Kosher savoir faire in high places

Jerusalem Post ^ | Nov. 4, 2003 | YEHUDA AVNER

[yonif]

President Lyndon Baines Johnson drove his station wagon at high speed across the white-fenced field and gunned it down the rutted dirt track, causing prime minister Levi Eshkol to jounce about in his seat. A cluster of cows bolted in alarm, but one refused to budge. The president honked his horn and nudged it with the car's fender until it, too, skedaddled. "That's Nellie," roared Johnson with laughter. "She's as pigheaded as a Texan senator with colic."

"Vus rett der goy?" ("What's the goy talking about?") asked Eshkol above the growl of the engine. He was holding firmly onto his homburg for fear it would fly off, while looking inquiringly at Yaakov Herzog who was in the seat behind me, by his side.

This was January 1968, the winter after the Six Day War. Israel's adversaries were rearming. France, until now Israel's major military supplier, had declared an embargo. Eshkol desperately needed new aircraft — Skyhawks and Phantoms. So he petitioned Johnson, who invited him down to his Texas ranch for a chat. And, as was often his custom, the first thing the president did when his guest arrived was to show him around.

"This is my old homestead, Mr. Prime Minister," hollered Johnson, oblivious to Herzog's effort to answer Eshkol's Yiddish inquiry. "This Hill Country is where my mammy and my daddy brought me up. The kids I played with then are my neighbors now — the best anyone could ask for."

As he spoke, the president sped across his bumpy pastures, with one heavily mottled, beefy hand on the wheel and the other resting on his guest's shoulder. His big face, framed by a gray Stetson and large ears with very long lobes, carried a sunny grin, the eyes crinkling in companionable warmth as he showed off his acres. This disposition, we were later told at dinner that night, was a sure signal that the president was amenable to the aircraft request.

We dined at two heavily laden tables off the big living room, with its frontier-size fireplace, comfy sofas, and old oils of the Texas Hill Country. The initials LBJ were on everything, from the cutlery and crockery to a big bright flag outside the front door.

Butlers served a mammoth meal of game bird, and waiters ostentatiously brandished vintage champagne and bottles of fine wine. Herzog, who was sitting next to secretary of state Dean Rusk, beckoned over a butler to discreetly ask for two green salads, one for him and one for me. Rusk puckered his brow and murmured an apology: "Oh dear me, I see our protocol people have slipped up badly. They should have known you observe the dietary laws. Forgive me."

Herzog made light of it. Speaking in his slightly Irish brogue (he had been brought up in Dublin), he said agreeably, "A few years ago, when I was ambassador in Ottawa, I challenged professor Arnold Toynbee to a public debate. He asserted that observing kashrut was fossilization. I argued it was ancient Talmudic wisdom — a secret of our eternalism."

The secretary of state chuckled at this subtlety. He knew Herzog well as the prime minister's closest diplomatic adviser. And like so many other world statesmen, he was attracted by the man's formidable intellect, scholarship, and charm.

Now, Lady Bird, the president's wife, sidled over, smiling and radiant. (She had been called Claudia until a nurse clucked over her crib and cooed, "You're as pretty as a lady bird.") Moving from guest to guest, Lady Bird's gaze ultimately rested on our green salads and she frowned. "Oh, I am so sorry you're not eating the bird. I was told it was permissible. But evidently you can't." She was actually blushing.

In hushed tones, Herzog tactfully explained the rudiments of kashrut and she, bending low and dropping her voice to a whisper that was almost inaudible, muttered, "I had been assured that it was only meat you can't eat, but fowl you can. Lyndon even arranged for a shoot this morning so that the catch would be fresh. How stupid of me!" And then, glancing in the direction of Eshkol at the other table, she whispered, eyebrows arched, "But I see your prime minister has no problem eating it."

Dr. Herzog assumed an innocent expression and, looking Lady Bird straight in the eye, said artlessly, "My dear Mrs. Johnson, may I share with you a confidence? Mr. Eshkol has one secret vice. He cannot resist fine gourmet. So you may take his lapse as a great compliment to your chef."

"Oh, I shall, I shall," said a charmed Mrs. Johnson, and she moved on to her other guests.

THUS ENDED my first tutorial as a novice diplomat on the niceties of kosher savoir faire in high places. From that day forth, whenever cuisine was consumed at official occasions overseas I would seek out the housekeeper in charge to ensure that my dietary needs were catered for. And, indeed, they were, though at times in a fashion so excessive as to be gauche. Such was the case on a night in June 1975, when president Gerald Ford hosted prime minister Yitzhak Rabin in the Lincoln Room at the White House.

From his gilded frame above the fireplace, Abraham Lincoln looked down severely upon the Georgetown elite exuberantly rubbing shoulders with a goodly sprinkling of Jewish bigwigs, New York glitterati, academic celebrities, and Hollywood stars, all chomping on succulent roast pheasant, roast potatoes, and garnished beans.

I, alone, was not indulging. My vegetarian dish tarried, perhaps because the engraved place card that bore my name had been misspelled. It read "Yeduha...?"

Gen. George S. Brown, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who was sitting two chairs to my right and flirting with Barbara Walters next to me, caught sight of my still empty plate and, craning his neck to mark my place card, boomed, "Yeduha, not eating with us tonight?"

With that, a butler stepped forward and placed before me a fiesta of color consisting of a base of lettuce as thick as a Bible, topped by a mountain of diced fruits, capped by a blob of cottage cheese, and crowned by a scoop of whipped cream. The whole thingamajig stood about a foot high. And, in contrast to everybody else's drab roast pheasant, it glittered and sparkled like a firework.

"Wow!" chimed Barbara Walters at the top of her voice, drawing everybody's attention to my extravaganza. President Ford half-rose to note it. He whispered something into Yitzhak Rabin's ear, and Rabin whispered something back into his. Instantly, the president rose to his full height, held his glass high, and exuberantly called out to me, "Happy birthday, young fella." Whereupon, the entire Lincoln Room stood up and began chorusing in full-throated gusto, "Happy birthday dear Yeduha." And as they sang, their glasses aloft, I slunk sheepishly into my chair, mortified.

Back at Blair House where we were lodging, I asked Rabin why on earth he had told the president it was my birthday, and he shot back, part in jest, part in earnest: "What else should I have told him — the truth? And tomorrow there would be a headline that you ate kosher and I didn't. And then the religious parties would bolt the coalition. Am I crazy?"

TWO YEARS later, when Menachem Begin assumed the premiership, it became axiomatic that official functions would be kosher, a practice that is now de rigueur.

Thus, when Britain's first female prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, hosted Begin to lunch at 10 Downing Street in May 1979, nobody questioned the propriety of her cuisine. Neither did anyone anticipate that this ever-vigilant "Iron Lady" would be so zealous in her eagerness to please she would go overboard, as we shall presently see.

Few things, surely, could have tickled Begin's fancy more than to walk across the threshold of that historic, burnished black door set in the simple classic fa ade of Downing Street. For it was out of Number 10 that the order went forth to hunt this man down and arrest him for running the underground which had so ferociously fought the British in Palestine, the Irgun.

Now, 30-odd years later, reporters were still pillorying him. One of them shouted from the other side of the street as he stepped out of the limousine, "Mr. Begin, people in Britain still call you a wanted terrorist. Any comment?"

The prime minister crossed over to the man, and in an eminently reasonable tone, said, "Kenyan Mau Mau leaders visit Britain and they are called freedom fighters. Cypriot insurgents, Irish revolutionaries, and Malaysian militias visit Britain and they are called freedom fighters. Only I am called a terrorist. Is that because I was a Jewish freedom fighter?" And, with that, he walked through the door of Number 10.

Viscount Horatio Nelson and the Duke of Wellington, their crimson and gold insignia of nobility draped around them, stared down at the eight guests in the state dining room with eyes translucid with eternal visions of staggering victories. Through the window one could see the prime minister's husband, Denis, practicing putting on the back lawn. And as he took his place next to Thatcher, Begin muttered to me, "Yehuda, mach hamotzi. Make the blessing."

He was gesturing with his chin to a low corner table bedecked with a white silk Sabbath cloth draped over a plaited loaf on a silver platter, together with an ornamental Sabbath bread knife, a jug of water, a glass bowl, and a hand towel embroidered with a Sabbath blessing in Hebrew. A card placed discreetly by the halla read, "Under the Supervision of the Sephardi Kashrut Commission."

I was not quite sure what to do. After all, this was Tuesday! In my alarm, I could feel Thatcher's sharp-edged gaze playing on my back like a searchlight. The room went as mute as a tomb. With nowhere to hide, I canonically performed the libations, recited the blessing, and cut the loaf which was so fresh it crumbled to pieces. And now, with tightened stomach, I tap-danced around the table, offered Thatcher the silver platter, bowed, and intoned in a high-sonic pitch, "Madam Prime Minister, wilt thou do me the honor of breaking bread with me?"

"Oh, what a delightful custom," chirped Thatcher. "I must tell protocol about this. We must do it more often. "

And thus was a new ritual born in 10 Downing Street.

The writer is a veteran diplomat. avner28@netvision.net.il

[yonif]

This was January 1968, the winter after the Six Day War. Israel's adversaries were rearming. France, until now Israel's major military supplier, had declared an embargo. Eshkol desperately needed new aircraft — Skyhawks and Phantoms. So he petitioned Johnson, who invited him down to his Texas ranch for a chat. And, as was often his custom, the first thing the president did when his guest arrived was to show him around.

[donmeaker]

someone corrected johnson when he falsely pointed out his "humble" birth place;

Johnson said " Everyone is entitled to their own birthplace."

[NewRomeTacitus]

That Lyndon, what a class act. Won the Silver Star by giving up his seat on the plane going into action to someone else. Heroism by proxy.

Less documented is the story about a lady visitor to his ranch waking up in the guest room by a groping LBJ who grumbled "Aren't you going to make room for your President? Scoot over!", before having his uninvited jollies at her expense.

And people think JFK is Clinton's role model.

[Alouette]

I think I can top this. Two years ago, when Israeli President Moshe Katsav visited Moscow, Putin called the Chief Rabbi to come and kasher the Kremlin kitchen and everyone was served a kosher dinner.

[Alouette]

FRmail me to be added or removed from this pro-Israel ping list.

[SJackson]

If you'd like to be on or off this middle east/political ping list, please FR mail me.