Whitney Houston’s Strange Trip to Israel Recalled
As news of Whitney Houston’s untimely death at the age of 48 sent powerful ripples around globe, Israelis could look back at a brief often eccentric 2003 tour of the Holy Land by the six-time Grammy winner, which, sadly, proved to be her first and last visit to Israel.
In 2003 the U.S. diva, already past the prime of her career and still married to Bobby Brown, made a memorable, if not altogether strange visit to the Holy Land, hosted by the Black Hebrew Israelites, a group centered in the southern desert town of Dimona.
Houston, protected by a ring of publicists and family, rarely spoke to the local media during her trip, even famously evading a hand shake with then Prime Minister Ariel Sharon while meeting him with Brown in Jerusalem.
Noting that this was their first trip to Israel, Sharon hoped it would be the first of many, to which Houston replied, “Yes.”
When Sharon asked her how she felt in Israel, Houston said, “It’s home, it’s home.”
For more, go to Haaretz.com
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