The Lies They Tell
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A Journey through America
Copyright © Tuvia Tenenbom
Jerusalem 2017/5777
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be translated, reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without express written permission from the publishers.
COVER DRAWING: Shay Charka
COVER LAYOUT: Leah Ben Avraham/Noonim Graphics
TYPESETTING: Benjie Herskowitz, Studio Etc.
Organization, Advice and Photos by Isi Tenenbom
ISBN: 978-965-229-911-6
1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
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To Isi, my Woman of Valor
For gracing every moment along the
journey with your loving voice
For capturing every image with your shiny lens
For chasing the unknown with fervor
For being who you are
The New Israeli Bestseller
(Print and digital bestseller lists)
• • •
“Savage, disturbing, comical … Tenenbom has again written a book that is unputdownable. ”
– The Jerusalem Post
“The Lies They Tell exposes the real America, the one where racism and anti-Semitism lurk just beneath the surface.… Not to worry, Tenenbom knows how to serve his dishes in an easy, palatable manner, which won’t allow you to put the book down until it’s finished.”
– Israel Hayom
“Special and unique. ” – Channel 1 TV
“An excellent book!” – Channel 2 TV
“An excellent, wonderful book!” – Channel 20 TV
“Sharp in its observations, pointedly direct, highly humorous and a very readable book…that will make you laugh out loud at the same time that it paints for you America’s saddest stories.”
– Makor Rishon
• • •
A Spiegel Bestseller
“A New Yorker travels through Trumpland … gives a voice to people of all social classes, from the homeless to the oil tycoons; all faiths and minorities … his description of America’s ghettos and homeless colonies is impressive…”
– Spiegel Online
“A great, sharp book with deep insight, never sugarcoated, into the reality of a country torn apart. Skillfully, Tenenbom interweaves the dialogues into the text and the result is an entertaining and authentic book. Detailed and shocking, this is the best of Tenenbom’s books.”
– Deutschlandradio
“After reading this book, it is no surprise that Donald Trump has won the election.”
– Stuttgarter Zeitung
“Packed with Jewish humor.… Reading this book is a delight.… Tenenbom is honest, free of political correctness and he doesn’t shy away from recounting embarrassing experiences.”
– Titel-Kulturmagazin
“Tenenbom is not interested in what is on the surface but in what is underneath it, and he digs ever deeper. In what at first seem like harmless chats, he uncovers an America that you won’t find in the news: the shadowy side of the American Dream. He does not judge people who share with him the darker corners of their hearts, but he quotes them mercilessly.”
– Mitteldeutsche Zeitung
“Entertaining and frightening.”
– Fantasia 637e
“Incredibly funny, entertaining, revealing and, at times, nasty.”
– Hamburger Abendblatt
“A terribly funny journey of discovery through a shallow America … Tenenbom’s book is entertaining and shocking at the same time.”
– Die Welt
International Praise for
Tuvia Tenenbom’s Previous Work
“Highly engaging and emotional, eminently readable, brutally honest.”
– Publishers Weekly
“Irresistibly fascinating…seductive and engaging.”
– New York Times
“Illuminating and alarming.”
– Wall Street Journal
“Read what Tenenbom has to tell us, without bias. We don’t have the privilege not to know.”
– Haaretz (Israel)
“Tenenbom’s laughter touches our soul in places where mere intellect could never reach.”
– Die Zeit (Germany)
“One of the most iconoclastic and innovative of contemporary dramatists.”
– Corriere Della Sera (Italy)
“Tuvia Tenenbom is Michael Moore and Borat in one.”
– Die Welt (Germany)
“A force of nature…provocative, satirical, intellectual.”
– La Repubblica (Italy)
“A free artist who fights for truth and tolerance.”
– Le Vif/L’Express (Belgium)
“A mystical provocateur.”
– Le Monde (France)
“Brilliant.”
– Deutschlandradio (Germany)
“Tuvia is curious as a cat, sly as a fox, friendly as a Labrador, and is also a man with seismographic sensitivities.”
– Mida (Israel)
“Tenenbom rides the razor’s edge…and goes all the way off.”
– Amsterdam News
“Hugely entertaining, terribly funny, sarcastic, engaging, powerful, accusatory, judgmental, good!”
– National Review
“Tenenbom dares.”
– La Razon (Spain)
“He sees and he hears. Exactly as it is.”
– Frankfurter Rundschau (Germany)
“Tenenbom’s hodgepodge of politics, zealotry and literary genres is fresh and audacious.”
– Village Voice
“A New Jew.”
– Maariv (Israel)
“An anarchist.”
– Stern (Germany)
Contents
Acknowledgments
Prologue
Gate One
One thousand people come to say “I love you”
Gate Two
If you are a straight woman, you must call your husband “partner” or else gay men will be offended
Gate Three
Fine dining and white people look well together
Gate Four
Blacks kill blacks because they’re “niggas” – If you don’t know who you are, you are a German American – If an Indian mosquito bites you, you will become a Native American
Gate Five
A few thousand Christians love Jews and thousands of Jews fly to sit next to them
Gate Six
The mayor’s office prints fake business cards to confuse the dumb press
Gate Seven
Every family should have at least one hundred guns
Gate Eight
Somalis are human beings like anybody else and they, too, should be allowed to shoot you in the head
Gate Nine
“Climate change” means Palestinian rights
Gate Ten
Native American drunks and rapists have fun at the local Knife College, and you are paying for it – The good news: polygamy will soon be legal
Gate Eleven
A drunk mayor chases ugly girls and lives
to tell the tale
Gate Twelve
There’s one excellent American restaurant every thousand miles
Gate Thirteen
Journalists are not allowed to urinate unless accompanied by young escorts
Gate Fourteen
Sexy whites like black whores
Gate Fifteen
Smoking is permitted while standing in the middle of the road in moving traffic
Gate Sixteen
The most beautiful teenagers are Mormon
Gate Seventeen
If you were born on Easter Sunday, you can resurrect the dead
Gate Eighteen
Ten thousand people come together to scream at the same time
Gate Nineteen
You can have a blast beating up Iraqis with frozen fish
Gate Twenty
If you misbehave, the Jews will come and eat you – Fifty million Germans are gone, all melted
Gate Twenty-One
A man with no teeth has a heavenly smile
Gate Twenty-Two
If you are planning on having sex, wait for your partner’s verbal permission before each successive step
Gate Twenty-Three
For $10 million, 23 percent would become a prostitute for a week or more and 16 percent would give up their American citizenship
Gate Twenty-Four
When the atomic bomb fell on Hiroshima, people went out to the streets, yelling and dancing and having a good time
Gate Twenty-Five
Liberals live much longer than conservatives
Gate Twenty-Six
People who talk to the Lord eat muffins
Gate Twenty-Seven
In the turtle hospital, every turtle has health insurance
Gate Twenty-Eight
The most beautiful women in the world live in Puerto Rico – The Jews are busy counting cash
Gate Twenty-Nine
One thousand people come to say “I hate you”
Epilogue
About the Author
Acknowledgments
MY WARMEST THANKS TO EVERY AMERICAN WHO GAVE OF HIS OR HER precious time to satisfy my curiosity into the depths of their souls. My thanks also go to those who revealed the inner reaches of their hearts provided I wouldn’t quote them by their full names.
I am grateful to the following professional organizations that were there to help when needed: Philadelphia Convention & Visitors Bureau, Destination Gettysburg, Laurel Highlands Visitors Bureau, Visit Pittsburgh, Destination Cleveland, Circle Michigan, Visit Milwaukee, Circle Wisconsin, Meet Minneapolis, Visit North Idaho, Rust’s Flying Service in Alaska, Hawaii Tourism Authority, Visit Denver – Convention & Visitors Bureau, Colorado Tourism Office, Kansas/Oklahoma Travel & Tourism, Dallas Convention & Visitors Bureau, Jekyll Island Club Hotel.
I am indebted to Lori Lowenthal Marcus and David Mills for going over the manuscript and graciously sharing with me their comments, remarks and corrections.
To my spiritual brothers, Dr. Jonathan Landgrebe, head of Suhrkamp, and Winfried Hörning, my editor: I will forever cherish your trust.
To my dearest friend, Rotem Sella, for enlightening my eyes with his most endearing personality and for being there for me whenever I needed it.
Lastly, to my mother-in-law, Isa Lowy, who treats me like her only son: I love you, Mama.
Prologue
I LANDED IN THE USA THIRTY-FIVE YEARS AGO WITH $400 TO MY NAME, AND America has been good to me ever since. From the start I believed in the American Dream, and I’ve lived to see it come true for me. I owe this country a debt, the debt of gratitude.
I was born in Israel, the land in which I spent the early years of my life and where I was groomed to become a rabbi, just as my father was. I left Israel and moved to the United States of America – to New York City, to be exact – and instead of becoming a rabbi I spent fifteen years in various New York universities, where I collected degrees and half degrees and left the rabbinate to other people. These days I still live in New York, but also in Europe, mainly Germany, and in other parts of the globe. But beginning in just a few weeks, I plan to stay only in the United States for six months, spending my time traveling across the country.
I am the artistic director of the Jewish Theater of New York, which I founded about two decades ago and where close to twenty of my dramas have been produced. I’m also a journalist, writing for the German highbrow paper Die Zeit and its online edition Zeit Online for over seven years now. In addition, I’m an author for the prestigious German publishing company Suhrkamp, where both my previous books, I Sleep in Hitler’s Room and Catch the Jew! (the American titles), were Spiegel bestsellers. I am also a contributing columnist for a liberal New York Jewish paper called the Forward.
Following the success of the two books, my devoted editor, Winfried Hörning, asked me to add another book to the series. The first book was about Germany, the second about Israel, and Winfried thought that the time had come to have a book about America as well.
Now you know why I’ll soon be traveling across the US of A.
The idea in this series is quite simple: travel around a country for six months, meet as many people as possible and portray the character of the country and its people. Although the idea is indeed simple, executing it is exhausting. It requires a workload of more than sixteen hours a day, every day, relentlessly. Yet the rewards are immense. I love to meet people, and the more I meet the better I feel.
I know that getting around America is going to be different from Germany and Israel. In those countries I used public transportation, which allowed me to get closer to the people, but America is huge and most people drive cars, not buses. If I want to mix with the people and meet them I’d better drive alongside them and to them. There is only one little problem here: I haven’t driven a car in decades, and now I’ll have to do it day in and day out. Hopefully, I won’t get into an accident or three.
What will I find in America? I don’t know, but let me make a comment first. Whatever I find, whatever I discover, will no doubt be influenced by the education I received: the years that I spent studying the Talmud, mathematics, literature, religion, theater, journalism and computer science. Other people, of different backgrounds, might come to different conclusions – and I respect that.
Like many New Yorkers, I don’t know much about the other forty-nine states that make up America. Of course, as a person residing not only in New York but also in Europe, I did acquire a prejudice or two about Americans. Americans – don’t you know? – are shallow and dumb. Is this true? Soon, I hope, I’ll find out.
And there are other things that I’d like to find out.
For the past few years, especially during the presidential reigns of both George W. Bush and Barack Obama, America has been experiencing continuous bouts of polarization that defy logic, especially for a country such as the United States that often defines itself as a melting pot. Now Americans seem to want to melt one another (but not themselves, of course) in a boiling pot. Who, exactly, are the warring parties? Who are the American conservatives? Who are the American liberals? What do they stand for? Why do they fight?
Being Jewish, I can’t avoid noticing one major political difference between America and Europe. European countries, in general, tend to be more pro-Palestinian than pro-Israel. America, on the other hand, is too often the one lone voice in international forums that still supports the Jewish state, and I’m intrigued to see whether the American people as a whole also support Israel.
Residing partially in Germany, there is something else that I’d like to find out. I’ve read somewhere, don’t ask me where, that fifty million Americans claim Germany as the land of their ancestors, topping the list of all other countries of origin. Is that true? If so, who are the “German Americans” and what influence do they have, if any, on America?
America, outside of New York, is a big puzzle to me. I know that the largest majority in this country are the people of faith, mostly Chris
tian, but who, in God’s name, are they really? There are many megachurches in this country, as anyone flipping their TV remote control on Sunday will notice, but I’ve never seen a single megachurch with my own two eyes. I’d love to see them. To be surrounded by multiple thousands who believe in an ancient Jew will, I think, be quite an experience.
Then there are the Native Americans. In New York I’ve often heard people talking about the great spirituality of the Native Americans, also known as Indians, but I have never had the chance to actually meet a single Indian, not to mention visit a reservation. I hope that in the next few months I’ll get to see these people and be inspired by them as well.
Of course I also want to meet Muslims, Jews, Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses and whatever other witnesses live outside of New York. Will they be different from the people of this city? Don’t laugh at me, but I’d like to meet rednecks as well. I’ve heard that they are horrible people, and I wish to be in their company. Being a man of the theater, I know that there is no character more exciting than the villain, and I can’t wait to meet them.
My wish list doesn’t end here, mind you, for there are many others that I’d like to meet: playful KKK members, religious environmentalists, handsome gang members, gun-toting conservatives, bleeding-heart liberals, soulless capitalists, No-Smoking hotheads, cannabis enthusiasts, fanatic atheists – and everyone in between.
Will I meet them all? I don’t know.
Will I get to all fifty states? No. There are only twenty-four hours in a day and I won’t be able to visit every state, but I’ll try to visit more than half of them. In addition, and based on the size of this country and the number of states I would like to visit, I know that I won’t be able to share all the experiences that I will go through, all the people that I will meet and all the places that I will visit. That said, I will do my best to share a representative sample.
I love America, but I won’t let this prejudice of mine cloud my judgment.
In order to draw the fairest portrait of America, I make no specific plans as to which places to visit and which people to meet. I will let the winds blow me wherever they may.
Gate One