yustyoking

 

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Israel has been under the gun since its inception. As soon as the country declared statehood in 1948, seven Arab armies tried to destroy it outright. Israel’s relations with its neighbors have been touch-and-go ever since. What is alarming today are the number of Americans, many of whom are Jewish, who prefer to support the Palestinians over the Israelis. “Israel?” declared my brother-in-law Ricky. “That’s the last place I would ever visit.”

Since the 1980’s, I keep running into American Jews who say, “I hate Israel! I’m Jewish! Whenever Israel causes trouble, everybody blames me, the Jew!” These people seem to feel no allegiance to the Jewish homeland.

There’s also a branch of the ultra-Orthodox who believe that the State of Israel is a sacrilege, since it was founded without the return of the Mashiach, the Messiah. It’s disturbing when these hyper-religious individuals make common cause with Holocaust deniers and participate in their conferences.

Here in America, mainstream leftwing sentiment sides with the Palestinian underdogs in opposition to Bibi Netanyahu’s rightwing Likud government. What the Israel-bashers neglect is the historical context. Netanyahu came to power in reaction to the failed peace process. Ehud Barak of the One Israel party was elected by a landslide in 1999, specifically to implement a two-state solution. At Camp David in the summer of 2000 and again at the White House that December, Barak and President Clinton met and negotiated with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. They offered Arafat a comprehensive plan with all the necessary ingredients for both peace and a viable Palestinian State. Rumor has it Arafat replied, “If I sign that, when I return to Ramallah, I am a dead man.” Instead of signing, he returned home and unleashed the Second Intifada uprising.

Palestinian anger knows no bounds.

That’s when the Israelis decided peace and a two-state solution simply weren’t going to happen. The pendulum swung the other way and they elected Likud’s Benjamin Netanyahu. In a game of attrition, for every year that passes, less and less of the “Occupied Territories” remains available for a Palestinian State.

Meanwhile, the American Jewish diaspora’s animosity toward Israel results in such things as J Street, Open Hillel and the BDS movement. We get people like Bernie Sanders, an American Jew who, like many of us, sampled kibbutz life in Israel in his youth. Today, “Feel the Bern” Bernie portrays himself as a Son of Poland rather than a Son of Zion. My mom calls that kind of behavior “a self-loathing Jew.”

Recently, my favorite Jewish-American author gathered a coterie of world-renowned leftwing novelists and went off to the “Occupied Territories” to forage for material to an anthology that he and his wife are editing. The purpose of which is to illuminate the “grievous injustice” of the Israeli “occupation.” Using fiction to supplement fact, it should be hot stuff. The book is expected to come out in June of 2017, commemorating the 1967 Six-Day War which has led to 50 years of Israeli life in the West Bank.

I have penned this political satire in celebration of that unhappy publishing event. Enjoy!

 

xxxxxxxxxxxx  Peace Now? Very Funny  xxxxxxxxxxxx

 

*************  COPYRIGHT: Mycket skit, 2016  **************

 

Huddled with his family in their moss-covered wooden hut inside the confines of the shtetl, Moshe the Jew ached to wreak vengeance on the incorrigible hordes of the Black Hundreds. Stihopleti, that’s what they were in Russian, stihopleti, the worst kind of rhymesters and versifiers, making lame puns, weak honorifics and sorry odes to a nightingale in clumsy, oafish cadences.

Rivka, Moshe’s devoted wife, wiped her callused hands on her tattered apron, clucking reassurances as she brought earthenware bowls of borscht decorated with symbols of the kabala to the table. The air was heavy with a mixture of cabbage and dumplings. “Shoo!” she cooed, “Kateesee! Pshol von!” She swatted at a housefly bearing the lost soul of some dearly departed. It was a Thursday in August, crickets singing in the fields, thunder caps amassing on the horizon. Moshe had been hammering window frames and planing doors since 5 o’clock that morning, bent over the lathe in his dusty workshop, beads of sweat dotting his fevered brow. His clothes smelled equally of sawdust, mold and sweat.

A golem, he decided, frothing at the mouth uncontrollably, hands trembling in anticipation. He would fashion a human-like figure of clay from the river, recite the Hebrew prayers and breathe life into his creation. Then those hounds of the Black Hundreds would fear him, quaking in their black leather boots, rattling their puny sabers, uttering oaths under their breaths and patting the flanks of their horses as they desperately called upon the spirit of the Tsar to protect them. In iambic pentameter, no less!

Mah nish tah-nah ha laila ha-zeh, why is this night different from all other nights? On this night, Moshe the Jew redeemed his soul, laying the cornerstone to the framework of a plan so blindingly grandiloquent, Moshe could barely speak of it, in a whisper, even to himself. His pact with G-d, Moshe lusted after revenge.

 

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Say what?

You don’t become the greatest Jewish author in the English language without struggle. Barry Lipowitz knew what it was to struggle, searching painstakingly for le mot juste, the perfect adjective, the best past participle, a truly resplendent verb, when creating his masterpieces. Mining the libraries, newspaper archives and elderly residents of the Jewish communities of Brooklyn for material to his epic novels, Barry reminded himself of what his dad always said, “Only through suffering can you become great.”

Oh, how Barry had suffered! Owner of Hiram’s Used Cars & Parts, chugging Schlitz— “The Beer That Made Milwaukee Famous”—  Barry’s father had left nothing to chance: He made sure everyone in his household suffered equally, assigning chores, badgering and sniping at them from morning to night. “Such a shiftless, lazy lot I have been blessed with in this family!” Hiram bellowed many an evening, smashing a meaty hand on the dining room table’s damask tablecloth. Barry wanted to be a schreiber, a writer. He couldn’t wait to leave behind the parochialism of Wisconsin. “You, Barry! Tomorrow I have six cars I’ll let you wax for me. And don’t spare the elbow grease, my boy. Only through suffering can you become great!”

And behold, the magic worked. He became “the greatest Jewish writer of his generation,” to quote the New York Times. Barry knew he had the Devil’s own luck. Timing is everything. Born after Saul Bellow, Bernard Malamud and Philip Roth but before Nathan Englander, Jonathan Safran Foer and Gary Shteyngart, for a few short years in the 1990’s, Barry Lipowitz had the entire field of Jewish-American lit all to himself. Fuckoutahea!

Going where the work is, Barry moved to the Big Apple. The big publishing houses were in New York. Magazines had their headquarters in New York. Unless he intended to write for Playboy or the Sears Roebuck Catalog, Chicago was of no interest whatsoever. NYC was the place. It made his fortune.  Ever since completing his bildungsroman “Look Homeward, Bagel” straight out of college, Barry was considered the epitome of Page Six chic. It wasn’t his fault: Nature abhors a vacuum and Dave Barry insists on writing humor and living in southern Florida. (Plus, Dave Barry isn’t even Jewish. His wife is Jewish.) So forget happy. Despite impedimenta,  our hero drives a Mercedes, functions as a poster boy for Ted Baker leather derby kicks from London, lives on the Upper West Side and has Graydon Carter on speed dial. He’s just as at home texting Kanye as he is talking with Alan Dershowitz. What more could anyone ask???

Manhattan ain’t Milwaukee. Barry earns extra coin composing nouvelle vague translations of classics like Ernest Hemingway’s “The Sun Also Rises”— in Barry’s translation  Le soleil peut se lever sauf moi— although his French Canadian friends complain that Barry’s translations give them migraine. He has better luck translating Polish – English. Tomes like Polski Polutski Totenlager, a rare chronicle of the Holocaust examined from the Polish industrial perspective: how many tons of Polish steel, how much lumber, number of jobs created in liquidating the Jews, the effect of aerial carpet bombing on the Polish construction industry, etc. As a niche market, Holocaust lit is the gift that keeps on giving.

When Hitler murdered six million Jews, the world lost half a million writers. An entire subcontinent of literature was smothered in the cradle. Sans Adolf, we’d already have a cure for cancer, colonies on Mars and several million books in the style of Franz Kafka. Our loss.

And, of course, Barry also translates German pornographic novels under the pen name Ani Weinstein. Good money in pornography.

All that extra moolah helps pay for Barry’s meds: Imitrex for migraine, Zoloft for his obsessive/compulsive disorder, Prozac to control his autism and pyrimethamine treatments for Late-Onset Tay-Sachs disease. “You piss,” commented his Uncle Morty, “some of the world’s most expensive urine.”

The only people more into medicinal marijuana than Barry are empty-headed pot heads stumbling around the ‘hood with short term memory loss. They may do more blunt than Barry, but he surpasses them in enthusiasm. His dealer has even christened a new, high-end variety B. Liposuction in Barry’s honor. Until the Twin Towers fell, Barry liked to get stoned and take the elevator to the roof of the World Trade Center. The golden lobby, the whooshing ride, the dizzy elevation, the sky towering overhead and the view stretched out below were awe-inspiring. “Worth a toke,” he posted on the early travel site for pot heads TrippinUSA.org.

Because, of course, Barry is edgy. Who wouldn’t be, with a Ukrainian fireball for a mistress, and her threatening to release his emails, fmails and gmails on social media? He can commiserate with Hillary. He already has over 100,000 followers on Twitter.

As a denizen of Manhattan, he professes a burning nostalgia for all things 1980’s or from Crazy Eddie or the UK. Yellow plastic 45 rpm record inserts. His Sony Sports Walkman. Oxblood leather-bound drinking mugs.

Naturally, Barry teaches Creative Writing at NYU. Among other topics, his course Short Story 101 is a major draw. The intro:

“What makes a great short story? A great short story is one written by the editor’s nephew. All that love, joy, pride and affection make the words jump right off the page! ‘Bravo, Billy! You are an accomplished author!’ As for the rest of us, in the next thirteen weeks, we shall examine tips on how to express your thoughts and get into print…”

The course goes downhill from there.

Published in the New York magazines, Barry can’t understand how lesser lights can survive without a direct lifeline to New York editors. What is life but a series of business lunches and editorial meetings? True, the Avast Publishing empire now puts out a paltry 20 titles, but acquisition and consolidation have been the name of the game since Ronald Reagan was president. None of this can be laid at Barry’s doorstep, a 12-room duplex apartment on the Upper West Side overlooking the park. Magazines pay him in yen, riyals, shekels and Chinese renminbi, whatever currency dominates the bullion market of the moment.

As a New Yorker, Barry is constantly amazed to meet unsuccessful writers who live in burgs like Philadelphia, Cleveland or even Duluth. Of course their writing can’t be any good! They don’t live in New York City.

Barry knows writing. His most famous book, “Sonic Dicks,” mashes Portnoy’s Complaint with Moshe Dayan. All of the neuroses, cultural inhibitions and taboos of Judaism erupt in a cataclysm of embarrassment. “No one,” writes critic Chaim Solomon, “since Philip Roth, does it better.”

Barry’s latest creation is a superhero, part human, part amphibian, called Frogman.

For some reason, the U.S. Navy has complained.

Frogman’s secret identity by day is the loudmouthed, anti-Latino real estate developer T. Rump.

For some reason, Reince Priebus of the Republican National Committee has complained.

Froggy lives in Anywhere, U.S.A. The State of Indiana complained.

Frogman plays in a supergroup, The Republicans: “Lyin’ ” Ted Cruz on vocals, King of Cool “low energy” Jeb on guitar, “Little Marco” on bass, keyboards by Kasich, Frogman on drums. Their first album, Don’t Pull No Trump, goes platinum.

When not staving off rampant 14-year-old girls, Frogman toils on a secret history of Atlantis.

“Not since Donovan has soft core had a more adept practitioner,” T. Rex wrote in the New York Times, equating Barry’s prose with Leitch’s music. Hey, when you got it, flaunt it!

 

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NEWSFLASH, NYC – The world-famous author Barry Lipowitz is going to once again engage with his public, this time employing revolutionary wordsmiths and scribblers in a visit to Israel to write The Great Anti-Israeli Novel, short story, polemic, poem or other (check one). He announced his intention this morning at Cicero’s in the Village. Travel will be in June 2016.

The money for the trip comes from his completion of the screenplay to the tentpole movie Apocalyptic Frenzy 2. Release date TBA. To Be Announced.

Benji Books is publishing. Barry won’t travel without a pre-publishing agreement and a written contract. “We’re all Jewish,” insists CCO Marvin Fleischmann, your short, rotund, goateed and balding classic New Yawker. Duds by Sabatini of London. His office is a third carbon copy of Graydon Carter’s at Vanity Fair, right down to the teak bookshelves. No Canadian gonif  is going to outdo Marvin Fleischmann! “Judaism isn’t the issue,” insists Marvin. “We need a pin big enough to pop Bibi Netanyahu’s balloon.”

“Shit yeah!” agrees Barry, dressed for success in JoS. A. Bank. “We trippin’. Na’ mean? We want to use fiction to go where non-fiction cannot easily tread. We want to do for Israeli politics what the anthology ‘In the Field of Fire’ did for Vietnam.”

“Never heard of it,” exclaims Marvin.

“I have,” says Dan White, CFO at Benji Books. “You’re going to write science fiction?”

“No, no, no,” insists Barry, deeply shaken. Science fiction??? Jesus sweet flushing Christ! “No! We want to let each author’s Israeli experience determine in what direction his or her writing shall go,” Barry gulps. Hmmm, still not enough. “There are over 600,000 settlers in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Somebody has to pay them a visit! We’re seeking the Maya Angelou of the pro-Palestinian movement. The Uncle Tom’s Cabin of Israel. The ‘I have a dream… Let my people go!’ conundrum. What effect has the BDS— the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement—  had on the Israeli economy… at street level? Israeli apartheid. Occupation of the Left Bank. The separation barrier. Military tribunals. Child inmates in Israeli prisons. Nightlife in Hebron. West Bank hip-hop. Palestinian soccer teams,” he stammers hopefully, blushing.

The moment of truth.

“We’ll do it!” Marvin decides.

YES!!!!!!!

Examining the sales figures for Barry’s books on a paper in front of him, Dan White chews on a No. 2 pencil, makes calculations in the margins, hums and haws, and finally says “Okay, I’ll add your project to the year’s budget.”

Never has success tasted so sweet, at least not since the last time he got a publishing agreement.

“I take it our purpose is to expedite the peace process?” asks Dan White.

“What?” scoffs Barry. “Peace now? Very funny.”

“Still, Nathan in France is not that enthusiastic over a translation,” Marvin complains.

“Oh? What percentage did you offer?” asks Barry. He loves the minutia of book publishing.

“Money’s not the problem,” grouses Marvin. “The Jews of France are getting chased out of the country by armed attacks from Muslim fanatics. The last thing Nathan wants is to fan the flames with a book critical of Israel. Sorry, Barry, but there it is. Bad timing.”

He can’t believe what he’s hearing.

“We can print in France,” continues the publisher, scratching his beard energetically, “but sales must be limited to other countries in the French-speaking world: Mozambique, Morocco, Tunisia, Quebec.”

“Meh!” complains Barry, putting his feet up and lighting his Turkish meerschaum pipe in the shape of a lion’s head, using an engraved, refillable butane lighter that is the pinnacle of retro chic. “Meh and double meh!”

Barry’s gang are to be the guests of Crazy for Peace, LLC. “The Crazies” take a holistic view of the peace process, combining Kropotkin anarchy with contributions from the oil industry.

Compare them to Peace Now, which developed out of the 1978 Israeli-Egyptian peace talks: Faced with the collapse of negotiations, 348 reserve officers and soldiers from Israeli combat units published an open letter to the prime minister advocating for peace. Thus was born a movement, as tens of thousands of Israelis expressed their support. Eventually, Peace Now became convinced that the only viable solution is the creation of a Palestinian state adjacent to Israel on the land captured in the 1967 war. Undeterred by suicide bombers, the First and Second Intifada uprisings, the 2014 war in Gaza or the current wave of stabbings, Peace Now continues to advocate for Palestinian rights in opposition to war and military occupation.

Crazy for Peace can’t be bothered with all that. Instead, they invite Barry Lipowitz and his Israeli wife Erit Sameach to gather a group of like-minded leftwing authors and come visit Israel to “see for yourselves the horror of living under the occupation.” As a PR move, as an antidote to the rightwing Likud government of Prime Minister Benyamin “Bibi” Netanyahu, as a cudgel for peace, beating it into people’s heads with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer.

Barry knows he’s lucky to have Erit. He met his future wife, a stunning brunette, when speaking at Columbia’s Hillel. He grilled her the entire time, he couldn’t take his eyes off her. She sat in the front row with her dynamite gams crossed, smiling through his entire speech, smiling, until the Q and A when she raised her hand and asked “Why do American males think their sexual hang-ups will interest female readers?”

Ouch! How do you answer that? Clueless, Barry fronted a response, referring genially to “Goodbye, Columbus” and “Portnoy’s Complaint,” Saul Bellow, John Updike, and the long tradition—  since Sigmund Freud— of mixing genitalia fixation with sexual misunderstanding.

The gene pool of Vienna has produced some amazing-looking women. Fashion model beautiful, Erit’s facial features don’t really add up: the high forehead, the enormous hazel eyes with heavy lids, a fleshy nose, a chin like a golf ball. With such bizarre components, you would expect disaster. Instead, people go gaga over her. An ugly duckling, she was taunted as a child. She stalks through her adult life like a Viking.

And she’s an author in her own right. Her latest tome is entitled Three Shades of Green: An Ironic Portrait of the IDF. Over 600,000 copies sold. On this trip, she intends to write about the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Lebanon, where Christian Phalangists closely allied with Israel massacred between 762 and 3,500 Palestinian and Lebanese Shiites in three horrendous days of slaughter in September 1982.

 

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At Kennedy Airport, Barry leaves a sulking Erit in the waiting area and crosses the concourse to the bookstore. Finding his latest novel in paperback, he brings it to the counter. The olive-skinned young lady in a hijab standing behind the counter raises her bar code scanner like a black plastic ray gun. “Do you want to buy that?” she asks.

“Actually, I’m the author,” Barry blushes, showing her the Annie Leibovitz photo on the back cover. “That’s me. I always check sales at airport bookstores.” This doesn’t seem to impress her much. Hmmm. Giving her his most boyish grin, he starts over. “How are sales?”

“You want to know how many copies of that book we’ve sold?” she asks, a bored expression on her face.

Really, the quality of sales help these days…! “Yes, please,” he replies.

Waiting, he watches her beep the bar code with her laser gun. He watches her check  the computer screen above the cash drawer. “We’ve sold 23 copies of that book since we got it in on April 12th.”

April 12th! ONLY 23 COPIES in TWO MONTHS!!! Obviously Barry needs to contact Marvin Fleischmann at Benji Books right away and demand a major ad campaign. “Thank you!” he sputters, anxious to get away from this place of catastrophic ignominy. If only there was someplace he could go hide his face, red with shame, but where do you hide on an airport concourse teeming with people, baggage, children in strollers, flight attendants and janitors, all milling around? Everywhere you turn, people! Barry slinks into the Men’s Room and locks himself in a stall until the tremors subside. Should he take a Xanax? Nah, he tends to zone out. He might miss his flight.

Seated in the EL AL aircraft, he and Erit share the courage of their convictions, wearing matching blue denim jackets and slacks. It’s who they are. While Erit angrily turns the pages of fashion magazines, Barry stares at his tablet, reviewing his list of participants. He frowns. B.L. & E.S., Patrice Gerard the Black Muslim, Sir Razor Babcock from Wales, Ethiopian Oso Buko, Erik Andersson the Swede, journo Roger Kaminski, poetess Oki Nawa from Japan and fashionista Barbie Quint. Are these the ideal candidates for this writing challenge? Could he have chosen better? Are they going to write the pants off him, filling him with regret? If they win the Nobel Prize or a Hollywood screenplay, will they share it with Barry or will he become a footnote in history, a mere asterisk? “Oh, I remember him, he helped Oso Buko become the renowned international author he is today. I have no idea whatever happened to old Lefkowitz,” people will say. Gripping his stylus in a palsied hand, he wonders and worries, rivers of sweat soaking his collar, a vein in his temple pulsing madly. If the plane crashes today, the world will mourn his passing. Who can say that will still be the case a year from now? What new works are Englander, Safran Foer and Shteyngart cooking up?! But, of course, Barry knows he shouldn’t tempt fate by dreaming of plane crashes. Let others worry and dream of train crashes! He’ll worry and dream of winning the Nobel Prize. Although Swedish meatballs give him aggravated bowel syndrome. And he’s not sure which capital has the most beautiful women, Stockholm or Oslo. A 30-foot motor launch would be good to own, touring the fjords of Norway, surrounded by leggy Norwegian blondes in bikinis. Or not, as the case may be. Is it true Icelandic women are frigid or is that just the climate? Do Finnish women come equipped with wi-fi and, if so, what is their bandwidth? What did Hillary know and when did she know it? All Barry can do is sigh and say, “Thank G-d for Google!”

 

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Erit fidgets, napping fitfully. Barry reads Englander’s latest book. As far as Barry is concerned, the dude is a total twit, always focusing on the most mundane aspects of human life, employing literary devices that died with Papa Hemingway. Turning the pages of a first edition, Barry discovers a typo on page 14. And a misplaced participle on page 27! And the dude calls himself a Jewish author! Had he suffered for his art? Englander had never suffered like Barry had suffered. Barry had been forced to eat pork in high school. Pork chops! Ribs! Barry had had to eat ribs. He knew what true suffering was all about. Ribs.

They’ll be landing in Israel in time to celebrate Shavuot, but how do you celebrate Shavuot? Barry checks the anthology section of his digital calendar. The holiday commemorates G-d giving the Torah to the Israelites assembled at Mount Sinai. What possible noisemaker do you use to celebrate that??? Aha! It’s also a celebration of the first fruits of the season. You bring Bikkurim—portions of wheat, barley, grapes, figs, pomegranates, olives and dates— to the temple to be burned in sacrifice. Quelle horreur! he muses. That and $10 will get you a frappuccino at Starbucks.

A member of their team, chrome dome mulatto lawyer Patrice Gerard, author of The Art of the Spiel, sits two rows back, looking more hip than Al Pacino. Dressed in a $2,000 suit, an ardent follower of Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam, he takes pride in being gangsta. Telegenic, he does guest commentary on TV talk shows. He’s also very tall. Annoyed at Hillary for wiping clean her email server, he suggests loudly enough for everyone to hear, “I ain’t squintin’, Hillary Clinton! This campaign, other people pay the Bill un-amended. Listen, bitch, no pun intended. Amidst the crowds an’ all the cheers, H.R. Clinton should go to jail for a hundred years! Whether or not she’s pilloried, obstruction of justice, yer name be Hillary.”

“Word,” declares his seat mate.

When the stewardess rolls the snack cart down the aisle, Barry absentmindedly requests peanuts and a Diet Coke.

“We’re all out of peanuts,” replies the stewardess, busy popping the tab on the Coke can and filling a plastic cup with ice.

“Get the fluff outta here!” Barry tells her. “Real talk, didn’t you restock the plane in New York or somethin’?”

“Well, we’re not really out of peanuts,” admits the stewardess with a pained expression. “EL AL no longer serves them since so many Americans have peanut allergies.”

Well, well, leave it to Bieber! These Israelis are definitely yanking Barry’s chain. So much for Israeli democracy, the great, liberated Israeli people, the booming Tel Aviv economy, he thinks, settling for pretzels. You can’t even get a token bag of peanuts!

 

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That first evening, jet-lagged, they are the guests of a lefty Israeli screenwriter named Dan who looks like a shoe salesman with glasses. Barry met him at a writers’ conference in Chicago about a million years ago. Dan takes them to a trendy Tel Aviv night club just off the beach. “Traditionally, Israeli war movies portray soldiers as victims, deeply scarred by the violence they experience,” he tells them. “Carrying on the Polish tradition, angst and ennui are very big in Israeli film.” Considering how successful Dan has been as a screenwriter, with credits up the kazoos, Barry keeps his mouth shut.

Erit shares no such scruples. “Really?” she demands archly in Hebrew in that voice of hers that can damage fruit at fifty yards. “What of the true victims of Israeli violence? Children blown up in drone attacks on the beaches of Gaza, in clear view of the international press? Whole families whose homes are bulldozed to punish a single miscreant. Entire neighborhoods in Gaza reduced to rubble!”

“That’s true, but the Palestinians in Gaza aren’t that keen on letting us use their demolished neighborhoods as film sets,” Dan points out, taking a sip of wine to hide his smile. “I keep waiting for Gaza Films to make Attack of the Mole People.”

“Well, really…” replies Erit self-righteously. It’s so hard to find an Israeli intellectual you can converse with! Everybody talks non-stop and no one stops to listen.

A writer is firstly an observer of human behavior. Barry gazes around the crowded room, observing. At the bar, he notices a three-way conversation among patrons who look the worse for wear. “Here’s mud in your eye,” says an American dressed in desert khaki.

“This, too, shall pass,” replies an Aussie, perspiring in a charcoal gray suit.

“Por la patria,” insists a Spaniard, dressed in chinos and a designer work shirt.

The plaque above the bar says “We trust in Jehovah. Everyone else pays cash.”

Bellying up to the bar belligerently, Barry accosts them. “Kanye tell me?” he asks. “You claim this is the Jewish homeland, but 20% of the population are Arabs.”

“No one denies there are Arab citizens of Israel. They have their own representatives in the Knesset,” nods the Aussie agreeably. “London has a Muslim mayor, mate, but I wouldn’t hold my breath about anything like that happening here.”

“Listen,” insists the American blearily in a flat mid-western drawl. “There’ve been Jews in this part of the world for 3,000 years. It was the Emperor Hadrian who, in 79 A.D., expelled the Jews after the Bar Kochba uprising. It was Hadrian who changed the name of the place from Israel to Syria Palestine, in an effort to eradicate any trace of the Jews.”

“Don’tcha know who the Palestinians are?” growls the Spaniard. “The Palestinians are the Philistines! Same dudes as in the Bible. Samson and Delilah. No wonder the Palestinians won’t give an inch! The Jews are the ones who brought down their temple! They’re holding a 2,500-year-old grudge!”

Faced with such a compact wall of opinion, Barry takes his drink and returns to his own people, “Who’s the bloody yank?” buzzing in his ears.

“I’m going to write a screenplay about Hillary Clinton,” Dan proposes. “There’s plenty of angst and ennui there.”

“People say Hillary’s transgender,” exclaims Erit. “That’s why she wears the pants in the family. I don’t know, I’m not a gynecologist, but still…”

“She’s a cyborg,” suggests Barry. “As seen on TV.”

Wandering in from outside, Sir Razor Babcock, part of Barry’s entourage, sits down at their table. A John Cleese look-alike, a Welsh nobleman and acclaimed Holocaust denier— affectionately known as “Shiraz”— he is the author of over 200 thumbnail biographies of theatrical cast members published in the British edition of Playbill. Additionally, he is author of the seminal study Hitler – Man, Machine, Mayhem. Based on Hitler’s incarceration as political prisoner in the fortress at Landsberg in 1924, Shiraz’s work breaks new ground psychologically. After all, it was at Landsberg that Hitler dictated the ever-popular book Mein Kampf. In English, My Struggle. Until it expired in 2015, the copyright was owned by the Bavarian state government. Frowned upon in America, Mein Kampf remains a major read in India, Russia, Sweden and Turkey. A new, annotated edition has just been released in Germany. Hitler’s original title was Men Discovering Love in the Trenches. His advisors in the National Socialist German Workers’ Party talked him out of this. Instead of passionate homoerotic encounters, editor Rudolf Hess insisted Hitler focus on politics, international relations, race, national aspirations and revenge. Good old Hitler! What he lost in magazine serialization, he more than made up for at the ballot box. “Erzählende-  oder Sachliteratur?” asked Hitler. Fiction or non-fiction? Having had some success getting published in the Südbayerische Zeitung , a wannabe novelist, he’s a young man with a temper who has his whole life ahead of him. So what if the Beer Hall Putsch didn’t go so well? He’ll know better next time! My Struggle also marks the last occasion he ever takes advice from his fellow party members. After that, everything has to be done his way. He even designs the uniforms for Hitlerjugend, the Hitler Youth. The rest is history.

Heavily fortified on anti-depressants, Shiraz gaily shouts, “Bring on these sheenies and we’ll all have a bundle of fun!”

“I know who you are, I’ve read all your books,” exclaims a tall woman with breasts like twin tennis balls pushing against her blouse.  Approaching their table, she hands over a napkin for Barry to autograph. “Your novel Milwaukee helped me survive secondary school…”

“Delighted, delighted,” Barry assures her, scrawling his name.

“…and not in a good way,” finishes the woman. Taking the napkin, she stalks back to her table.

“Well, really! ” demands Erit, morally indignant for the both of them. Barry just assumes it’s a typically booze-fueled misunderstanding.

The entertainment is a young troubadour with a mountain of black hair, a wide open white shirt, a Star of David nestled amidst the hairs on his chest, black slacks and de rigeur leather sandals. He plays a 12-string, double-necked guitar, plugged into a Marshall amp. Puffing his P’s into the microphone, he belts out Israeli rock standards Barry has never heard of. On the break, he comes to their table. “Mee-zeh?” he asks Dan, smiling ferociously.

“A very well-known American writer. Greatest Jewish author since Pierre Salinger. Big money deal,” explains Dan, incandescent with postprandial glow.

“Hello,” says the performer, taking a seat next to Barry. “How do you like Israel?”

“We don’t! We’re here because internationally, Israel is a pariah. United Nation’s resolution 242—”

“Eh! Always the same kvetching. You are in the homeland of the Jews!” exclaims their new acquaintance. “Never again will Jews climb into cattle cars to be killed. Anything Israel does is based on the simple fact that most of our neighbors want to murder us. You don’t like that? Tant pis! Too bad! Nobody asked you to come!”

“We’re guests of Crazy for Peace.”

“Ugh!” grunts the entertainer. “Crazy for pizza.”

“No, no, Crazy for Peace,” Barry corrects him didactically, only to see that the dude is laughing at him. A group of Israelis come by and interrupt, informing Barry that the entertainer’s nickname is Jimmy Poisson, “Jimmy the Fish.” As slang,  they explain, it can also mean “Jimmy the Bully” or “Jimmy the Fag.” Barry doesn’t like him any better for it.

“Crazy for Pizza runs ads in the American Jewish press criticizing American armchair generals for their resolve to fight to the last Israeli,” exclaims Jimmy. He doesn’t look happy.

“What’s wrong with that?” demands Barry.

“Nu? I assume Crazy for Peace already has a plan to get the Palestinians to the negotiating table without preconditions. I assume Crazy for Peace also has a workable solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that guarantees both Palestinian sovereignty and Israel’s security. Bravo! Such brilliance should be rewarded. Please share the details!”

Oy gevalt! What a bully! Where does this guy get off knowing what’s in the American press? That’s the problem with the Internet, everybody examines everybody else’s dirty laundry. “Solutions are the responsibility of the government,” insists Barry.

Jimmy looks at him. Once. Twice. Raises an eyebrow sardonically. “Piss off, Jack!” he declares. He then excuses himself to play another set. This time he includes Buffy Sainte- Marie’s The Universal Soldier and John Lennon’s Working Class Hero. The audience gives him a standing ovation.

According to the Theory of Transactional Analysis, people must know their position in the social hierarchy, otherwise chaos ensues. People are nice to Barry. Six blockbusters on the New York Times bestseller list does that. When people are rude, Barry dismisses them in his own mind as ignoramuses who have yet to crack open the New York Times bestseller list. Did Jimmy the Fag write The French Lieutenant’s Jewess? No, he did not! Barry did, netting a cool $750,000 advance in a bidding war that left blood knee-deep in the corridors of New York publishing.

Jimmy the Fish is followed by an Israeli grunge metal band called Psyche & the Delics. “Very poppy in the West Bank,” explains Dan, shouting to be heard.

Obviously, it’s time to get gully and show a little street cred. Exhibiting his Argonite-5030 wristwatch by Shinola of Detroit, Michigan with a Star of David embossed on the black leather strap, Barry explains, “I know what it is to return to Capistrano. Other American Jews sit at the Pesach table and proclaim ‘Next year in Jerusalem!’ I say ‘Do the bossa nova!’ That’s all she wrote… Disco!”

Dumbfounded, the other patrons just stare. Never underestimate the star power of a Shinola watch! Reliable in any situation.

That night, under the covers, he and Erit screw passionately, holding onto one another for dear life. “Israel does this to me,” she whimpers, covered in sweat. “The contradictions fuck up my bodily functions something awful.”

 

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At the breakfast table the next morning— rolls, hardboiled eggs, hummus, tomatoes and coffee— conversation is subdued at best. Rounding out their little group—  there, but nowhere in evidence— is Manhattan’s very own Barbie Quint. A syndicated columnist in the world of fashion, she’s  also a notoriously late sleeper.

“Look at this!” exclaims Oso Buko excitedly, his ebony black face glistening in anticipation. Having flown in from Ethiopia, he shows off a newspaper he purchased in the airport gift shop. “The front page of The Washington Post! A photo proclaiming ‘We love you, Muhammad.’ See! We are making progress already.” He seems incredibly proud.

“Få se,” replies Erik, the Swede. From Umeå in Swedish Norrland, he’s been invited along to give the European perspective. Economically dependent on Arab oil, the European Union hates Israel. Barry expects Erik to focus on war crimes. “Wait a minute,” Erik points out, examining the photograph meticulously. “This is a funeral cortege for Muhammad Ali.”

While they hope Oso’s behavior may provide much-needed empathy— he is, after all, from Ethiopia and Ethiopians have heart— the gloom that descends upon the group is palpable. Passing the newspaper from hand to hand, they discuss options. It still isn’t too late to convert the trip into a vacation holiday at a beach resort in Netanya or Eilat. In the end, they decide to persevere.

 

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The Tel Aviv landscape seems very jarring, a mix of cars, blinding yellow sunshine, hustle and bustle, window displays, high fashion, glossy new buildings, decrepitly old ones, towering high-rises and four-story apartment houses shaped like shoe boxes with rusting balconies staining their façades. This sure ain’t Brooklyn, Toto!

“Hello. I’m your guide,” says a clean-shaven young man. “Benny Ben Ami.” Barry can see that the young fellow is the perfect choice for the assignment: Seared in the crucible of war, he’s dressed in Abercrombie & Fitch. “How do you like Israel?” he asks Barry.

“We like it just fine,” Barry answers, tired of fighting.

“Ha! What do you know?” scoffs Benny. “You’ve been here less than a day and you think you know the place? Rak rega! Just wait. No work for the younger generation, prices skyrocketing, endless war. Get used to it!”

“We’re here to protest all that,” complains Barry.

“Protest all you like, it won’t change a damn thing,” insists Benny sullenly.

Welcome to Israel, thinks Barry with a sigh.

Emphasizing the multi-cultural aspect of their visit, Crazy for Peace holds the welcoming ceremony in a Druze village halfway up Mount Carmel.  At this elevation, the air is refreshingly cool. A constant breeze, strong enough to snatch papers from their hands, hums in their ears. There are goats everywhere. Static from a P.A. system mounted on the bandstand wafts comically through the nearly deserted village. Barry’s group sits, huddled, on gray metal folding chairs originally cadged from the IDF. After five minutes of embarrassed inertia, Barry arises and climbs onto the stage. Approaching the microphone, he does the honors, breaking the ice:

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he declares. “And especially ladies…” Holy thirstbucket! Right away, he loses half the audience, the female half. He can see it in the spazzed out expression on their faces. Not kosher! Not kashrut! He’s got a lot riding on this speech. Scrambling, he explains himself. “You are the ones who read magazines. You are the brilliant minds attuned to the subtleties of American fiction. Remember, our ideology unites us. We are so far left, we consider Putin a reactionary… Chill out scrap!” Fucked, he gives it up and resorts to his notes, proclaiming, “K-i-x. We are Kix LLC. Kikes investigating existence. Kix. We are here in the Middle East— or le Proche-Orient, if you will— seeking peace. Some seek it here, some seek it there. It’s certainly a thrill. We’re crazy for peace! But enough about us. We’re not here to preach, but to learn…” Having said that, a captive audience, Barry drones on for another 25 minutes, listing Eastern European villages destroyed in the Holocaust, outlining the latest John Kerry peace initiative, comparing the rolling hills of the Galilee to his wife Erit’s breasts. He extols the quality of Jerusalem’s hashish and the strides made during the presidency of George H. W. Bush. “Synergy, the production here in Israel of commemorative tile plaques depicting the windmill and Wailing Wall of Jerusalem reached its peak during the George H. W. Bush administration. Those were the Good Old Days, followed by oppression and uprisings despite the Balfour Declaration or the Oslo Accords. Peace Now? Very funny.”

They still haven’t recovered from jet lag. Barry can see that Erit and the others keep nodding off. Quickly getting down to specifics, he announces: “As writers, people often ask us ‘Do we need G-d?’ I ask ‘Does G-d need us?’ Do we contribute anything special to life uptown?… Not a tirade, just a dissertation. As the late Muhammad Ali once told us, ‘The man who has no imagination stands on the Earth. He has no wings; he cannot fly.’ Now there was a storyteller! ‘Fly like a butterfly, sting like a bee!’ Or was it vice versa, ‘fly like a bee, sting like a butterfly…’? No doubt the answer will come to me.

“We Americans are willing to free eight dolphins from their imprisonment in the National Aquarium in Baltimore, Maryland, yet we allow the Palestinian people to remain under the yoke of Israeli aggression. Just because The Protocols of the Elders of Zion turned out to be a forgery by the Czar’s secret police, that does not absolve us Jews of all guilt.

“In conclusion, let us dedicate our efforts to the world’s most oppressed minority,” Barry proposes grandly.

“You think Palestinians are the world’s most oppressed minority?” asks Roger, nailing down any ambiguity. Red hair tufted like a squirrel, he wears a perpetual scowl on his sun-tanned face.

“Well, no— ”

“Black lives matter!” agrees Patrice Gerard, impressed at Barry’s acumen.

“I meant— ”

“You can’t mean Jews?!” wonders Benny the guide.

“No, no,” Barry stammers. Maybe a little call and response can’t hurt. Wake everyone up.

“He means gays!” answers Barbie Quint matter-of-factly. She works in fashion.

“Actually— ”

“It’s obvious he means Muslims!” shouts Oso Buko, smiling in agreement.

“Er… ” gulps Barry. As a rhetorical flourish, this device is turning into a disaster, he thinks in dead panic as the group’s cohesion splinters before his eyes.

“Poor people!” suggests Roger.

“The idle rich…” counters Barbie.

“The idle poor…”

“MSM, the mainstream media?”

“Trump supporters!”

“Mel Gibson?” asks Benny.

“Drug dealers!”… “Drug users…” “Narcs!” they conjecture, focusing briefly on narcotics.

“Who the hell is he talking about?” blurts Erik, the Swede, angrily.

“Children!” declares Erit. As Barry’s wife, she should know. Additionally, children are an issue in their marriage: They don’t want any. Little tykes would slow down their lifestyle.

“Really, I was thinking women as the world’s most oppressed minority,” Barry wails, flapping his arms.

There’s a long pause, while the group digests this information. Surveying their frumpy expressions, the outcome doesn’t look promising.

“This shows that mankind oppresses just about everybody at one time or another!” explains Patrice, standing and addressing the group. Mercifully, he’s solved the problem.

“To Holy Land Tours,” declares Barry, “we say: ‘Behold! One man’s vacation is another man’s sojourn into the crucible of Hell. Bring on the bus, you motherfuckers!’ ”

Not understanding half of what they said, their host, Jamal Kumquat— squat, sporting a purple fez, a black Hitler moustache hiding his upper lip— welcomes them effusively. “We Druze produce goat cheese,” he declares boomingly, “but let nothing curdle our relations!” Opening a cardboard box, Jamal releases a white dove, symbolizing peace. Its pink albino eyes staring nervously, it flutters a few feet and crashes to the ground, exhausted. “Didn’t anybody test fly the dove?” Jamal can be heard asking his staff bitterly. An embarrassing moment. “Who are we?” he cries incredulously. “John Kerry?”

 

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Even if Jerusalem is only three hours away by bus, Barry is damned if he’s going to listen to Arabic zither music blaring from the loudspeaker above each seat. Sitting next to Erit in a row halfway back, facing the emergency window, it takes a while to get Benny the guide’s attention.

No problem, of course, since Barry and Erit have their adages down pat: Don’t sweat the small stuff (and it’s all small stuff). U R what U eat. A penny saved is a meaningful opportunity indefinitely postponed. The Israeli occupation of the West Bank is a crime against humanity.

“Yo, compadre,” he eventually explains to Benny, all but shouting in his ear. “Peep this. Enough with the audio Chinese water torture. Gotchu?”

“Torture is forbidden under Article 3 of the Geneva Convention,” Benny replies uncertainly, looking about 10 years old.

“That’s why I want it to stop! ” seethes Barry Lipowitz. “You’re turning me into a frothing militarist.”

“Whoa, what?”

“Stop the music! I want to get off!”

“The recorded music?”

“The same,” he sighs.

“Okay,” Benny replies doubtfully. Five minutes later, after consultation with Shmuel, the driver, Benny returns down the aisle to inform Barry, “It’s not our bus. It’s a rental. We have no idea where the button is for the sound system. Listen, as soon as we reach a car park, I’ll ask someone and get it turned off.” Ever helpful, Benny hands him an unopened packet containing two E.A.R. yellow earplugs. “Just until we reach Jerusalem,” Benny assures him. “That’s Maya Nasri doing the singing, by the way. Very poppy Lebanese songstress. A total fox. Sexy bod and lots of soul.”

Frustrated, Barry jams the earplugs into his ears.

An appointment has been made to visit the Knesset and confer with various pols. Batman vs Superman vs Mayor de Blasio. Finally, a building that doesn’t look like it was erected in the last two weeks!

“Knesset, huh?” sneers Barbie Quint. A petite strawberry blonde, garrulous, breathtakingly anti-Semitic, she’s convinced the Jews control everything. Everything. Maybe not on purpose, but still… Caustic, it makes sense that she has penned the Sniper’s Cave series, novels that explore the lives of Rock, Tom, Bob, Rip, Tim and Bill. Members of a top secret U.S. government sniper unit, they spend most of their time shooting white supremacists and sniping at one another. Their glamorous young wives shop, gossip and cook, taking up at least half of every book. Women love this series: Ostensibly about military hunks, there are a lot of really good fashion tips and some dynamite recipes. You get the best of both worlds, fantastic sex and beef Stroganoff. Nobody ever goes hungry in a Barbie Quint novel.

When they arrive, half the Knesset is feasting on cupcakes provided by the von Dreck family. Until recently, they ran a bakery on Ben Yehuda Street in Tel Aviv called The Habsburger Palais. “It’s a shame they had to close,” says Knesset member Yuri Schwartz. “They were very supportive of Israeli politics. This stabbing intifada is too much for them. They’re moving back to Vienna. During World War Two, they did support the Nazi regime, so it’s not really surprising—”

“WAIT!” demands Erit. “Vienna?! Supported the Nazis??? Don’t you see a contradiction?”

“No-o,” Schwartz answers slowly, considering. As wide as he is tall, his physique doesn’t help his argument. A true activist, in younger years he planted trees in Israel in order to have something to which he could chain himself in protest. Thirty years in politics, however, has left him a cynic. “I think the von Drecks are your classic conformists. Like many people, they simply feel most comfortable supporting whoever is in power. WTF, half of us Israelis feel that way! You go along to get along.”

Gritting his teeth, fists bunched in his pockets, Barry doesn’t know where to begin to refute this windbag. Calling him a Quisling is meaningless and the term “collaborator” lost all credibility with the dissolution of the French Resistance after World War Two. This discussion is totally loopy.

That evening, swatting at sand flies, he and Erit watch the sun sink ironically into the sea. “This reminds me of the movie Beach Blanket Bingo with Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello,” he suggests. When you got it, flaunt it.

“It’s the same setting sun as in Gaza, just a few miles down the coast,” Erit reminds him. “We’re free, they’re not.”

Mad hungry, they march into town to find a halfway affordable restaurant.

 

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Things look brighter the next day. “Shalom and welcome to Eretz-Israel,” intones Erit’s cousin Ozzy, toasting them with long-stemmed glasses of Carmel wine. The four of them— Barry, Erit, Cousin Ozzy and Cousin Shlomo— sit around a glass coffee table in the cousins’ apartment in Ramat Gan. Sumptuously furnished, it’s hard not to like. The brothers, brown-skinned and bushy-haired, could be twins. Erit has given Barry their backstory: Both men had been married. Ozzy was divorced, Shlomo a widower. Shlomo’s wife died in a suicide bombing. A Palestinian insurgent climbed onto a bus, detonated his suicide vest and took everyone else on board with him. By the time the fire department put out the blaze, only the skeletal frame of the bus remained.

Barry finds himself lusting after their intricately carved and gilded wall art. These Israelis! You can’t love ’em and you can’t hate ’em. “Israel has the dirtiest politics in the world,” he declares brightly. “Ehud Olmert, former mayor of Jerusalem and an ex-prime minister, just went to prison for bribery and corruption. He was preceded by a long and sorry list of similar officials, including former Israeli President Moshe Katzev, who sits incarcerated for rape and sexual harassment. He got seven years. It does make you wonder.”

“Those are unusual cases,” insists Ozzy, while Shlomo  eyes Barry with a bemused expression of indignation on his face. “I know our Erit. You little twits are pre-disposed to hate everything about Israel. The two of you are yenems zi yidden to use the Yiddish, ‘somebody else’s Jews,’ practicing a brand of Judaism with unusual rituals we’ve never even heard of. We call you self-loathing Jews.”

“Fuhgeddaboudit! ” complains Barry plaintively. “That’s not even fair!”

“Typical Israeli aggression,” fumes Erit.

“I’m an American Jew,” Barry explains. “Every time Israel causes trouble, I get it full in the face. Tell Netanyahu to stop rattling people’s cages. Remember the old adage, ‘He who rattles the cage of the tiger soon ends up inside.’ Automatic, knee-jerk support of Israel is no longer guaranteed among America’s younger generation. Netanyahu has sharp elbows, but our head-bangers are more inclined to fist bump with the Palestinian underdog than the Israeli alpha dog.”

“How do you fist bump with a dog?” asks Shlomo, a furrow of consternation creasing his brow.

“On a dark desert highway,” counters Ozzy, “the dude with a flashlight is king.”

They drink.

“Israel is Likud,” insists Barry, sure of his politics. “Israel is rightwing.”

“Israel is rightwing,” agrees Shlomo. “We tried to make peace with the Palestinians by electing Ehud Barak in 1999 and look what that got us! The Second Intifada. Another Palestinian uprising. After that, people felt peace with the Palestinians wasn’t going to happen, so the pendulum swung the other way.”

“What about your country?” asks Ozzy. “Half the people hate Donald Trump, the other half hate Hillary Clinton. How can you criticize us?”

“Two wrongs don’t make a right,” hisses Erit. “Melania Trump is on our side! She isn’t anti-Semitic, she’s just pro-Palestinian. You don’t live in Manhattan, you wouldn’t understand.”

A year ago, Barry wore a Trump tee to be ironic. Since then, the joke got old. “Electoral politics in America are based on a 240-year tradition of democratic representation and States’ rights,” he explains, feeling like a pompous ass. “Donald J. Trump ignores all that. A failed businessman, he’s an economic predator. A Manhattanite, half of what he says is bringing the cray-cray, the other half is high-lining. Like Erit says, if you’re not from around the way, you wouldn’t understand. Trump attacks minorities, opposes immigration, insults women, supports white supremacists, ignores the Constitution and threatens democracy. But he might be good for the Jews.”

“According to The Economist,” Ozzy points out, “a Trump presidency would be riskier to international trade than an armed conflict in the South China Sea, the European Union falling apart or even jihadist terrorism. The man has no standing.”

“As every schoolchild learns, America leads the world. We contribute three billion dollars a year in military aid to Israel,” counters Barry.

“Of course,” Ozzy replies. “Our two countries have a special relationship. We Israelis appreciate your help. If there’s anybody you wish to see while you are here, we can probably arrange the introduction. Israel is a small country in that respect. Everybody knows someone who knows someone.”

“I’m sure that won’t be necessary,” replies Erit icily, setting down her wineglass on the coffee table vehemently enough to make it ping.

The cousins are just like Erit’s parents! The same damn thing, endlessly solicitous, constantly asking what they need, consistently offering to help. When Ozzy announces, a concerned look on his face, “We have a rooftop apartment you can use for a longer stay,” Barry knows it’s time to leave. The last thing they want to do is become beholden to these people!

“We’re here to see how our money is being spent in the West Bank,” he exclaims.

The cousins suggest lunch at a Sbarro pizzeria. Erit spots the obvious reference: Everyone knows a Sbarro was the site of a 2001 Palestinian suicide bombing that claimed the lives of 15 Israelis and left 130 wounded. Everyone knows that! Typical political propaganda! As if there were no other pizzerias they could choose! Sbarro is synonymous with terrorist attacks and fresh stromboli, she silently frets. When Ozzy hands Barry a pack of Noblesse, the high-end Israeli cigarette, clearly he hopes that Barry will succumb to lung cancer. That cigarette has the highest tar and nicotine content of any cigarette on the Israeli market! Insidious, conniving Israelis, they are positively Machiavellian. No wonder the Palestinians can never “get their land back,” as they so aptly put it. All of Israel, to boot.

Sighing, Barry tries again. “I am J Street. I am pro-Israel,” he insists. “The 1946 borders.”

“You mean the Palestinian Mandate?” guffaws Ozzy. “Aren’t you the root and bow man! Tear the country out by its roots, will you? Zeh lo tov!”

Shlomo isn’t laughing. “We’re not stupid. We know who our friends are. In every conflict, J Street sides with the Palestinians. Saying they are pro-Israel doesn’t make J Street a Zionist organization. Pro-Palestinian, yes. Pro-Israel, no.”

“Whassup?” asks Barry, impervious to criticism.

“Let’s clear up the mystery of why there’s no two-state solution,” Shlomo proposes with the finality of an ax chopping wood. “The Palestinians want for their future state the entire dagger-shaped land labeled on western maps as ‘Israel.’ Every centimeter, every dunam of land. It’s what they teach their children in their schools. That is the 800-pound gorilla in the room that everyone tries to ignore at peace conferences.”

“Everybody knows that already!” insists Erit, exasperated.

“I think,” opines Ozzy, “the Palestinians are like Ali Baba, looking for the magic incantation, the ‘Open Sesame,’ that magically will make all us troublesome Jews disappear.”

“You have to work with the hand you’re dealt,” claims Barry.

“I don’t get it,” Shlomo complains. “If the Palestinians take all the land, what happens to us?”

“Oh! Jews will be allowed to live in a modern, secular State of Palestine,” Erit chirps helpfully.

This statement is followed by a very pregnant pause.

“And who,” asks Ozzy, carefully choosing his words, “advocates that position?”

“I do!” cries Erit. “It’s my position, it’s Erit Sameach’s position. Nothing the Palestinians have done compares to the genocidal apartheid regime of Bibi Netanyahu, amply funded and supported by the U.S. Congress.”

“Twenty thousand rockets fired from Gaza?” asks Shlomo.

“That’s Gaza!”

“Knife attacks. Screwdriver attacks. Motor vehicles which Palestinians use to plow into groups of Israeli pedestrians?” asks Ozzy.

“Those are desperate acts by the disenfranchised!” explains Barry.

“BDS, the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement?”

“Economic warfare,” replies Barry breezily.

“And you call yourself pro-Israel?” scoff the cousins.

“Yerp! Certainly!”

“Call yourself whatever you like. You sound like an enemy,” Shlomo observes.

“Look at Jack, back to the attack! Why are you always attacking people?” Erit insists self-righteously.

“Yes, I know,” observes Ozzy. “When you get four Jews in a room, you hear five opinions. Everything in life is political.”

 

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Soldiers in khaki, rifles slung over their shoulders, patrol in front of the beachfront hotel in Tel Aviv. With the sun setting in the west, by the evening of the third day, it begins to irritate him. Approaching the young men, Barry asks them jocularly, “Is an attack imminent?”

“Hello!” answers one of the youngsters, not more than 20. “You are staying at this hotel?”

Barry shows them his passport and electronic key card. “Peace out!” he jokes. “All we are saying is give Frump a chance!”

“Cool beans! Go inside. Enjoy your stay,” replies the young man laconically, having exhausted his English.

Speaking Hebrew, Erit wades in, giving the soldiers what-for. They respond in kind. Roughly translated, they tell her, “Arab slut! Who are you talking to? Do what you are being paid for. Take your American john to his room and fuck his brains out.” Pointing to the revolving front door of the hotel, the soldiers stare angrily at the tourists. Sensing disaster in the making, the head bellhop in his fine uniform pushes open a pneumatic door from inside and beckons them welcomingly.

 

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That night, in their room, stretched out on the bed, Erit suffers a total meltdown. Barry has unpacked, but she hasn’t.  Your basic gypsy, Erit spends her whole life moving from place to place. She is always in the process of moving in, only to have circumstances change, ending in the proverbial eviction notice. No wonder she doesn’t finish unpacking! Superstitious, she thinks that if they never move in, they can’t be kicked out! Chirping “Oh, oh, oh!” breathlessly, she cries, drools and pounds the pillows. “The poor Palestinians!” she shouts. “It’s so frustrating! Fucking Israel!” Gyrating her hips, her face wet with tears, she pulls Barry to her. “Yes! Yes! Fuck me, Raoul!” she groans, blindly clawing at his neck, before descending into a smoldering, smoky finish with just a touch of erotic hysteria.

Barry does as his wife requests.