It just so happens that the only place serving kosher food anywhere near my office downtown happens to be Ofishel’s, on H Street, and, since strictly kosher is the only food Rabbi Mordechi Slivovitz will eat, that’s where he invited me for lunch today. Not that you can just walk into the place and order a meal, though. No, Ofishel’s doesn’t work that way, and if you want to eat there, then certain arrangements must be made, through Va’ad of Baltimore and the George Washington University Hillel. In short, you have to be kosher connected. But if there’s anyone who’s kosher connected here in the DC metro area, it has to be Rabbi Mordechi Slivovitz of Silver Spring, Maryland.
Such belly lox, smoked sable, whitefish salad, matzoh ball chicken soup, challa, kugel and brisket, you should die for, it was that good; with pickled green tomatoes, sweet-and-sour cabbage and roasted asparagus on the side, followed by an unforgettable apple-date bundt cake with hard sauce for dessert. Of course, I knew what my host was up to – there’s no way he can afford my hourly consultation rates, but Rabbi Slivovitz, like many others here inside the Beltway, knows that he can get me to provide world-class advice by purchasing me lunch at an appropriately special venue. So, about half way through the bundt cake, he got down to brass tacks.
“Tom,” he began, “it’s always a pleasure to have the opportunity to enjoy your company, but also, today, I have a favor to ask.”
“Ask away,” I replied, washing down a bite of bundt cake with a cup of coffee so perfectly prepared, you would marry the person who could make it for you every morning.
“Well,” he wound up for the pitch, “it’s about the British, and I figure, who in this town has their hooks into foreigners better than Tom Collins, what with him always dealing with them in his consulting business, nu?”
“Sure,” I allowed, “I probably deal with more types of foreigners than the State Department.”
“Exactly,” he smiled as he let fly, “and so when one of my congregation develops a problem with the British, you’re the one I want to ask what he ought to do about it; and, maybe help get that thing done, whatever it is, too.”
“One of your congregation?” I asked, a bit curious.
“A very prominent one,” he assured me. “He contributes a very considerable amount of money to the shul, and on a regular basis, too. Not to mention subsidizing my weekly radio show, ‘Im Yenna Veld mit Mordechi,’ which I broadcast every Sunday morning on the AM dial.”
“And what,” I inquired, “might be that gentleman’s problem with the British?”
“That their Home Secretary,” Slivovitz complained, “has placed his dearly beloved cousin’s wife’s brother-in-law’s sister’s nephew on a list of bad people who are not allowed into the United Kingdom!”
“And what,” I pried, “might the name of this person be, whom the British have summarily banned from their allegedly green and pleasant land?”
“Yekutiel Ben-Ya’acov,” Slivovitz slowly intoned, “most probably, better known to you as Mike Guzovsky.”
“Oh, yeah,” I exclaimed, “that list! The one with twenty-two names, sixteen of which British Home Secretary Jacqui Smith released to the press last Tuesday.”
“Right,” the good rabbi huffed, “a list with twenty-two people so bad on it, they wouldn’t even say who six of them are!”
“But we do,” I noted as I consulted my Blackberry, “know who the other fifteen are. Let’s see… there’s Abdullah Qadri Al Ahdal, former head of the Law Department at al-Medina University in Saudi Arabia. Seems he takes the Koran literally and expects everybody else to do the same. Then there’s Yunis Al Astal, a member of Hamas, who sits on the Palestinian Legislative Council. Here’s an interesting quote ‘Very soon, Allah willing, Rome will be conquered, just like Constantinople was, as was prophesied by our Prophet Muhammad. Today, Rome is the capital of the Catholics, or the Crusader capital, which has declared its hostility to Islam, and has planted the brothers of apes and pigs in Palestine in order to prevent the reawakening of Islam. This capital of theirs will be an advanced post for the Islamic conquests, which will spread through Europe in its entirety, and then will turn to the two Americas, and even Eastern Europe.’ Quite the visionary statesman, isn’t he?”
“That!” Slivovitz exclaimed, gesturing excitedly, “That, right there, is what we’re all up against these days! See what happens when you let Arabs participate in elections?”
“And then there’s Stephen Donald Black,” I continued, “white supremacist, former American Nazi and Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, founder of the Stormfront Internet forum in 1995, which many credit with being the very first major ‘hate site’ on the Web. Here’s an interesting thought of his, ‘Whites won’t have any choice but to take military action. It’s our children whose interests we have to defend.’ And speaking of kids, it says here that his son, Derek, was elected to the Palm Beach County, Florida, Republican Committee…”
“Right!” Slivovitz interjected. “See what happens when you let rednecks participate in elections?”
“This is strange,” I remarked. “British Home Secretary Jacqui Smith describes somebody named Wadgy Abd El Hamied Mohamed Ghoneim as ‘a prolific speaker and writer,’ but I can’t seem to find any references to a single book, essay or lecture cited anywhere on the Internet.”
“I’ve never heard of him either,” Slivovitz admitted, “but with a name like that, it’s no surprise he hates Jews.”
“Ah, well, not being able to read anything he’s written or said, I can’t really tell what or whom he might like or dislike, actually. Let’s see who else… okay, there’s Eric Gliebe, who apparently took over the National Alliance after its founder, William Pierce, author of ‘The Turner Diaries,’ died a while back. The NA runs a white-power publishing company, Web sites, and political organization, although it says here that the skinheads are revolting…”
“You’re telling me, the skinheads are revolting!” Slivovitz snapped.
“And here’s Safwat Hijazi,” I remarked, “an Egyptian television Imam who issued a fatwa giving approval for killing of Israeli military within the borders of Egypt. Seems he overlooked the fact that Egypt and Israel have a peace treaty in effect at the moment and therefore his fatwa constitutes treason. Now he’s saying the whole thing was a big misunderstanding.”
“Just you watch,” Slivovitz proclaimed, shaking his finger at me, “they’ll let him go with a slap on the wrist!”
“Then there’s Nasr Javed, a middle-tier official in the Pakistani Lashkar-e-Taiba organization,” I observed, “who, it says, makes a lot of inflammatory speeches about jihad, and… here’s Abdul Ali Musa, an American, born Clarence Reams, who heads up the Institute of Contemporary Islamic Thought chapter here in Washington. Former drug kingpin, did time in Leavenworth – gee, I mean, really, this guy couldn’t get a visa to visit the United Kingdom in the first place could he? Considering what he’s done, I wonder why they bothered excluding him for what he says…”
“Have you ever heard what he says?” Slivovitz demanded indignantly. “He blames the Jews for everything from slavery to the killing of Cock Robin. He’s totally meshugena!”
“Okay,” I shrugged, “I supposed they might as well have put him on the list, too. Who else do we have? All right, then, we’ve got Fred Waldron Phelps Sr. and his daughter, Shirley Phelps-Roper. Everybody in America knows them, of course – they’re the Christian fundamentalist nut cases who picket the funerals of fallen US military personnel shouting about how God hates homosexuals. And then there’s Samir Al Quntar.”
“Another Koran-thumping, camel-humping Arab!” Slivovitz fumed.
“Actually, while he may hump camels, he’s not exactly a Moslem. He’s a Druze. But again, he’s also been convicted of murdering a policeman in Israel, so it’s hard to imagine how he could ever get a visa to visit England. Now, how about this for a change of pace? Here’s Artur Ryno and Pavel Skachevsky – a couple of Russians who beat up foreigners and posted videos of the attacks on the Internet; arrested in April, 2007 for killing an Armenian. Ryno actually confessed to multiple murders, too. I can’t see how these guys are ever even going to get out of jail, much less Russia. And then there’s another Moslem cleric, Amir Siddique, deputy Imam of the Jamia Fareedia at the Red Mosque in Islamabad, Pakistan. It appears he escaped into the Swat Valley after the Pakistani Army routed the Taliban from the Red Mosque back in 2007. And oh, yeah, here we go – check this out! Michael Alan Weiner, a.k.a. ‘Michael Savage,’ the American conservative talk radio host.”
“I hear,” Slivovitz noted, “that he’s suing for defamation because the British put him on the list with those… those… monsters. You think maybe Mike Guzovsky ought to sue for defamation, too?”
“Ah, let’s see,” I murmured as I keyed Guzovsky’s name into my Blackberry. “Mike Guzovsky… follower of the radical American Zionist Rabbi Meir David Kahane, proponent of ‘Greater Israel,’ a territory spanning the area between the Tigris and Nile rivers. He’s a contact listing on Kahane.org, which is identified by the US Treasury Department as a terrorist organization. He publicly praised Yigal Amir, the assassin of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. He’s believed to be involved in secret Zionist military training camps, and currently lives with fellow Zionist radicals in a Jewish settlement on the West Bank. It seems to me,” I sighed, “that a defamation lawsuit for being called a terrorist sympathizer might be a pretty hard sell for somebody like him.”
“Why?” Slivovitz’ expression depicted complete disbelief. “Guzovsky’s never killed anybody, has he?”
“No,” I conceded, “he hasn’t. All he’s ever done is shoot his mouth off.”
“Just like that guy Savage,” Slivovitz insisted. “It’s all ‘blah, blah, blah, blah’ – freedom of speech, right?”
“Perhaps, but tell me,” I delicately inquired, “could you, by any chance, give me an idea what sort of action you have in mind with respect to this issue?”
“I certainly can,” Slivovitz proclaimed grandiosely. “I want you to use your influence with the British diplomatic community to get Mike Guzovsky taken off that list!”
Sadly, I shook my head. “I’m sorry, Rabbi, but if they just simply drop Guzovsky without any explanation, that would tend to invalidate all the other entries on the list. So I can’t argue that he should be taken off that list – unless, you understand, I can suggest another list for Her Majesty’s Government to put him on. It’s a question of saving face, you see.”
“All, right, all right, already, I get it,” Slivovitz responded reluctantly. “Diplomats – always with the credibility, the deniability, the fungibility, whatever. So get them to put Guzovsky on another list and call it something else. Is that too much to ask?”
“It wouldn’t appear so,” I acknowledged, “but don’t expect it to be easy. If, however, we stipulate to some particulars, I will have a much better chance of achieving your objective. Can we live with the fact that whoever is on the new list, they still can’t get into the United Kingdom?”
“Feh!” Slivovitz screwed up his face in disgust. “Who needs the UK anyway? Terrible food, it rains all the time, the English all have bad teeth and they bathe less than the French! Plus, all their beer is warm, and even their most expensive prostitutes are lousy in bed. Okay, so why should Guzovsky care if he never goes there? He’s going to miss Christmas at Westminster Abbey, the Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace or some treif bluebird over the goyishe white cliffs of Dover, maybe?
“And it would be a good idea,” I suggested, “to have an appropriate term for the individuals on the other list – does ‘Persons in Her Majesty’s Territorial Disfavour’ sound sufficiently euphemistic?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Slivovitz brayed, waving his arms in a dismissive manner, “a lot of striped-pants diplomat pilpul, that is; go ahead with it, then.”
“Very good. But a list,” I pointed out, “by definition, must have more than one member.”
Slivovitz shot me a nonplussed look. “So?”
“So,” I concluded, “it follows that we need to identify at least one other person on that list whom I can suggest the British move to the new list that will have Guzovsky on it.”
Slivovitz took a bite of bundt cake and sipped his coffee for a moment. “Seems obvious,” he pondered. “Ask them to put the other Jewish guy on it.”
“You mean,” I surmised, “Michael Savage?”
“Yeah,” Slivovitz nodded. “Him. He’s Jewish, from Brooklyn, New York, they say, and I hear he likes Israel, too.”
“Rabbi,” I cautioned, “with friends like Mike Savage, it may well be the case that Israel doesn’t need enemies.”
Slivovitz put down his coffee cup and leaned across the table to confront me. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about what Mike Savage talks about,” I clarified. “Did you know that when he found out about that list, he went on the radio and called the British Home Secretary a ‘pork eater’ and a ‘witch?’ Then he suggested that his alleged ‘eight to ten million listeners’ cancel plans for travel to England and boycott goods from the United Kingdom. Then he complained that the UK has banned him, but not Kim Jong Il or Hugo Chavez. In addition, he accused the British Government of ‘painting a target on his back’ by associating him with murderers.”
“Well,” Slivovitz excused, leaning back in his chair thoughtfully, “he probably just lost his temper. Under such circumstances, I think anybody could.”
“That kind of megalomaniacal, paranoid raving, however, is hardly the exception,” I warned. “Savage has characterized post-Obama America as a ’growing fascistic society;’ claimed that undocumented aliens bring ‘bedbugs, cholera, and other diseases’ into the United States; called former Labor Secretary Robert Reich ‘a cockroach;’ called Perez Hilton ‘a sick, fat pervert’ and ‘a piece of human waste with eyes;’ claimed that ‘ninety percent of the people on the Nobel Committee are into child pornography and molestation;’ and called Jimmy Carter a ‘Communist, anti-American bastard,’ and a ‘war criminal,’ and said that Carter ‘is who caused world wide Islamic terrorism to proliferate around the globe.’ He’s also used his radio program to promulgate his belief that autism is ‘a fraud’ and ‘a racket,’ and claims that, in the past, minorities were coached to have their children fake symptoms of asthma in order to obtain extra welfare payments and education benefits, and that now ‘the illness du jour’ is autism, which is being used for the same purpose. He also said that in ‘ninety-nine percent of the cases,’ an autistic child is ‘a brat who hasn’t been told to cut the act out.’ He’s said that civil rights is ‘a racket;’ that ‘affirmative action is being used to purge our police departments of white males;’ that Mexicans ‘come here to work the system, sell drugs, rape and kill on contract;’ and that true, patriotic Americans should ‘burn the Mexican flag on the street corner.’”
“Okay,” Slivovitz exhaled with an air of resignation. “How about we go with those two Jesus freaks that hate queers instead?”
“That could work,” I agreed. “But if moving them onto the new list doesn’t fly, we’ll need an alternate.”
“Oy gevalt,” Slivovitz lamented, “what’s left?” He peered at me skeptically, his head inclined slightly to one side. “Savage actually said that ninety percent of the people on the Nobel Committee are into child pornography and molestation?”
“I’m afraid so,” I confirmed.
“Oh, crap,” Slivovitz moaned. “Use those Russian serial killers, I guess.”