Century-old sandals once worn by Lawrence of Arabia expected to fetch over $4,000
What happens when you bring together 600 strangers and one hit rock song? As it turns out, you get one powerful video clip.
To celebrate the end of 2017, the popular Army Radio music station Galgalatz decided to end the year with a bang. To that end, it partnered with Koolulam, a social music initiative and Shekel, an NGO for people with special needs, to create an unforgettable version of the Imagine Dragons hit “Believer.” The clip, which went online Monday afternoon, had already been viewed by more than 500,000 people by Tuesday morning.
The band itself was moved by the rendition, as it reposted the clip on its Facebook page, with a note: “This 600 person choir singing Believer blew my mind this morning as I watched. So much passion.”
The video and song were recorded earlier this month at the Bascula Arts Center in Tel Aviv. More than 50 people with special needs came from the Shekel organization to take part. The 600 people – of all ages and backgrounds – had just an hour to practice the song, which many of them had never heard, before they recorded it.
“The decision to include people with special needs in the clip moved us very much,” the Shekel organization posted on their Facebook page. “Now friends, share it, like it and comment explaining to everyone why it is so important to include people with disabilities in the community!”
The song “Believer” is one of the biggest hits of 2017, peaking at No. 4 on the US Billboard chart. The band’s lead vocalist, Dan Reynolds, said in an interview that the song was inspired by his struggle with a painful form of arthritis, and how it is about “finding a place of perspective where I could be appreciative of the pain in my life and make it my greatest strength.” BERLIN – The battered WWI sandals of famed British soldier T.E. Lawrence, known internationally as Lawrence of Arabia, are slated go on sale along with some of his other prized items on Tuesday at Hansons Auctioneers and Valuers in Etwall, England.
“The appearance of Lawrence’s sandals on an auction was initially accepted with reservations, because we see from time to time items which are presented as if they belonged to him,” former Israeli diplomat Jacob Rosen-Koenigsbuch told on Monday. “But a close scrutiny by longtime collectors and experts tends to agree that the sandals and other items are genuine, and we know who kept those items through the years. In this case, the owner died last year at the age of 80.”
Rosen-Koenigsbuch was ambassador to Jordan from 2006 to 2009. He is one of the world’s leading experts on T.E. Lawrence.
Hansons Auctioneers owner Charles Hanson told newspaper: “We understand the sandals were worn by the great man himself. Though in a delicate condition, they are remarkable survivors from almost a century ago. They must have faced rocky and sandy terrain and may be war-weary.”
The remarkable Lawrence find was discovered in a plastic bag along with books and photographs that were given to Rodney Havelock Walker. The sandals and other cherished items could secure more than $4,000 for the sellers.
Lawrence had a close relationship with the Walker family. He gave them a rare copy of his book British media reports said Walker was christened in Lawrence’s own “white lace christening robe.” The chain of custody of Lawrence’s items went from Walker to another family, which has now decided to auction the goods.
Lawrence’s daredevil exploits during his desert insurgency against the Ottomans were depicted in the blockbuster 1962 Oscar-winning Hollywood film starring Peter O’Toole.
The British officer – a pan-Arabist nationalist and a Zionist – played a key role in the Arab revolt against the Ottoman Empire’s army in the Middle East war theater. Lawrence wrote in 1909 about Ottoman-controlled Palestine: “The sooner the Jews farm it the better: their colonies are bright spots in a desert.”
In a rarely noted 1920 article titled “The Changing East,” Lawrence wrote of the Jewish biblical connection to Israel. For him, “the Jewish experiment” to create a homeland was “a conscious effort, on the part of the least European people in Europe, to make head against the drift of the ages, and return once more to the Orient from which they came.”