“The best thing you can do is always remain a student because that way you always end up being a great teacher,” she reflects. I believe the show is a true gem.”Ībdul clearly loves passing on her knowledge to the show’s aspiring young performers. “These young dancers are so giving and they work so hard that it’s a sheer joy to watch them. “I’ve never worked with a better group of people who are so passionate and committed to doing an excellent job,” she enthuses. Little wonder, then, that the former American Idol judge is relishing her latest role as a dance judge in Australia.
Dad knows that I am now working in Australia doing So You Think You Can Dance Australia, and I feel very blessed that he is still able to be aware of what is going on – that he’s not at that point yet.”Ībdul has sold a staggering 60 million albums worldwide as a recording artist in the late 1980s and early 1990s with hits such as Straight Up, Cold Hearted and Opposites Attract, which also won her a Grammy Award for Best Music Video – Short Form. “We were looking at my pictures from Israel and he was just beaming.
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My dad is full of joy,” Abdul says quietly. “It’s a blessing that I get to see him when he’s present. I really did eat my way through Israel.” While Abdul’s father now suffers from Alzheimer’s disease, his face lit up when his daughter filled him in on her time in Israel. “And of course,” she adds with a laugh, “I tell people that I have never eaten better food in my life! We went to amazing restaurants in Jerusalem, Tiberias and Tel Aviv. It’s a sense of community and a feeling that you belong in such a profound way. It doesn’t matter what your background is, Israel strengthens everything. “I am beyond grateful that I got to take such a wonderful trip.
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Paula with Simon Cowell, her co-judge on eight series of American Idol For me, Israel really was the most beautiful experience – it was everything and more. “There was so much to do and so much to see. “Every day I was in Israel was filled from morning to night,” she says. I shed so many tears of joy.”Ĭertainly, Abdul – who travelled to Israel with two friends as an official guest of the Ministry of Tourism – hit the ground running from the moment she arrived in the country. The rabbi made contact with my rabbi and one other girl was having her batmitzvah as well. “I was supposed to have it at the Western Wall, but with people knowing I was there, I wanted it to be something more private for myself,” she explains. While Abdul initially intended to hold her batmitzvah ceremony in the Old City of Jerusalem, a last-minute change of plans saw her heading to the ancient city of Tzfat. “I wasn’t raised in an Orthodox sense,” she says, “but I now have my rabbi at home in the States and I belong to Chabad of Bel Air, and he had me starting to study the Torah.” Growing up, Abdul and her family celebrated the High Holy Days every year, yet neither she nor her sister marked their coming of age with a batmitzvah. My father was adopted at the age of nine by a Jewish family and my dad had his bar mitzvah.” My father was put into an orphanage from the first day. “Having a bat mitzvah was something I had always wanted to do,” reveals Abdul. None was more poignant, though, than when Abdul fulfilled a long-held dream to celebrate a belated batmitzvah with a ceremony at the International Centre for Kabbalah in Tzfat in northern Israel. What she didn’t know was that it would be the “most magical” time of her life.įor Abdul, who has always been proud of her Jewish heritage, there were many highlights over the following 10 days, ranging from a personal meeting with Israeli President Shimon Peres to emotion-charged moments at the Kotel and Yad Vashem.
Get The Jewish News Daily Edition by email and never miss our top stories Having traversed the globe as a hit recording artist and talent show judge, the 51-year-old Californian native suspected her first trip to Israel would prove memorable.
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