Jeremy's Life In Israel Continues: March 2005

german FM joschka fischer prepares for a meeting with israeli vice premier shimon peres on the balcony at the king david hotel

pics of yad vashem dimplomacy

this is diplomacy in action. leaders from germany, spain, greece and america were just 4 of the 35 - 40 leaders from all round the world who descended on jerusalem last week. it was crazy. they all brought official delgations and then loads of journalists from every conceivable country followed them

enjoy the pics!

fischer and peres

german FM meets peres

shimon peres, 81, being interviewed in spanish!

peres and morantinos

spanish foreign minister morantinos (centre) before his meeting with peres

one of the craziest women ive ever interviwed - the greek education minister marietta giannakou. she had just told me shes not sure that theres any antisemitism in europe

new york mayor michael bloomberg and entourage at a press conference last week. to the right is survivor esther jungreis and behind u can se the head of elie wiesel. behind jungreis is ius ambassador dan kurtzer.

i went to yad vashem last sunday with a whole load of journalists - the radio woman is from the dutch national radio and the journalist from denmark!

yad vashem pics

for some reason the picture uploading thingy didnt work yesterday so now ive put up a load of pics from my press trip to yad vashem last week.

enjoy.
i think its amazing there. really reccomend it.

the entrance lobby of yad vashem

i just wasnt impressed with this hall of names thing

the outside of the new museum - its amazing how it sticks out of the mountain.

out of the darkness - the inside of yad vashem

into the light - the exit

model of a gas chamber by a survivor

films of survivors are everywhere

yad vashem burning books

update update update- have u missed me?

hi,

i dont know if u know but when someone posts a comment it gets sent to me as an email, often with no name so i dont know who wrote it.

this afternoon i got one from someone who didnt say who they were, saying how "blogs that arent updated regularly lose their popularity". how funny, i never set out to be popular (although seeing that hit count rise obviously boosts my ego!). this thing is only really for family and friends to see what im up to. everyones welcome but theres no need for criticism.

anyway, i tried to add some pics of yad vashem just now so they would be underneath this but it didnt work for some reason.

to update u, the last week was quite a busy one for me. ive now begun working in a journalist news reporter role for EJP, and coincidently last week saw the largest gathering of world leaders in israel for at least 10 years, most of whom were from europe.

they had all come (if u dont know) for the opening of the new yad vashem museum. so on sunday i missed ulpan to go on a press preview tour of yad vashem and then on tuesday and wednesday i spent my time either in the kind david hotel trying to interview world leaders before and after they held meetings with shimon peres and in the david citadel hotel where a press centre was set up for all the foreign journalists who were not actually going to the ceremonies at yad vahsem (we watched it on a massive big screen, quite surreal).

yad vashem really was excellent. i took loads of pics and will put them up when i can. its not open till next week so maybe i will go with andrew and dad but probably more likely to go when zoe and marc come at the end of may (they just booked their flights, im very excited).

the museum is very cleverly designed, im sure u can all find out about it on the web. search for yad vashem on google.

the other stuff was quite surreal. seeing peres up close is amazing, hes 81 or 82 and acts like a normal politician. one thing was funny after his meeting with the spanish foreign minister a spanish tv station starting interviewing morantinos and then the reporter turned to peres and asked him a question about the gaza disengagement or something and peres just said "i agree with everything my friend here has just said. i understand a little spanish!"

i also met the german foreign minister joshka fischer (dunno if u spell it like that) and the mayor of new york bloomberg and the greek education minister (who is seriosuly crazy - when i asked her what she thought should be done to combat antisemitism in greece she assured me there isnt any and when i asked her the same thing about antisemitism in europe she again said she didnt think there was any!). also i interviewed the lithuanian president over the phone!

it was all quite strange to be honest. i still cant work out what all these people were doing here. they all came for 2 days then left.

i personally dont think it was to show support for yad vashem or even cos they felt guilty about crimes/complicity with the nazis during the holocauyst which some of them apologised for (most notably the dutch and belgian PMs). there was an obvious unsubtle diplomatic undertone in that each leader met with at least one of peres, sharon or foreign minister silvan shalom. but even if they all came here to show support for the disengagement and make sharon know that they expecct him to go through withn it, was it still worth coming. did they all hear everyone else was coming so they wanted to as well? i still dont understand

answers on a postcard (or email jeremylast@yahoo.com)

thats it for now
love to all
welcome to anyone new - the hackers, oshrat the ethiopian security guard outside the school next to the ulpan (YES i went to ulpan this morning!)

hope to stick some pics up later
jeremy

does anyone know why a big space appeared

for some reason a big space appeared at the top of my blog the other day.
anyone know why or how?

j
ps enough with these emails and comments about alaska or whatever. it really WASNT funny in the first place. gets my hitrate up though.

hi hanna and yisroel. just want to say how lovely and cute their kids are. came round for an ice cream and cake kiddush on shabbat after shul across the road and all 4 behaved relatively immaculately.

also hi to charles daniels and heather. what a lovely conversation we all had last night.

from the bottom of my heart....

FAO Newman and Green....

i dunno what im gonna do with u clowns, abusing the great blog that is jeremys life continues.

but to be honest i am touched that you two value this great website as to use it as a forum for your, somewhat 'hilarious' pranks (my favourite was the eskimo one but the comment about ariella did make me chuckle).

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Bnei Yehuda 1 Betar Jerusalem 1

FAO everyone else, if ur interested, me and mike travelled to tel aviv after shabbat for the game. there was a great atmosphere but as usual the boys let in a sloppy goal after a few minutes. we fought back and got to 1-1 with half an hour to go but couldnt get the crucial goal. the ref was apalling though and we hit the bar twice. were worried that the crucial 3rd position which provides the covetted uefa cup place is slipping from our grasp. i think we have hapoel haifa away next week, not sure if i will go!

po.
j

happy birthday michael levin

good morning, its another friday morning after another fun thursday night in jerusalem.

todays mikes birthday so last night we went out to celebrate. we, of course, had a lovely evening.

the plan was to start off in DnD for dinner and a few drinks and then go to a bar called jacksi in town. but people came late (it was cool there were about 14 of us) everyone was taking advantage of the happy hour 241 deal daniel so generously provides; so we didnt end up leaving there till about 11ish if not later. by which time me and mike had had a few beers as well as the famous כדור על הראש. for some reason, instead of going into town we went to a french party which was just starting to break up because the police had come (nothing to do with me, honest). a few of us then went into town for a few more beers. good time had by all.

i cant believe ive been here for 2 months now let alone that ive been lucky enough to not only find a nice flat but a flatmate i get on really well with. hes a safe bloke and as u will have seen from the photos i put up last week, he loves football. really. its crazy, hes american and knows quite alot about football. which is obviously a plus point!

so when he finally wakes up were gonna chill today, maybe go somewhere nice, and tnight were having a few people round for dinner. then tommorrow were going to a friend of mike for shabbat lunch, nice and frum dont u think! tommorrow night were hoping to go to tel aviv for a betar away game - its becoming important because they could come third which means uefa cup and a trip to bratislava or somewhere (obviously theyre all big games in the ligat haal!).

theres loads more to write about my life. this week has been crazy in that ive moved from being an editor to being a journalist. im trying to get interviews with alot of famous people at the moment but will write about that once anything is confirmed, have to keep u in suspense right now ;-)

peace out people (that was a joke for u andrew!)
most exciting thing though - exactly 2 weeks today till my dad and bro turn up at my door. can wait!
love u all (even if there are some randoms reading this - please send me emails/ or post messages if ur reading my blog, especially if i dont know u, im fascinated to know who u all are, the counter has gone up astronomically in the last 2 weeks.)
j

the counters moved up - how many?????

come on people, keep clicking, it gives me an ego boost. and email me -jeremylast@yahoo.com or post a message on here.love u alljeremy

michael levin, a true fan!

YALLA BETAR YALLA

on saturday night i went to my fifth betar game since ive been here, not too bad i think considereing ive only been here 2 months. and untill saturday night they (we!) had lost them all. not only that, ihadnt even seen betar score a goal - the first game i went to was away at maccabi tel aviv, we lost 1-0. then home against petach tikva, we lost 1-0, then home against Nazareth (who are they??) we lost 2-0, then last wednesday in the cup we lost 1-0.

so u can imagine i wasnt overly confident. added to this there had been 3 other games that i hadnt gone to cos they were away games and ash couldnt drive - we'd won them all emphaticaly. i thought i must be the curse. if i go we lose if i dont we win.

but im starting to get addicted to this, its just a tenner and i have a team to support. despite the fact they are apalling - its like that film bring it on, they have the best fans and the worst team.

but redemption finally came - i just couldnt believe it at the weekend. not only did we actually win a game but we came back twice and then scored in the last minute! it was absolutely crazy. ashley and me spent the entire first half wondering why they bother, then we equalized. then again. then a last minute winner. it was insane.

what was also crazy was the fact that to disperse the crowd after the game (who were all dancing to celebrate the fact they actually won a home game after more than 2 months) the police turned up on horses and started to charge the crowd. crazy horses (THATS FOR JUSTIN BY THE WAY!).

ANway, we have bnei yehuda away on sunday night, and suddenly everyone who was talking about the season being over (there were 4 page specials about betars failure in 2 jerusalem papers on friday) is now looking to that coveted uefa cup spot if we end up 3rd. who knows, me and mike maybe travelling to man united for a uefa cup game in september!

yalla betar yalla, check the pics!
j