The Lies They Tell Read online

  One thousand people come to say “I love you”

  THE NUMBER OF PEOPLE RIDING ON NEW YORK’S SUBWAYS TOTALS 5,597,551 on an average weekday, according to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA).

  The “1” at the end of the number is me.

  I’m on a subway car, going to Penn Station, and I engage in an activity that no New Yorker would even dream of doing: I look at the people around me. New Yorkers don’t do that. No matter where their bodies meet – elevator, train, café, Macy’s – their eyes don’t. The iron rule is this: unless you know the other people, you don’t even think of looking them in the eye. This is Rule #1 in New York City. I don’t follow this rule.

  Thirty-five years ago I came to New York from Israel and I still behave like an uneducated foreigner. Years ago, truth be told, I tried to partially follow the eye-contact rule. I would look at women, especially if they were attractive, but not at men. Kind of semi-educated. But times have changed. Today, if you look at a woman, attractive or not, law enforcement agents could charge you with sexual harassment and you will end up in jail. And so, to have some kind of an alibi for such an eventuality, I look at men, too.

  Slowly the train reaches Penn Station, a major transportation hub, and I get off. Outside I see a man who, for one reason or another, is wearing a bra. He shouts this smartest of lines: “Get yo’ fucking bitch ass outta here.” Nobody pays any attention to him.

  And this is Rule #2 in New York: You don’t get involved with other people’s business. If a person urinates in front of you, creating a pool of unpleasant fluid in your path, you don’t see it. You do not look at him. You keep walking. This is life, New York style.

  As night falls in the Penn Station area the homeless arrive, filling up the sidewalks of nearby streets. They lie down in this city that never sleeps, and they fall asleep on the sidewalks. Some bring cardboard boxes with them, creating semblances of houses, while others just bring big plastic bags to protect themselves from rats, streetlights and winds. I know this place. My office is right across the street.

  In Israel I saw stray cats on the sidewalks; here I see people.

  I like New York. Chiefly, I like it because of the predictability of its people. There are millions here; some are black, some are Spanish, some are white, some are Asian, some are Jewish, some are Arab, some are Russian and then there are a couple of Mormons. No matter who they are, you can rest assured that whatever you say to them they will respond with: “That’s awesome!” “Oh my God!” “Really?” “Great!” “Oy!” “Yo, man!” “Cool!” “Absolutely!” “Love it!” and “What a fucking fuck, motherfucker!”

  Predictable.

  Of course, you can’t really say “black,” “Spanish,” “Jew,” “Asian” or “Arab” because these words are not PC (politically correct). You can’t even say “homeless” anymore. You have to say African Americans, Hispanics (or “Latinos”), American Jews, Asian Americans, American Muslims and “otherwise resourced,” which are the homeless. “Whites” can stand by itself, because they are the ones who have made up this rule, and “Mormons” can also stand by itself because Mormons don’t count according to present-day PC. Why? Because.

  We also have super-PC people, those who say “Caucasians” when they talk about whites, wish everybody Happy Kwanzaa on Christmas (long story), and will never tell me that I’m fat, which I am. In super-PC lingo you can call me Otherwise Skinny, if it makes you feel better.

  Oops. I forgot another major group, sorry: Gays and Friends, which includes lesbians, bisexuals and transgender. This group, known as LGBT (or LGBTQ), is one of the holiest groups on earth, and if you make fun of them you will be ostracized, lose your job and your spouse will divorce you. Why? Because. There are also asexual people in New York, but they don’t count. Because.

  These rules, part of a long list of more rules, are what makes New York kick, and why an apartment the size of a small toilet costs $5,000 a month.

  New Yorkers are also known for their busyness. In fact, every New Yorker I know is extremely busy, even if he or she has nothing to do and has been unemployed for the past five years.

  • • •

  Should I get busy as well? Perhaps, I say to myself, I should interview a couple of people in New York before I start my long journey. Kind of a warm-up. Well, why not?

  There’s an Irish pub across the street from my office and I walk in, looking for my first interviewee. I find him in the image of an Air Force officer, a handsome young black man, who seems to be having the greatest time of his life with a beautiful lady, merrily drinking beer while diving into fish and chips. I approach him.

  The national anthem, I say to him, describes America as the Home of the Brave. What does it mean?

  “We kick everybody’s ass.”

  Why?

  “Because we can.”

  For the record: he is sober. God only knows what he’ll say once the alcohol starts kicking in.

  I go to my office. It’s not nice to start a journey on such a note, I say to myself.

  Brandy, a bright lady who dreams of becoming a writer, comes to my office, and I ask her to lend me some of her wisdom and answer a question or two. She gleefully agrees.

  Why did America invade Iraq in 2003? I ask her.

  “In America nobody asks these questions! You don’t understand America. To ask ‘Why?’ is so un-American!”

  But why did America invade Iraq? I mean, what do you think?

  “You really want to know? Okay. There was a bad guy there, what’s his name, and we went there to fight him, and when we were there, other reasons came up why we were there, and that’s it.”

  Brandy is an American, born and raised, and this is how she sees herself: “I like the bad things about America. Greed, the big cars, the indignation when needs are not instantly met. And for this we go to war.”

  I gotta do better, I say to myself, and find myself people who will be more positive about this country. At least at the beginning!

  • • •

  To achieve this honorable goal, I think I’ll have to move my fat ass, get out of my office and go beyond my comfort zone of Penn Station. But where?

  Why not a press conference?

  New York is where things happen: private clubs where the rich mingle with each other and decide which project they will sponsor next, “power lunches” where the super-rich mingle with the politicians they bankroll, and then there are those press conferences designed to entice journalists to write favorably about this cause or that. I’ve been to power lunches and clubs more times than I care to count or remember, mostly with people speaking off the record, but press conferences are on record. And so I go to a press conference held by a PR company whose sole reason for being is to instill love of gay people in the hearts of journalists.

  Come to think of it, it’s funny how things work.

  At the press conference, a journalist from abroad has this question: Just a few days ago, he says, the chief rabbi of Moscow said that while he would not kill gays, he condones the killing of gays. Will the PR company do something about it?

  This is a strange story. If it’s true, I want to fly to Moscow and interview this rabbi. It’s so bizarre! But is it true? To find out, I head over to the one man in New York who most likely would know. His name is Abe Foxman, leader of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), whom I happen to know personally.

  Abe has no clue what I’m talking about. He has never heard of this story and he doesn’t know why anyone would tell it.

  Perhaps, I say to myself, that foreign journalist is a little anti-Semitic. It wouldn’t surprise me, because I know the European media and often enough they are anti-Semitic. Which makes me think: Is America anti-Semitic?

  No, according to Abe. “While in Europe anti-Semitism has gone up,” he tells me, “here it has come down.” Abe should know. His organization, the ADL, continuously invests huge sums of money on surveys that determine the levels of anti-Semitic attitudes around the worl
d. “Today,” Abe tells me, “America is not immune, but the level of anti-Semitism is about 10, 12 percent.”

  Nice. But this does not mean that American Jews feel secure in this country. In fact, they don’t, according to Abe; not even the more famous of them, such as producers and directors. These particular Jews produce untold number of films and theatrical shows about every segment of American society, but rarely about Jews or Israel. “Tell me the movies on Israel! You can’t name five!” Abe says to me

  The “five” part is a bit of an exaggeration, but in essence he is right. Is he also right about the “10, 12 percent”? I don’t know, so I ask him: Will I, in my journey, find the same low percentage of anti-Semitism in this country as in the ADL’s surveys? No.

  “You are going to find a lot more anti-Semitism than what we find,” Abe answers. “What will you find? I predict you will find twice as much. Why? Because you will, in your inimitable style, remove their inhibitions. You will release their innermost feelings, which are prejudice. Americans are prejudiced, but they know better than to express it or act on it.”

  I am thankful to Abe for his compliments and at the same time am surprised to hear from him how unreliable his organization’s surveys are.

  I depart from his office, but I’m not done with him. Abe is leaving the ADL soon, retiring after decades at the top, and in about a week the “Tribute to Abe Foxman,” a goodbye party in his honor, will take place at the Waldorf-Astoria.

  Of course, when the day arrives I arrive as well. Wow! What a party this is! The place is packed with about one thousand people, all here to say “I love you” to him, and Abe is returning the favor – he feeds them. And how! I’ve been to many events at the Waldorf, but this one tops them all.

  First off: the food. I’ve never tried pierogies with honey, until this tribute. “Delicious” is a word that barely describes them. What’s more, everywhere one goes, even just in the reception area, there are mountains of food of all sorts, all kinds, all tastes and all sizes. Abe loves big sizes and he cherishes the best of tastes, and on this evening he shares his taste and portion size with all of us. I have never, ever seen as much sushi as I see here. And it’s so tasty! Look at the cakes – oh my God, they are almost as big as the whole of Brooklyn!

  Second: the people. Among many others, here you can see the US ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, and National Security Advisor Susan Rice, and both give speeches of praise in Abe’s honor. There are others who deliver their praise in pre-recorded messages, including former president George W. Bush and President Barack Obama. I don’t know why, but I like this S&S team, Samantha and Susan. I will go everywhere they go, especially if there’s food around them.

  Food aside, I do have a few questions: Why do such high-level officials, not to mention the two presidents, care about a retiring Jew? Would a Jew in today’s Europe command as much respect as this American Abe? Is there something unique in the way America relates to its Jews?

  I ponder these questions when the latest news breaks out. Far away from here, in Charleston, South Carolina, a white man walks into a black church, takes out a gun and shoots nine people to death. America, if one can judge by the media here, is shocked and shaken.

  • • •

  It is time I leave New York and journey into America, the America I don’t know. I pack my suitcases and get ready to go. Where to? My first instinct is to go to South Carolina, but on second thought I decide that I’m not ready yet. I have to know more, and learn more, before heading south.

  Across from my office, at Penn Station, workers have put up big signs all around: “XOXO. Philadelphia.” This might actually be a good idea! Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, is the city where the Declaration of Independence was adopted and where the “We the People” Constitution of this country was written and signed, effectively making Philadelphia the birth city of the USA. I should be there, shouldn’t I?

  The Declaration of Independence, adopted by the thirteen American colonies in 1776, declares that the colonies are no longer part of Great Britain but an independent United States of America, a new entity created by this very declaration. The Declaration, may I add, is an eloquent document, containing some of the most memorable passages composed by man: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

  Years ago, just before I became a citizen of this country, I learned this stuff, and now it all comes back to me. Both the Constitution and the Declaration came to life, if I’m not mistaken, in a place called Independence Hall in Philadelphia.

  Philadelphia, here I come!

  Gate Two

  If you are a straight woman, you must call your husband “partner” or else gay men will be offended

  WISHING TO START MY JOURNEY ON A HIGH NOTE, I POSTPONE MY DATE with the steering wheel, a date marked with a high statistical probability for a severe car accident on my first attempt at driving in decades. In a week or so I’ll either get myself into a driver’s seat or buy me a private jet equipped with a personal pilot, but for now I board the train to Philadelphia. The train ride is nice, and soon enough I reach my destination, get off the train and start walking the streets of the USA.

  My journey into the unknown has begun!

  In front of me I see a street preacher, a black man with a message. If you don’t believe in Jesus and ask for forgiveness, he says, “You’ll go to hell.

  “If you say, ‘I’ll survive ’cause the preacher prayed for me,’ this ain’t gonna work. You went to school. You studied. You can read what Jesus said! You say I’m makin’ a fool of myself, preachin’ on the corner, but the Bible in your home is collectin’ dust!”

  The “you” here is me, since I’m the only one listening to him. I stick around for a while, listening to him a bit more, and when I depart he says, “Thank you.” This touches me. I’m probably his only audience in a long while.

  I continue to walk, and soon enough I bump into the National Museum of American Jewish History. How did the Jews get in here?

  I enjoy walking the streets of Philadelphia, which locals call “Philly,” and then I notice that almost anywhere my feet take me I end up in a pothole. I start counting the potholes, but when I reach twenty-two I stop. Enough!

  I proceed to my hotel, the Hilton at Penn’s Landing. The images on all the TV screens at the reception area are of the murder in Charleston’s black church. The name of the white man is Dylann Roof; the name of the church is Emanuel AME.

  America is scared.

  But I have to keep cool. I take my room key, a plastic card, and proceed to my new abode. The first thing that I notice in the room is a little note advising me that if I smoke in my room I will be fined $300.

  Murder, hell, fines. What a wonderful start!

  I try to settle at my desk. I sit down on an interesting-looking swivel chair, but this chair swivels all the way down and I fall to the floor.

  I call the front desk and ask for their advice. The hotel people tell me that they will send an engineer to look at the chair.

  Engineer? Yes, engineer.

  I love this new PC world of our time. In the days of old this kind of “engineer” was called a room attendant, fixer, cleaner, jack-of-all trades and a bunch of other precise terms. Now it’s “engineer”!

  It takes time for this engineer to show up, and I go down to smoke.

  • • •

  You can smoke outside, a hotel employee tells me, but only in the smoking area. I walk outside only to realize that there is an invisible line outside the hotel, probably drawn by this hotel’s famed engineers, that divides between the smoking and the non-smoking peoples.

  That’s racist, I say to the hotel employee, a black man.

  A white man, who looks like a natural bully, yells at me. “Why the fuck are you calling this racist? Are you not an American and you fucking don’t kn
ow English, or what? What a dumb thing to say. You dumb!”

  I’m shocked by such behavior. I wish the street preacher were here to save us.

  A lady, perhaps the white man’s wife, snatches him away. Other people in attendance stare at me as if I were Dylann Roof. I let them stare, smoke three cigarettes, and when I’m done I go to my room and quickly fall asleep.

  • • •

  When I get up I join a Constitutional Walking Tour. Don’t ask me what it means. I don’t know, but I am impressed by the name.

  The guide, a young man, says that during this walk we’ll be “following in the footsteps of the Founding Fathers,” meaning those who founded the United States of America.

  As we walk, our guide speaks of the bravery of those who signed the Declaration of Independence. At that time, he says, what they did was an “act of treason.” What made those people so brave? I ask him.

  “They didn’t want to pay taxes [to the British].”

  Some people would call this capitalism; he calls it bravery. He loves those people, I can tell, and he is highly taken with them. “Thomas Jefferson,” another Founding Father and the third president of the USA, “invented the swivel chair,” he says with a loving voice.

  If only that Thomas were alive today, I think to myself, I could have asked him to fix my chair!

  We pass by Independence Hall, which the guide reminds us is “the birthplace of the United States,” but we don’t go in. We are walkers, and we have to keep walking. And when we pass the house of Benjamin Franklin, the Founding Father whose image adorns the one-hundred-dollar bill, our guide tells us that “Ben invented bifocal glasses.”

  Those early Americans were amazingly inventive. Swivel chair, bifocal glasses, but no engineers. Engineers came later.

  We walk around more and more buildings, museums and historic locations, but most of what the guide says flies over my head. He talks like a machine, a zillion details per second, and I start paying attention to the other people on this tour.

  Here is a well-dressed man from Seattle, who seems to be of retirement age. I chat a bit with him and he tells me that this is his first time in Philly. What do you feel walking here? I ask him.