I’m currently watching season two of Hatufim, the Israeli drama which inspired the US series Homeland. Judging by the early episodes, season two is a whole lot better than the first. It gripped me from the off.

When we discussed season one last year, there were very mixed feelings. If you’ve seen season two, I’d love to hear what you think of it, ideally without spoilers.

Follow me on Twitter. Sponsor me to run the Windsor Half Marathon for Colel Chabad.

The BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions) movement was launched out of the blue in 2005 and is a progressive affair, primarily focused on encouraging Israel to leave the disputed territories it took in 1967.

Right?

Well, the only problem with this story that the BDS circulates is that it airbrushes the inconvenient truth that boycotts were launched long before 1967, and even before the state of Israel came into being in 1948.

In 1891, local Arabs asked Palestine’s Ottoman rulers to block Jewish land sales and immigration.

In 1922, the Fifth Palestine Arab Congress called for the boycott of all Jewish businesses.

In 1943, and we’re still pre-Israel here, the 22-nation Arab League banned the purchase of “products of Jewish industry in Palestine”.

For the facts in this post I am indebted to the brilliant Start-Up Nation, by Dan Senor and Saul Singer. I’m sure a lot of you will have read this book about Israeli enterprise. If not, I do recommend it. Read about how Israel has produced more start-up companies than Japan, India, Korea, Canada and the UK. How it has more companies on the NASDAQ than Korea, Japan, Singapore, India and all of Europe combined.

The book is rammed with such facts. It would make for demoralising reading for the BDS movement.

Follow me on Twitter. Sponsor me to run the Windsor Half Marathon for Colel Chabad.

An 83-year-old Holocaust survivor has told the Israeli parliament that its treatment of her and her fellow survivors is “a crime and disgrace”.

In an impassioned speech, Dora Roth told the Knesset’s Health and Welfare Committee: “Seeing a Holocaust survivor who can’t afford to heat his home in the winter and can’t afford to buy food or medicine is your disgrace.”

You can see her speech in full here:

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has now met personally with Dora to discuss the issue.

PS: Israel’s oldest charity, Colel Chabad, operates free soup kitchens for elderly Holocaust survivors who come as much for a warm smile and simple human contact as they do for the food itself. I’m running the Windsor Half Marathon to raise funds for Colel Chabad. Find out more here.

Although I’m an Arsenal fan I am sad that Sir Alex Ferguson is to retire as manager of Manchester United. His achievements at Old Trafford speak for themselves: 38 trophies including 13 league titles, two Champions League trophies, five FA Cups and four League Cups.

This is a big call, but in my opinion Sir Alex is the greatest football manager of all time. 

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This year, I’m running the Windsor Half Marathon to raise funds for Israel’s oldest charity, Colel Chabad.

Colel Chabad operates free soup kitchens across Israel, serving up more than one million meals each year. Many of the diners are elderly Holocaust survivors who come as much for a warm smile and simple human contact as they do for the food itself.

The charity has an entire division dedicated to helping widows and their children. It has a holistic approach, taking into account the material and emotional needs of hundreds of orphaned families.

It sponsors medical treatment for the poor, provides daycare centres, arranges wedding ceremonies for those couples who cannot afford them and undertakes many other vital social-welfare projects.

Colel Chabad helps poor Israelis regardless of their age, gender or religious background, in a loving manner that upholds and enhances their dignity.

I’d love you to sponsor me. You can do so here.

(Below is a photo of me doing ‘the Bolt’ at the end of last year’s Windsor Half Marathon.)

I’m quite busy with work at the moment, so rather than post articles this week, I’m going to post photos from my various trips to Israel.

I’ll add a new photo to this post each day. I hope you enjoy them – and I’d love you to add (in the comment section) your own photos and experiences of the various sites I’ll feature!

We were invited to an art gallery in Tel Aviv. What I saw there moved me deeply and provoked many urgent thoughts in my mind, including: what the hell am I doing in this place? If I do my hand on hips pose will that make me look less bored? I want to be sitting by the beach with an iced coffee from Aroma. (I soon would be!)

You can’t beat a flying visit to Israel. It was February 2010. Monday lunchtime I was in cold and snowy Britain. On Tuesday morning I was standing at the Kotel (Western Wall) with my best Israeli friend, Tal. It was t-shirt weather. Ish.

On our final day in Israel in 2010, we each planted a tree in the forest outside Jerusalem as part of a small ceremony organised by the Jewish National Fund. I was asked to give a speech, so I spoke about the original Zionist pioneers and how they can inspire us all. (There is a video of our final day here, including the tree planting.)

This was when we visited the Israeli Knesset (parliament). I arrived thrilled to be walking in the footsteps of Menachem Begin and so many other legends. A few MKs came and spoke to us, including Ze’ev Bielski, who is in the picture. I asked him when Israel was going to start treating the Gush Katif evacuees properly. I was worried I had been a bit haranguing, but I think my definition of haranguing roughly corresponds with politeness in Israel.

This was taken at Abu Gosh, the Arab Israeli town outside Jerusalem. A lovely place. It’s known as the Hummus Capital of Israel. Having heard so much hype about that over the years I was a tad disappointed with the hummus I ate there – but the Turkish coffee was magnificent. I blame the caffeine for the hands-on-hips posture I’m attempting to rock in this photo. Oh dear.

Another photo from August 2010 today. This was taken at Jerusalem’s lively Mahane Yehuda Market. It was a Friday and we’d joined the volunteers who help elderly/infirm customers carry their shopping bags to their bus stop, car, or home. This was an amazing experience and we were absolutely showered with blessings. The young lady to my left is called Michal. She is a regular volunteer. We had a wonderful chat, it was inspiring and humbling to hear about her experiences volunteering.

My second photo this week was taken at Qumran in 2007. It was my birthday, and we were on our way to Jerusalem for the first time. Oh, younger me. If you knew what joys awaited you your grin would be even wider. (I’m the one in the t-shirt, by the way.)

Where else to start but the Temple Mount? I am second from the right in this photo. If you think I look a bit grumpy you’re right – I explained why in this post. This was taken in August 2010. Do swing by again tomorrow for another photo.

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I’ve just finished reading Avi Shilon’s new biography of my favourite Israeli leader of all, Menachem Begin. I was a little surprised when it was marketed as the first biography of Begin, as Ned Temko published a fine one in 1987. (Indeed, Temko’s book is even namechecked in Shilon’s Bibliography.)

However, Shilon’s book digs deeper, and unveils Begin the man as much as Begin the warrior and politician. I love how Shilon documents his fine sense of humour, as well as other quirky details including that he and his wife used to love watching the US drama series Dallas. He also shows how Begin’s tendency for melodrama, which served him so well as a political orator, was damaging in his personal life.

Political biographies are a tricky blend to get right. Some are too light and superficial, many more are pretentiously detailed to the point of exasperating impenetrability. Shilon gets the balance just right, giving us a book that is richly detailed and yet always approachable and friendly.

We don’t just get a brilliantly-told story of one of perhaps the most remarkable Israeli leader of all time, who moved from stiff-necked warrior to Nobel peace prize recipient. In the background, we also get a sweeping narrative of the Jewish people from the pogroms of Europe to the Lebanon war of 1982.

Indeed, Shilon positions Begin as the most Jewish of Israeli leaders. Although he never ducks from documenting Begin’s flaws, he ultimately presents a fine man and a loving leader. Begin was a humble man and a loyal husband. Such qualities were rare enough among the politicians of his era, nowadays they are rarer still. If only there were more of his calibre in politics now.

Concluding the chapter covering Begin’s successful election as prime minister of Israel, Shilon writes, ‘When the TV cameras turned to Jerusalem to document the celebrations in Likud’s main branch, the viewers saw a Hasidic band and an elderly white-bearded Jew blowing the Shofar. For an outside observer, it seemed as though the Messiah had arrived.’

Lovely stuff. What a life, what a book.

Three of my friends are running today’s London Marathon. Josh Gershuny is raising funds for Magen David Adom, Damian Schogger is running for World Jewish Relief, and Charles Braunstein is fundraising for Emunah. 

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Over the course of the week I do a lot of walking and a lot of running. I typically walk at least 40 miles and run anywhere between 10 and 25 miles, depending on the time of year. 

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