Having stood me up on the previous day without so much as a phone call, Vitali’s stony-faced crew turned up at 6:30 the following morning, last Thursday week, without so much as a “boker tov”.

Vitali, the boss – or, more aptly, prime mover – with whom I had conducted all telephone negotiations (he had been recommended by a friend), was not among them, remaining throughout a kind of shadowy, Blofeld-like figure, directing operations from afar.

With a little imagination, one of the three removal men could, just maybe, have been “unzere” (though, perhaps, with a rebellious great-gran who had been a little over-curious as to the contents of Cossack breeches). The other two, however, including team leader Alex – who set the tone for our relationship by immediately stubbing out his cigarette on the wall of the Melchett stairwell – were clearly more Putin or Klitschko than Sharansky or Grushenko. And early requests for them to handle certain items with care were met with stares cold enough for me to immediately relinquish any thoughts I had as to the importance of my furniture.

The ‘90s Russian aliyah has been an enormous success, with Israeli mutterings about their new compatriots – spongers here only for the benefits, once heard all too often – now a thing of the distant past.

"Start-Up Nation" my ****

Accusations, too, that Russian women are gold diggers and (as if it were a bad thing) easy – a chorus of “Mrs. Knickersonanov!!” would go up from the bar whenever one would enter MASH – are now heard only from Israeli women envious that they do not possess similar skill in treating (and, in many cases, keeping) their man. And, while we hear so much about Israel’s wonderful innovation and exports, can anyone think of a finer import? Indeed, though I could never quite picture her under the same chupah as my mother, the Aliyah Department should have placed Sveta well above the tax-free refrigerator on my list of aliyah benefits.

But the contribution of Russians to almost every facet of Israeli life has been huge, not least their sons now serving in crack IDF combat units.

There is a sizeable minority of Russian olim, however, who – from just one look at them – cause one to wonder what exactly they are doing here, their only link to anything Jewish perhaps being a single great-grandparent, or merely just a spouse with one. And these, predominantly, were the Russians with whom I was placed for my basic IDF training, in 1999.

Our unit consisted of a Cuban (who had escaped Havana in a barrel), an Ethiopian, an Indian (to my great frustration, seemingly the only f*cking one who couldn’t speak a word of English), and 36 new immigrants from the former Soviet Union. Of the latter, the majority were thirty-somethings hardened by having served in the bloody conflict in Afghanistan, but who now – thanks to the astonishing stupidity of the IDF – were being taught how to handle M16s by frechot fresh out of high school.

The inevitable consequence? A kind of Russian-Israeli Dirty Dozen: orders ignored, scoffed at even, and young officers clearly terrified of their commands.

I had an altercation with one of my new comrades on our very first day of basic training, after which I resolved that – sharing a tent with them every night, and with no shortage of bullets and/or pillows – I had best make every effort to be agreeable (it doesn’t come naturally). That same comrade and his best mate, both Jewish, though from the Kavkaz region – which, by all accounts, makes the nastiest parts of Merseyside seem like the Cotswolds – turned out to be my best buddies during those utterly pointless few months. And they were always most intrigued about Blighty. Not for them, however, the predictable questions about Manchester United and the Royal Family . . .

“Tagid li (tell me), Mike,” they would begin, “kama oleh zona be’Anglia (how much does a prostitute cost in England)?”

“Chamishim pound (fifty pounds),” I would always reply without hesitation, not wanting them to think me a loser.

Chit-chat and idle pleasantries (or, rather, their total absence) aside, however, Vitali’s crew were great. The third member, a four-inch burn (perhaps the Ukrainian equivalent of a lovebite) on his shoulder, single-handedly bore my washing machine down two flights of stairs with a look of “When are you going to give me something serious to lift?”

There were no emotional farewells when the job was done, or even “thank you’s” for the decent tips . . . though, then again, there was also none of the quibbling, that one invariably gets with the natives, about money. Spasiba.

So I am now shimon ha’tzadik mike . . . and whatever Reb Osher Yitzchok – who, according to my Golders Green sources, has fled the rioting shvartzers (not that he would dream of using such a word) for the relative serenity (if not Gentility) of Princes Park Avenue – may say, I have always known, deep down, that the epithet (and I am not talking the shimon bit) would fit.

[Please visit http://www.justgiving.com/mike-isaacson/ . . . it only takes a few minutes/quid!]

El cómico judío incluye además en Love and Death guiños a directores como Ingmar Bergman (“El séptimo cielo”, 1957) en las escenas en las que aparece (y baila con) la Muerte, Sergéi Eisenstein (El acorazado Potemkin, 1925) [inserción de las estatuas de unos leones en unos planos de transición previos a la secuencia del duelo] o Charles Chaplin [con gags al cine mudo].Cine y filosofía se entremezclan en esta película antibelicista repleta de excelentes diálogos, mordaces y divertidos, con referencias al sexo, la religión, la muerte o la moralidad existencial.

Incluso la banda sonora, el jazz al que el director nos tiene acostumbrados en su cine, es sustituido en esta ocasión por la música de un compositor ruso, Sergei Prokofiev, con melodías que acompañan perfectamente cada una de las escenas del film.

Sin ser la mejor de sus películas, es divertida, está bien rodada, nos hace reflexionar y resulta un preludio del potencial que desarrollaría el neoyorkino en sus obras posteriores. Allen en esencia pura… Para el resto, visionen la cinta, no les defraudará:

Sonja: El amor lo es todo Boris, quiero conocer a un hombre y escalar todas las alturas de la pasión. Un hombre que encarne los 3 aspectos del amor, intelectual, espiritual y sensual.
Boris Grushenko: Por aquí con esas condiciones somos pocos, creo que podría arreglarse.
Sonja: Muchas mujeres se entregan por nada.
Boris Grushenko: Ya lo se, pobrecillas.
Sonja: Se casan por dinero.
Boris Grushenko: Dinero… Bueno, el dinero…
Sonja: Pero a mi me parecería que habría desperdiciado la vida si no estuviera profundamente enamorada del hombre cuya mente respetara, cuya inteligencia se igualara a la mía y que tuviera el mismo lujurioso apetito para la pasión sensual que me vuelve loca.
Boris Grushenko: Eres una mujer increíblemente compleja.
Sonja: En realidad soy medio santa y medio perdida.
Boris Grushenko: Espero llevarme la mitad mejor.
Sonja: Boris…
Boris Grushenko: Si.
Sonja: Tengo que hacerte una confesión.
Boris Grushenko: Si.
Sonja: Desde que tú y yo éramos niños…
Boris Grushenko: Si.
Sonja: Estoy enamorada de tu hermano Iván.
Boris Grushenko: Oh, es natural… ¿Iván? Si apenas sabe escribir su nombre en el suelo con un bastón…
Sonja: Tiene verdadero magnetismo animal.
Boris Grushenko: ¿Magnetismo animal? Tanto hablar de amor perfecto y estás loca por Iván!?
Sonja: Me ha besado.
Boris Grushenko: ¿En algún sitio que yo conozca?
Sonja: Ha incendiado lo más profundo de mi corazón.
Boris Grushenko: Estupendo… No hay nada como la profundidad del corazón.
Sonja: Creo que va a pedirme que me case con él.
Boris Grushenko: ¡Pero si es un jugador y un borracho! ¡Tiene mentalidad de megaterio! Aunque yo lo quiero como a un hermano. Como a un hermano de otro…

La última Noche de Boris Grushenko (1975) de Woody Allen (Allan Stewart Königsberg)
Love and Death (Ficha IMDB)

“Todos los hombres son mortales. Sócrates era mortal. Por lo tanto, todos los hombres son Sócrates. Lo que significa que todos los hombres son homosexuales” [La última noche...]