Birds, Elvis Shmelvis and an unkosher jibe
Ostriches are export winners from foot-andmouth crisis
l THE WRITING has been on the paddock wall for the 14,000 ostriches of Zemach farm since the day they were hatched. The Jordan Valley company breeds and slaughters the birds, sending their skins to Japan, and their non-kosher meat primarily to France and Italy. But now, food scares in Europe, particularly foot-andmouth, have sent orders for the disease-free meat soaring — and Zemach says it can hardly keep up supplies. Hummous companies, too, are benefiting from the European panic, Israel’s financial newspaper Globes reported this week that the Tzabar Salads company had been forced to increase exports after its hummous sales in Europe jumped by 24 per cent in the last two months.
The king of rock is dead — long live Elvis Shmelvis
l A DUNSTABLE-BASED customer service manager is increasingly all shook up as he transforms himself into “Elvis Shmelvis — the only Jewish Elvis cabaret act.” But while Elvis Shmelvis may be a new persona for Martyn Lopes-Dias, the 38-year-old father-of-two has “been doing the king without a kippah for the non-Jewish community for 12 years. “I’ve been mobbed by women,” he told the JC, “and get booked for everything from company events to batmitzvahs, weddings and anniversaries. “It’s a serious Elvis act. I also play the trumpet and perform two or three Jewish songs in his style. Elvis did sing ‘Hava Nagilah,’ you know.”
The Sun admits foul play over Spurs jibe
l SUN EDITOR David Yelland has promised that the term “Kosher Nostra” will not appear again in the tabloid, after complaints about its use by columnist Steven Howard in a piece about the sacking of Tottenham Hotspur boss George Graham. In a Monday column headed “Blown away by the Kosher Nostra,” Mr Howard referred to “a meeting down White Hart Lane on Saturday. All the leading members of the Kosher Nostra were there — among them past chairmen Alan Sugar and Irving Scholar, plus the mob’s new hitman David Buchler.” He continued: “Buchler would have been congratulated all round for the clean shot that removed George Graham from the midst of the ‘family’…There would also have been a lot of talk about the thing that really matters. Money.”