Teenagers who took on the Nazis
Before writing my book about youngsters involved in anti-Nazi resistance during the Second World War, I had a certain notion about the Holocaust. It was that, in order to save Jewish lives, you had to be a gentile. Because if
The Lost and Found Club
For the past two decades the Daily Mail’s weekly Missing and Found column has been reuniting long lost friends, colleagues and family members. Unique in the world of print media, it has often succeeded where the internet giants have failed.
The Perfect Valentine’s Day
Valentine’s Day bills itself as a celebration of romance, but if you are one of the country’s many singletons, there’s no need to feel left out in the cold. Life isn’t always about lovey-dovey togetherness, so if you haven’t got
Time for a change?
Dear readers, have you reached that stage of life when you no longer have dependent children, mortgages and other such responsibilities? Do you relish the extra time and new freedom you have gained, now that you’re no longer wrestling your
A secret Japanese history
Jewish Chronicle, 15 July, 2016 I have just returned from my second trip to Japan (I have family there) and once again, I’ve been amazed by those most impressive of peoples and their glittering, futuristic capital. Tokyo is the city of
Coo de grace
It was the spacious roof terrace overlooking lush, tree-filled gardens which clinched it for me when I was flat-hunting two years ago. I pictured myself sunbathing there on lazy summer days and relaxing with a glass of vino of a
How to be Old School
These days we’re often made to feel that we should move with the times, keep up with current lifestyle trends and ways of thinking, whether we happen to agree with them or not. But what if we like being a
The bunny girl who married the boss
In the appropriately swanky surrounds of an exclusive Knightsbridge hotel bar, Marilyn Cole sips her tea and looks back on her life. At 66 she is still striking, elegant and spirited, and retains the signature long brunette tresses which were
Oy vey! Let’s all speak Yiddish
A Jewish friend once told me that, for a goy, I ‘sure use a lot of Yiddish’. ‘Well yes,’ I replied. ‘There’s a good reason for that, bubala.’ And I explained why, although I’d been born and raised a Christian (up
Gripes and Grumbles
I hadn’t been in one of those cramped second-hand bookshops on London’s Charing Cross Road for ages. Like most people nowadays, I tend to buy my books online. But one afternoon recently I had time to kill, so I decided
Borderlife
The one fear that haunts Jews more than anything else –even more than the prospect of endless intifadas or of Iran building a nuclear bomb – is of disappearing as a race, a culture and a religion, through the gradual,
Why do Leftie luvvies believe they have a right to lecture us on Syria?
It’s a tense moment in the country. Should we bomb Isis in Syria? Our Prime Minister – who is in possession of more hard facts about the situation than just about anyone else in the country – is in favour.
How to tell if you’re young at heart
We all grow old but some of us are forever young at heart. That is a fine quality, and not something you can easily fake. There are certain tell-tale signs that you are indeed youthful in spirit, if slightly old
Refugees at the gates
Daily Express, 8 October 2015 Little over a month ago Budapest’s Keleti Railway Station was the site of a major flashpoint in Europe’s ongoing migrant debacle. Barred from boarding trains to the much-vaunted nirvana of Angela Merkel’s Germany - because they
Can my dream survive?
Jewish Chronicle, 11 September 2015 How long does it take for a dream to die? Five years? Ten? Fifteen? Well, I have had a certain dream for twenty-five years now, and you know what? After a long quarter-century of disappointments, I
Hungary for success
Jewish Chronicle, 17 July 2015 Four decades ago I read a snippet in a British newspaper which so impressed me that I cut it out and pasted it into my cherished notebook of thought-provoking quotes. It came from a Professor Andre
Online dating – how to click
Saga Magazine, January 2015 More and more of us over-fifties are finding ourselves single nowadays, following divorce, separation or bereavement. It happened to me. When my long-term relationship broke down two years ago I was just shy of my sixtieth birthday
Growing Pains
The London Magazine, December 2014/January 2015 It is a question I have, from time to time, asked myself. If I had had the sort of easy-going upbringing enjoyed by my contemporaries in the America of the Sixties, would I ever have
Loneliest place on earth
Jewish Chronicle, 28 November 2014 This year has been Holocaust Memorial Year in Hungary, the land of my birth. Seventy years ago, in 1944, the Nazis marched in to accomplish what the Hungarian government had signally failed to do: deport to
Book review – Unchosen
Jewish Chronicle, 17 October 2014 Julie Burchill must be the only journalist in this country who is even more vehemently pro-Israel and anti the enemies of Israel than me. In Unchosen she recounts her lifelong, passionate philo-Semitism, and reading this VOLUBLE