sometimes you hear a story, maybe follow it for a while, and then you don't hear the ending. Often you don't hear the ending. This post is nothing more than the ending of an old story.

A few years ago, Life in Israel followed the story of a haredi couple that competed on "The Biggest Loser". The stated goal of Fishi and Mali Berkovitz was to lose enough weight to conceive a child. They competed, even under much communal criticism, and made it to the late rounds of the show.

And that was the story. After they were eliminated, we never heard from the again. Or at least I didn't. Like most contestants in reality tv shows, they went their way and were quickly forgotten.

The end of the story just came in. I saw a notice online somewhere that Fishi and Malki just gave birth to their first baby, a boy, after 10 years of marriage.

Mazel tov.

Picture Of The Day


Sorry for no posting today. I had a couple posts in draft that were due to be finished, but I got sidetracked going to the hospital and having the baby girl pictured above!

Mazel Tov to Israeli-born US Oscar-winning actress (for her role in Black Swan) Natalie Portman (born Natalie Hershlag), upon the birth of her little baby boy b'chor.

Unfortunately, it seems her fiancée is not Jewish, or at least that is the assumption, though obviously the baby is. Benjamin Millepied's faith is listed as unknown. Millepied was Portman's choreographer on the set of Black Swan.

Mazel tov to Henry Kerr and Valerie Berkowitz in a wedding that just took place in an old age home in London. Kerr is 97 and Berkowitz is 87.

After he moved into the old age home, he was struck by her and spent four years trying to win her over.

Proving that you are never too old to find love, Henry Kerr, 97, and Valerie Berkowitz, 87, are marrying at Sunridge Court residential home in Golders Green.

When Henry Kerr met an attractive younger woman, he feared she wouldn't give an older man a second glance.

So he embarked on a four-year campaign to win over the object of his affections, writing her love poetry and spending hours exchanging life stories.

And yesterday, 97-year- old Mr Kerr proved you can't hurry love, when he finally wed his younger companion - Valerie Berkowitz, 87.

He said: 'I would have asked her much earlier, if I had thought such an attractive, witty young lady of 87 would have anything to do with an old codger like me.'

Mr Kerr believed his love life was over following his wife Gladys's death in 2004, but said he was 'struck like a thunderbolt' when he met Mrs Berkowitz at the North London care home they share.

He said: 'I thought she found me pushy and conceited - until she acquired an analytical interest in the poems I read at the poetry circle I founded when I moved in here. Then we found our affinities.'

When they started talking, the pair discovered they had both lived in South Africa, and both had families scattered across the world.

He wrote several love poems in an attempt to win her affections.

Mr Kerr, who moved to the care home in 2006 when he was 94, said: 'When I did ask her to marry me a few months ago she went hysterical - she put her head down on the table and couldn't stop laughing.'

Even once Mrs Berkowitz had accepted the proposal, the couple expected to stay permanently engaged to avoid the ' complication' of marriage.

But Mr Kerr, who ran an investment company before retirement, said: 'I felt people were whispering behind their hands and gossiping about us moving in together, and that it was important for us to be Mr and Mrs.'

The couple finally married in a traditional Jewish ceremony yesterday at their care home in Golders Green, followed by a high tea for 90 guests.

Beautiful story, and they helped solve the shidduch crisis - he married someone ten years younger!

About a month ago I mentioned that a semi-haredi rav from Ohr Akiva had won a million shekels in a TV trivia program called "One Against a Hundred".

There was very little info available except for some of his past trivia victories, but nothing about the show itself, and I could not find a clip.

It turns out nothing was available at the time because the show had not yet aired, and everything had to remain silent until it would air. That being the case, I am surprised even a blurb that he had won the full prize got out at the time...

The other night the program finally aired, and here is the clip (the clip starts with a different contestant, but Abu Aziz comes on at about the minute 21 marker):

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As well, Maariv ran a profile of Abu Aziz and an interview with him about how he prepares for all these contests he participates in.

Interestingly, when he discusses his reading of newspapers, he, like so many others,starts reading his newspapers by first opening up to the Sports section...

It was definitely an enjoyable performance to watch, humorous and entertaining, and Abu Aziz made a kiddush hashem in his knowledge and in his composed demeanor and his ability to be entertaining at the same time.

Mazel tov and hatzlacha

Mazel tov to Double Tapper for winning the MILbloggies award - an award for blogs on the topic of military issues. Double Tapper won under the category of Foreign National Military, and it was well deserved.

A segula that did not work, is now being called a miracle.

Rav Yisrael Yaakv Fisher, aka Dayan Fisher, ztl, was big into providing segulas for pregnant women who were having problems. And of all the different segulas an rabbis who gave out segulas, people swore by Dayan Fishers segulas and considered him a master at these things, despite his not being sfardi.

Kikar reports that one of Dayan Fishers segulas was tested recently, and it didn't work. But they then found out that it was a miracle it didnt work.

The situation was that a woman was told her baby was breach. Being that she was already in her 9th month of pregnancy, it had to be turned quickly. Instead of hoping for it to turn on its own and instead of having the doctor force the baby to turn, they decide they would first try Dayan Fisher's segula.

The segula for getting a baby to turn is to go to the Sataf (a spring near Ein Kerem) and to drink water from the spring, passing the water first from the husband to the wife (note: before you rely on this, get the exact details of what needs to be done).

Rav Fisher swore by this segula saying it always worked and he promised it would always work. The only time it would not work is if the umbilical cord was wrapped around the babies neck.

Sure enough, his couple with the breach baby went to Sataf and performed the segula.

When they went back to the doctor, they found out the baby was still breach, meaning the segula had not worked.

As they were preparing for the doctors appointment for the baby to be physically turned, they went through some monitoring and ultrasound tests. After the results came back that all is ok and they can go for the procedure, the husband asked the technician to please check again to make sure the cord is not wrapped around the neck. She agreed and checked it again. After calling in a doctor, they realized the cord was wrapped around the neck.

Had the baby turned, the baby would have died. The segula did not work because the cord was around the neck and the miracle saved the baby.

They performed a c-section and the baby was BH healthy.

Miraculously in this case the segula did not work! Mazel tov!

I get all the emails about depositing money in my bank account for some Nigerian prince, so I want to know how come I did not receive the mass email announcing Chelsea Clinton's engagement to Jewish guy Marc Mezvinksky?

What's the connection? Mezvinksky's father sat in jail for his involvement in the Nigerian fraud scheme... so they must have my email address on record....

Anyways, mazel tov to the couple. It seems that Chelsea has no plans to convert to Judaism unlike a different celeb named Ivanka who recently converted and married a Jew. At least there are no reports of her planning a conversion.

I guess there are two sides to an intermarriage - while it is a shame, it is horrible, that he wants to marry a shiksa, the other side of it is that a shiksa celebrity wants to marry a Jew! You've come a long way, baby!

And in some actual celebrity gossip (though I am not sure why the daughter of a celebrity also gets celebrity status), newly converted to Judaism Ivanka Trump is getting married today to her boyfriend "for whom she converted" (in quotation marks because if that were true her conversion would not have been accepted - snicker), Jared Kushner.

Mazel tov.

Bibi is a grandfather. His [religious] daughter, Noa, from a previous marriage, gave birth last night to the first Netanyahu grandchild.

They should all have nachas from the new baby...

This is exciting. A frum girls seminary that is devoted to the girls actually learning for learning's sake, and not just to be a place to be until they get married...

A seminary (in Bet Shemesh, but I never heard of it and don't know who it is affiliated with) has thrown out an 18 year old girl from the school because she got engaged.

The strangest part of it is the principal came to the engagement party and told her then and there not to come back to school!

Whether the policy of throwing a girl out is right or wrong, did it have to be done at her engagement party? Couldn't she call her in for a dressing down the next day, or talk to her ont he phone? And when the bride asked if she could come to school to celebrate with her friends (as I guess the custom is in these seminaries), the principal told her, you have already celebrated enough....

Nice. Classy.