were not expressing some carnal desire of widowhood, but rather their hope that I might finally give my mother some naches (as if being a solicitor isn’t enough) and settle down.

Strange expression that, “settle down”. I am a lawyer, have been in the same position – tragically, at a desk – for over three years, own my own apartment, two dogs, etc . . . and yet, in the eyes of many (especially in traditional Jewish circles), am no better than an unfinished jelly or cake. It is as if, to those people, everything you are and have achieved count for nothing if you’ve only ever said “I don’t.” Which is sad, I think . . . for them. (You also, often, get treated differently; though I will leave that for a separate post).

For many years, people were asking me when I was going to “tie the knot”. It was as if I had been putting off the inevitable, and shouldn’t have. These days, however, the enquiry, when made, is couched more in terms of “taking the plunge”, the rather less optimistic imagery reflecting the perceptible change in the attitude of friends – most in their forties and married for over a decade – towards their spouses and marriages. And, for the first time, I am even being advised not to “take” it.

I do have a handful of friends who seem genuinely content with their domestic lots. Another handful seem genuinely discontent, whilst the majority appear resigned, often reaffirming (to themselves) how much they love their kids. And one, only semi jokingly, refers to his wife as “the Obersturmgruppenführer”. Nice.

Now, none of this is a great advertisement for marriage, especially for someone who didn’t need too much dissuading in the first place, and who – in spite of the occasional frustrations of the single life – has a pretty agreeable, free and independent existence. My avoidance of the institution, up to now, has nothing whatsoever to do with what Woody Allen says about Jewish women – that they “don’t believe in sex after marriage” – but owes rather a lot to my single most vivid fear: that I wake up in the middle of the night, look at my wife sleeping next to me, and think “What the f*ck have I done?!”

There are other alternatives, these days,  to the traditional “nuclear family” – it is far more acceptable to merely live with one’s partner, and I have been approached by several single women in Tel Aviv to father their, or rather our, child.

And, even though the length of time that I will have to pay the price for a poor decision will probably be far less than for my long-married friends, that decision has somehow taken on even more weight . . . seeing as I have already waited this long. I mean, it would be a shame to f*ck things up now!

As well as completing the above poll, it would be interesting to hear the rather more considered thoughts of readers of melchett mike on married – and, indeed, the single – life, in a forum allowing anonymity. As a broad guideline:

• If you are happily married, what do you consider the most important ingredient(s)? Love, attraction, compatibility, similar backgrounds, etc?
• Conversely, if you are unhappily married, what are the main reasons? And what would you do differently, if you are fortunate enough(!), next time?
• And if, like me, you are single, what are your experiences, thoughts and concerns?

At the end of your comment, and in order to render it more meaningful, please provide as much relevant information as you feel comfortable providing: your age, gender, marital status, and (if relevant) how long you have been married. (Most married contributors will probably wish to remain anonymous, and whilst I promise to respect that – anyway, the IP address I receive only enables me to find out what city you live in – try and come up with a name other than “Anon”, to distinguish yourself from other contributors!)

If readers are prepared to be forthright, it could make for an interesting read and dialogue . . .

Islamofascists and the BNP, the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea

Watching the shocking (if it could really be called that) news last week  that – for the first time in its miserable history – the far-right British National Party had won two seats in the European Parliament, I found myself experiencing strangely (and worryingly) ambivalent feelings. 

Having been brought up on a staple Holocaust diet – many of my parents’ friends, and of my childhood friends’ parents, were survivors – I don’t feel that I require a refresher course in the dangers posed by the far-right. 

And, however much he might be trying to re-brand himself, BNP leader Nick Griffin (right) is clearly a vile Nazi low life. He has tastefully referred to the Holocaust as “the Holohoax”, and even criticised fellow Holocaust denier David Irving for . . . wait for it . . . admitting that up to four million Jews might have died: “I am well aware that the orthodox opinion is that six million Jews were gassed and cremated and turned into lampshades. Orthodox opinion also once held that the world is flat.” 

But, as a Jew, a Zionist and an Israeli, and as an Englishman, but most of all as a human being – valuing life and freedom above all else – I am also sickened by, and fearful of, the cancer-like spread of Islamofascism. 

On July 7, 2005 (7/7), four young British Muslims – all but one of whom were also born in the UK – blew themselves up on London Transport, killing 52 innocent civilians and injuring over 700 more. A similar attack, 14 days later, which would have murdered and maimed on an ever larger scale, failed only because the bomb maker couldn’t add up. Since then, only the supreme efforts of Britain’s police and intelligence services have thwarted further atrocities by Islamofascists. 

And, on a daily basis in mosques across Britain, supposed religious leaders are feeding their congregants with hate and inciting them to murder their fellow Britons. (The oft-heard argument that not all British Muslims support such activities is, of course, true . . . but it is also a “red herring”, used to avoid confronting the reality of the significant numbers who do.) 

As far as I can tell, the BNP is the only political group in the UK sufficiently untainted by “political correctness” to be openly taking a stand against this “enemy within”, which seeks to undermine not only the British way of life . . . but the very foundations of the State in which it chooses to live. 

One evening, some years back (before 7/7), I witnessed BNP supporters protesting outside a central London mosque where a “hate preacher” – Abu “the Hook Man” Hamza (right), Abu Qatada, Omar Bakri Muhammad, Abu Izzadeen, or one of their repulsive, poisonous ilk – had been praising the perpetrators of 9/11. The BNP was the only presence there. 

In such circumstances (and however worrying), is the BNP’s growing appeal in the hearts and minds of the British public – as demonstrated by last week’s election results – truly that “shocking”? 

Committed anti-fascists aside, the “rent a mob” which pelted Griffin with eggs outside Westminster on the day following the results consisted of the same wrong-minded muppets who demonstrated against Israel during its war of self-defence, earlier this year, following eight years of Hamas missiles. 

And even that supposed bastion of Britishness, the BBC Wind-Up Service – which, due to some personal inadequacy, I still listen to on my drive to and from work – pursues the most shamelessly sycophantic Muslim-friendly agenda: hardly a day goes by without some fascinating documentary/panel discussion on Qatari lesbian poets, or suicide bombers who love only Allah more than their hamsters. Producers seem to be anticipating the imminent implementation of Sharia law at Bush House, and putting themselves in a position to say “But I was okay!” 

The Union Jihad . . . of the Islamic Republic of Great Britain?

Britons need to wake up, retract their tongues from Muslim holey places, and – if they can overcome the vile stench of hate – smell the arabica . . . before it is too late. 

Make no mistake, the BNP – the successor to the National Front of the seventies and eighties – might have swapped their skinheads for suits, but they are the same fascist scum. And one can only imagine the horrors that they would perpetrate, given half the chance, on all those whom they does not consider truly “British”. 

The danger posed by the BNP, however, is primarily hypothetical. And I reject accusations of complacency in this regard – the British will never be Germans. 

The threat posed by Islamofascists, on the other hand, is real and terrifying. Another calamity for the Jews, or for any other “infidels” for that matter, will be perpetrated by a bin Laden or an Ahmadinejad . . . not an inbred nothing like Griffin. 

I fear for Britain’s future no less than I fear for Israel’s. Whilst the threats here are rather more existential in nature, Britain, and especially England, will – in twenty or thirty years’ time – be entirely unrecognisable from the “green and pleasant land” where I grew up. 

The British, to my (biased) mind, represent the very the best of Europe – although, it has to be said, the competition is not great – and I genuinely despair for them and their proud constitutional democracy. 

So, I don’t blame any Britons who voted BNP in last week’s election. Indeed, it says much for British temperance and rectitude that – with the creeping Islamisation of their land, and the moral bankruptcy exposed in their politicians by the recent MPs’ expenses scandal – they didn’t give the BNP more mandates.

Vot do you mean “gay” . . . like “happy”?

Tel Aviv’s eleventh annual Gay Pride Parade took place this afternoon.

Whilst I have nothing against gays – some of my best friends are homosexual . . . well, not really, but I do have gay friends – what exactly do they have to be so damn “proud” about? That they broke the hearts of their poor Yiddishe mamas (only partially repaired by subsequent qualification as a doctor or accountant)? That they are attracted to their own sex? After all, surely my desire to nail most members of the opposite sex in Tel Aviv should not constitute a source of “pride”?

In fact, a Straight Pride Parade would be more appropriate as, in the central area of Tel Aviv where I live, we heterosexuals – yes, mother, I am (she gets a lot of questions “already”) – if not (yet) in the minority, often feel like we are . . . being rather more “in the closet” than our “out there” gay neighbours.

I should, of course, be grateful to every gay man, for freeing up another potential woman . . . or, to quote Blackadder II, for “leav[ing] more rampant totty for us real men” (even though, recently, it hasn’t seemed quite that simple).

I bumped into a gay friend, Ido, on Rothschild Boulevard yesterday evening, whilst we were walking our dogs. His standard greeting or, rather, announcement – “The handsome Englishman!” – always rather embarrasses me. So, too, do his habits of sharing with me which passer-by he would like to f*ck – seemingly every one – and of tapping my stomach with the back of his hand whilst enquiring whether I have yet switched sides.

“Ido,” I keep reminding him, “I don’t.”

In spite of my insistence, Ido always remains strangely optimistic that I will.

I do assure him, however, that, should the unexpected occur, he will be the first to know . . . or, at least, well before my mother.

The only straight ex-Hasmo in the village: (from left) Jonny Rose, me & Mark Goldman (Tel Aviv, 15.4.11)

Yosef and the Amazing Secondhand Bookstore

There is only one person in Tel Aviv of whom I am truly envious. His name is Yosef. And he has the dream job.

Somewhat surprisingly, seeing as I have lived just ten minutes’ walk away since 1999, I only came across Yosef last month. I have walked passed 87 Allenby Street countless times over the years, but was probably usually daydreaming about some bint or other.

That particular May evening, however, my recent disillusionment with the unfairer sex allowed me to focus on Allenby’s esoteric variety of shops. And, passing a glass presentation case containing a selection of English language books, I decided to follow the inauspicious looking alleyway to its inauspicious seeming end.

The 49-year old sitting behind the counter didn’t appear particularly pleased to see me (if he saw me at all). Like the record store owner in High Fidelity, Yosef Halper, the owner of Halper’s Books, wears the world-weary look perfectly befitting the owner of a secondhand bookstore.

During that first visit, I overheard an American customer inform Yosef that he could buy a particular book “for less on the Internet.”

“If you don’t mind me asking,” replied Yosef, with more than a hint of cynicism, “what is stopping you?!”

At that moment, I realised that Yosef and I would be friends.

Originating from Springfield, New Jersey, Yosef (previously James) made Aliyah in 1983, for reasons of “Zionism and the chicks”. Following his army service, he founded a Hebrew superhero comic, which didn’t have a superhero ending; but, after stumbling across Jerusalem’s Sefer ve’Sefel new and used bookstore, in 1990, suddenly understood what he really wanted to do. “I always liked wasting time in bookstores.”

Yosef, newly married, returned to the US for nine months to gather his thoughts, some cash . . . and some used books to ship back. He opened Halper’s in 1991, just before the outbreak of the first Gulf War, and 18 years later it is still there (no mean feat in Israel). Halper’s replaced a typewriter repair store, which – in typically upbeat fashion – Yosef describes as “another dying industry . . . just like books.”

Halper’s is situated between Mazeh and Montefiore Streets (a few hundred yards from Tel Aviv’s Great Synagogue), an area which has undergone significant gentrification since 1991; and, while some of the “whores and used needles” remain, reflects Yosef, the “burlesque house” opposite – with its “stripteases and porno movies” – is long gone. I get the strong sense that Yosef wishes it had stayed . . . instead of the inevitable higher rents which have followed Allenby’s cleaning-up.

Halper’s is an English language oasis in a largely Hebrew and Russian speaking desert. Of its approximately fifty thousand titles, about two-thirds are in English, making it – Yosef believes – the largest English language bookstore (new or used) in Israel. And customers can take advantage of a forty percent rebate on returned books.

The wealth of sections in Halper’s would put many used bookstores in English-speaking countries to shame – in particular, I couldn’t help but notice its extremely impressive philosophy section, with hundreds of titles for me not to choose from (I haven’t picked up a philosophy book since completing my first degree, but still like to impress [myself] with my familiarity with philosophers and their inconsequential meanderings).

I decide to test Halper’s fiction section by seeing if it has anything by my childhood next-door neighbour (in Edgeworth Crescent, Hendon), Clive Sinclair. To my astonishment, I find four titles, and snap them all up. I have also cleared Yosef’s shelves of Clive James, and am in the middle of Antony Beevor’s gripping account of (the Battle of) Stalingrad.

In addition to English-speaking Olim (immigrants), Israeli and Russian intellectuals and academics feature prominently among Halper’s customers, as do foreign workers – the many Filipino care workers in Tel Aviv, Yosef tells me, are particularly keen on romance novels – and embassy officials. Perhaps its most surprising patrons, however, are Tel Aviv’s Haredim (ultra-Orthodox), who request that Yosef conceal their purchases in black plastic bags.

Yosef with customer, a visiting philosophy professor from Boston University

In the same way that watching professional football (“soccer” to Yosef) can never match the authentic experience of Hendon FC on a miserable Tuesday evening, there is something refreshingly “real” about secondhand – as opposed to new – bookstores. And, in the several hours I have now spent in Halper’s, I have already come across many weird and wonderful characters, not least the fifty-something Israeli with the implausibly tight shirt who rolls in with a trolley-full of books scavenged from Tel Aviv’s refuse – a daily occurrence, Yosef says – and who also attempts, unsuccessfully, to flog Yosef an original photograph of Golda Meir.

Yosef’s sideline is dealing in such memorabilia, much of it pre-State. His biggest sale was of a typed reply by Albert Einstein to a request from an emissary of Lechi (the “Stern Gang”) – dispatched to the US specifically for the purpose – for financial support. The gist of Einstein’s refusal was that “If tragedy should befall the Jews in Palestine, it will be because of the British, but also because of people like you and the organization you represent.” Yosef regrets the sale of this “extremely significant letter”, to Sotheby’s, because it was “lost in the middle of a rare book auction”.

Yosef also found, in a newly acquired secondhand book, a handwritten “thank you” note from Sigmund Freud, which he returned – following a hysterical phone call from the book’s previous owner – “after sleeping on it and debating with my conscience”.

His biggest book sale – to a collector in California – was of a second edition of Anne Frank’s diary in its original Dutch, though undoubtedly his most original and prestigious was to Buckingham Palace. When the Internet order came through – for a biography of King Christian IX of Denmark (for the Palace library) – Yosef “thought someone was pulling [his] leg”, but a phone call confirmed its authenticity. And Yosef packed a few Halper’s fridge magnets for Queenie, for good measure.

Internet trade has, however, according to Yosef, become the victim of its own success – the Web has made it far simpler to locate books these days, with the consequence that many titles which might previously have been considered “rare” are no longer.

Of course, in running a retail business in Israel – especially a secondhand one – Yosef has to put up with untold shtiklach (Yiddish for “idiosyncrasies”). “Some customers are unwilling to pay for books which they realise have been found. And when a book, in good condition, is marked at forty shekels, I get people arguing that they ‘can get it new at Steimatzky’s for sixty.’ And then there are those who say ‘Look, this book is marked a dollar fifty!’ What they forget to mention is that it is rare, out of print, and was marked that in 1950!”

Halper’s obtains a large part of its stock from estates of the deceased, including from, in the past, those of Moshe Dayan and murdered Knesset member Rechavam Ze’evi. And it acquired much of former President Chaim Herzog’s library, too, from an alte zachen (“old things”) cart that happened to roll past 87 Allenby.

On another occasion, Yosef was called to clear the impressive library of a bankrupted lawyer, whose name he wasn’t told. An inspection of the books revealed that many had been purchased from Halper’s. The lawyer visited the store shortly afterwards, seeing his former collection on Yosef’s shelves. But neither uttered a word about it.

Amongst Halper’s more famous clientele are artist Menashe Kadishman, musician Kobi Oz, and political commentator Aluf Benn. Amongst its more infamous is ex-President Moshe Katzav – about to stand trial for rape – a collector of Judaica (especially Passover Haggadot) . . . though, as Yosef remarks drily, “I guess he has other worries right now”. Like Katzav’s relationship with his former office, that with Halper’s also ended in acrimony, when Yosef – not unreasonably – eventually sold books put aside by Katzav, but which he did not collect. “He was a nice guy,” recalls Yosef, “if a little brusque.”

Halper’s, Yosef observes, is “a pleasant way to make a very modest income.” If he ever tries a desk job, he will understand my envy. (And, with the publication of this post, I can surely now safely own up that Stuey is the one responsible for the chewed spines on his lower shelves!)

Above all else, what amazes me most about Halper’s – if you will excuse my Zionist idealism – is the wealth of English language culture and learning that it reveals in this tiny, miraculous Middle Eastern country . . . though we are, I suppose, the “People of the Book”.

halpbook@netvision.net.il, (03) 629 9710.

Hasmo Legends XI: “Big Al(an)” Walters

A simple exercise: Google “alan walters teacher”.

If you were at Hasmonean Boys’ in the early to mid eighties, you will be, at once, amused and disconcerted by the contents of the very first Result:

“Alan Walters was an inspiring teacher . . . He was especially interested in applying theoretical ideas to practical problems.”

“I first met Alan at LSE . . . I was delighted by his clear, amusing and succinct exposition . . . straight to the jugular of the argument, no pomposity, absolute clarity . . . His style of bureaucracy was an education; memos of crystal clarity and brevity.”

Amused, because the history/politics teacher Alan Walters known to us Hasmo boys was rarely “clear”, never “succinct” – his painful dictation methods representing the very antithesis of “brevity” – and “inspir[ed]” only hilarity. Moreover, the word “education” was never one associated with him.

Disconcerted, because Walters’ idea of solving “practical problems” was to punch out a glass window with his bare fist, to yank the wires out of a plug and reconnect them directly to the mains, and to lower a sash window onto a first former, leaving the hapless wretch trapped helplessly underneath.

Moreover, had Walters – perish the thought – been allowed to “apply” his “theoretical ideas” to Hasmonean, the school would have been run on strict Marxist principles, with DJ and Jerry Gerber having to take their turns at picking Israeli Bazooka Joes out of the urinals (every cloud has a silver lining).

Alan Walters was, however, unfailingly “amusing”.

When the second of the excerpts, above, continued that “It was no wonder Margaret Thatcher relied so greatly on him for economic issues”, it dawned on us that we had the wrong Alan Walters – Sir Alan (right), Chief Economic Adviser to the Iron Lady . . . as opposed to “Big Al”, whose sympathies lay rather closer to the Iron Curtain, and who would have had considerably more time for Mrs. B than Mrs. T.

The reign of ‘our’ Alan Walters, Hasmonean’s clown prince, was, alas, a short one. He joined the institution around 1982, probably still in his twenties, and hung around (we use the expression advisedly) until about 1987.

Big Al was an unabashed Marxist (not to say communist), sporting the Red Star on his jacket lapel. And one reader of melchett mike relates how, on the death of Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, in 1982, he got his entire class (of thirty boys) to stand and observe two minutes’ silence. 

Communism with a human face: Leonid Brezhnev (centre) 'standing' and observing

Nonetheless, in spite of his political leanings, it would be utterly misleading to label Walters’ spell at Hasmonean a Five-Year Plan. Quite the contrary . . . there was no plan.

Indeed, alongside the erraticism of Big Al, the behaviour of Hasmo’s other great eccentrics – even of Cyril – often appeared utterly predictable. The only genuine competition it faced was from the madcap capers of the legendary Stamford Hill maverick, “King Joe” Paley.

Another commenter to melchett mike, who had the misfortune to miss out on being taught by Walters, relates his only experience of the Legend, when he was covering a “free period” (in another teacher’s absence). Big Al immediately walked to the front of the classroom, and drew his silhouette around himself on the whiteboard. He then grabbed a ruler, and walked from desk to desk, flipping each and every pupil’s books onto the floor. The pièce de résistance came with his head-butting of the lockers at the rear of the classroom, before he finally returned to his seat and buried himself in a book – reputedly My Fear of the Ice Pick, by Leon Trotsky – until the end of the period.

Wild eyes, staring out from beneath a forest of black hair – which looked like it hadn’t been trimmed since his bar mitzvah, when “Granny” Walters had a go at it with her garden shears – Big Al had much of the dishevelled, angular awkwardness (if rather less of the talent) of Pulp frontman Jarvis Cocker (left).

In the rare weeks that he shaved – “Walters’ Weekly” – one imagines him having used a rusty razor, salvaged from some wartime dacha of Joseph Stalin, and picked up at a Brent Council bazaar raising funds for the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

Then there was the voice. Eighties Hasmo boys will undoubtedly recall the opening wail of Holly Johnson in Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s Two Tribes: “Ow Oww Owww . . .” Take it half an octave higher, and you are only just approaching the distressed, feline-mating pitch at which Big Al commenced his ‘lessons’. And the outlandish tone progressed only upwards from there.

Other characteristics of this Legend were over-salivation on talking, curious curved-arm gesturing (towards the board, for a boy to exit the classroom, etc), heroic attempts at authentic Russian pronunciation (greeted by inevitable hoots of derision), and orders to be quiet which came out as “Shullup!” And perched atop this unsteady, towering clown of a man was the tiniest of bright blue woven kippot, paying the most perfunctory homage to the Roberg regime.

This combination of lankiness and lunacy earned Walters perhaps the most apt nickname of all: Basil Fawlty.

One can only begin to imagine Rabbi Roberg’s inevitably regular damage limitation exercises, defending – in the face of irate parents – Big Al’s continuing presence on Hasmonean’s staff (it will be blatantly obvious to even the most casual reader of melchett mike that the school never sacked anyone). The rather sheepish (except with a slipper in hand) Rabbi will no doubt have employed terms such as “unconventional”, “a trifle impetuous”, and “artistic temperament”, to avoid doing what headmasters at most normal schools sometimes have to.

The wrath of these parents was incurred by startling lapses of judgment – if Big Al had any to begin with – such as, on one occasion, locking the best part of the third year in the gym changing rooms for half an hour. Unventilated and foul-smelling at the best of times, on a sweltering summer’s day it almost induced a riot. Rather unsurprisingly, King Joe was also assisting Chich at the time, forming perhaps the most irresponsible alliance since Adolf said to Benito and the Emperor: “Now, let’s see what we can do with a map of the world.”

Another reader of melchett mike has opined, perceptively in our view, that “Walters was the kind of teacher who, if you didn’t muck him up, would muck himself up.” He cites as evidence the history class which Big Al commenced with the announcement that he was setting a test, and would be distributing sheets of paper on which pupils should write their answers. He proceeded to tear a single sheet of A4 from his pad, rip it into thirty scraps, and place each one, no larger than a conservatively-sized postage stamp, on a desk.

As he began dictating detailed, essay-style questions, Walters was interrupted by shrill voices of protest. All such dissent was immediately silenced, Soviet-style, by swift ejection from the classroom. And, to Big Al’s warped way of thinking, these boys had disrupted his lesson.

For a man of his relatively tender years, Walters’ dictating methods were mind-numbingly “old school”. And their cruelty was exacerbated by his punishing any interruption, however small, by returning all the way to the beginning.

Big Al’s end of term reports could be startlingly forthright:

“Mr. & Mrs. Offenbach, your son Jacob requires psychiatric help. Please arrange.”

His remarks – “Intelligent, conscientious and competent” – in Dan Gins’ Form 3F report (dated July 1984) had been written over correction fluid. Never having believed, in the intervening quarter of a century, that this was Big Al’s true opinion, your co-author, for the purposes of this post, undertook a painstaking, Cyril-like “scraper” job. This revealed the somewhat conflicting: “Intelligent, but immature and irresponsible”. Walters’ whim, like that of his dictatorial role models, could well have had unbeknown life-changing consequences for so many.

More than one Hasmo Legend was defined, in some way or another, by his automobile:

• Cyril’s pale blue Ford Fiesta, with its TLC (“Tea, Elsssie?”) number plate;
• Dr Flop’s cavernous Peugeot estate, replete with HUR (“Hurrgggh!!”) plate;
• Chich’s Morris Marina, its purple hues dovetailing exquisitely with the Cypriot’s tasteful nylon Speech Day suit; and
• DJ’s rust heap of a Morris Minor, its dome-like roof nicely matching the scalp of its driver (Dan’s peirush)/the tit seated inside (melchett mike’s).

Big Al seemed to get through myriad old bangers during his time at Hasmonean, but one in particular, a bright red Citroën 2CV, will be forever etched in our memories. How expectantly we gazed, as the “deux chevaux” bounded and creaked over the potholes of the front playground, just waiting for all four wheels to drop off simultaneously, for a jet of water to shoot up from the bonnet, flowers to sprout through the roof, and for Big Al to be ejected by his seat springs, accompanied by a rude raspberry sound.

If one excludes (as one must) the stopgap efforts of Jonny Bokor and Mitch Taylor, the only other history/politics teacher at Hasmonean at the time was the thoroughly decent but (equally thoroughly) soporific Clive Johnson (seated furthest right in the staff photograph in Hasmo Legends I). So, for us boys, Alan Walters was also a breath of fresh (if somewhat intoxicating) air.

Another commenter to melchett mike has expressed the view that Walters was amongst the teachers at Hasmo who was not “either/both incompetent or nuts when [he] joined the school. As far as I recall he was a Cambridge graduate, and a PhD too I think, and at first took his job and disciplining seriously.”

This is a fascinating line of speculation: did Alan Walters perchance join Hasmonean’s teaching staff an earnest and talented young historian, keen to make his mark on academia, but – like Jack Torrance (left)  in Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining – become inebriated by the sheer madness of the place?

Or is the explanation rather less sinister: that this boy trapped inside a man’s body joined Hasmo with the best of intentions, but – on realising that he couldn’t beat us – decided to join us instead? (Answers, please, on a postcard . . . or should that be postage stamp?!)

"Bring me Big Al!"

We can only speculate as to how this once promising young Oxbridge graduate went from punting on the Cam to clowning in Holders Hill Road, and, indeed, as to his whereabouts today.

Following the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe, in the late eighties, could ‘our’ Alan Walters have followed the Red Star out to China? Or even perhaps to North Korea?!

Yes, that’s it! It is Big Al’s unsteadying influence in the corridors of power in Pyongyang that explains the current provocations of Kim Jong-il (above) . . .

Ohhh, SHULLUP!!

A Dan Gins/melchett mike production.

[For any ex-Hasmos wishing to contribute a post to melchett mike – on Legends, themes or eras as yet uncovered – please comment here (I will be sent your email address off-blog). Minimum requirement: B grade in English Language O Level!]

Next on Hasmo Legends, Part XII: Flops, Greater and Lesser

The Buyer’s a Freier: Shopping, Israel-Style

Most people will be familiar with the doctrine “Let the buyer beware” (or, for those who didn’t attend a crap school, Caveat emptor). Retailers in Israel, however, have significantly extended the scope of the doctrine and renamed it “The buyer is a freier” (Yiddish-derived Hebrew for “sucker”).

I am destined never to get fit. After getting into working out for the first time in my life, my local gym, on Sheinkin Street, recently closed following a serious fire. Apparently, a female member (who said “of course”?!) – whose time might have been better spent on mental exercises – left her towel on the sauna heater.

Now, knowing Israel and its natives as I do, approximately a week after the conflagration – and with no sign of the gym reopening – I decided, to be on the safe side, to cancel the direct debit (after notifying the gym). And, sure enough, it continued collecting payments from those who hadn’t.

The gym reopened last week, when I phoned to renew my membership. “Naturally,” I informed the irritatingly camp manager Gidi, “I expect to be credited with the one month I had frozen” (earlier in the year, whilst I was abroad).

“Of course not,” he squeaked, “you cancelled the contract.”

I started explaining the contractual principles of consideration and frustration to him – that, following the fire, I was receiving absolutely zilch for my payments, and that the contract had now become impossible to perform.

When, however, the squeaking started up again – and sensing the onset of a rage which might have been wrongly perceived as homo-, rather than “no one can really be this camp-”, phobic – I requested the details of the gym owner.

Eddie was an altogether more serious proposition. And, sitting opposite him in his office, I tried a less legalistic tack, testing whether an Israeli could comprehend the principle that “The customer is always right.” What works in Brent Cross, however, will not necessarily on Sheinkin. And Eddie merely added insult to injury by stating that I would also have to pay a fresh joining fee.

It is as if the whole Israeli retail industry is run on the principles of the shuk (market). It is quite common in these parts, even in large chain stores, to haggle over prices. And, on Thursday, my kiosk friend Avi described the bewilderment of a Fifth Avenue (New York) shop assistant, who – after Avi had purchased a pair of shoes – could not comprehend why he was demanding a gratis pair of socks and/or shoe polish.

The Israeli attitude towards customers has caused me to “lose it” on several occasions since my Aliyah (and I relate such not out of pride, but in the interests of authenticity) . . .

I lost my Israeli consumer ‘virginity’ towards the end of the 1990s on a well-deserving Dizengoff Street kiosk owner, who refused to believe – me . . . an Englishman! – that The Jerusalem Post I had purchased from him merely an hour earlier had its TV guide section missing.

His temerity so incensed me that I picked up another copy and ran for it. He gave chase, but I ended up losing him in the garden of some side street (for many months following, however, I had to take detours to avoid passing him).

Then, last year, in two separate incidents on King George Street – and provoked by unbelievable rudeness – I called a hardware store owner a “Polani” (Pole), and hurled a frozen yogurt back at the woman who had only just served it to me.

You are probably thinking that I need to attend anger management classes. And perhaps I do. But when you have to deal with such attitudes on a daily basis, the odd outburst is inevitable for all but the most placid of souls (and I have never been described as that).

I leave my favourite Israeli shopping story, however, till last. Walking out of a shop on Jerusalem’s Ben Yehuda Street, and inspecting the roll of fax paper that he had just purchased, my cousin Marc realised that it was the wrong size.

Making an immediate about-turn, and politely requesting that the shop owner exchange it for the correct one, he was greeted with the now legendary reply, “Where do you think you are . . . in America?!”

One thing is for sure – the term “retail therapy” does not have its origins in Israel.