Israel, Golda Meir, Zvi Dinstein, Leon Uris

'Two Israelis in a room and you have an argument. Three Israelis in a room and you have a fucking riot.'

After my Army discharge in 1946 and with Hitler's anti-Semitic crusade and the '67 Israeli/Arab War still very fresh in my mind, I became a Zionist. Meeting and spending time with Leon Uris, at Gardiner's Tennis Ranch in the 60's, reinforced my feelings about Jews needing a national homeland. Uris wrote “Exodus’, an historical novel and a best seller, all about the travails of Jews going to and settling in Israel post WWII.

Having lived through the German Bund, Yorkville (a center of anti-Semitism in New York City), the virulently anti-Semitic Father Coughlin and having fist fights as a kid because I was a Jew during the 30's pushed me into becoming a Zionist. In order to become Israel knowledgeable, I read some of the most boring, fucking books about Israel known to man. Great sleeping pills they were. Most Jews of my vintage believe that knowledge conquers all. I even tried that approach when farming…

It didn't work worth a shit for me when farming in Iowa, becoming easily the best read, really ignorant, jackass Jewish farmer in the Western world. After constantly going through the Federal Agriculture Dept. publications like shit through a tin horn, all that book learning didn't seem to help when sticking my hand into a birthing sow trying to help her to spit out pigs on a bitterly cold night in a February in Iowa. Colder than a whore's heart.

I was huge on theory but a fucking dummy in the real world of slopping hogs, milking cows, feeding cattle, riding a tractor, breeding sheep and just a schmuck generally trying to be a successful farmer.
If there was a mistake to be made, I made it. Trying to make an Iowa farmer out of a Bronx Jew was truly like pissin' into the wind or trying to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. It was all bad capped off by the overwhelming boredom of plowing corn, going up and down rows of corn for hours at a time. Thank God at the time for Scotch whiskey. Survival nectar.

By 1971 I had evolved, in this order, from the Army into being a furrier, dress salesman, farmer, to promoting a wholesale automobile auction, selling advertising specialties, very successful car salesman and stock broker/security analyst, VC partner and an oversized pain in the ass to my suffering in luxury first ex-wife. Her notion of telling me of her love for me was to say 'Hello Bern'…

Moses turning right instead of left gave the Arabs the oil; Jews the fucking desert. The Israeli's had one small declining oil field producing all of 3,000 barrels of oil a day near Ashdod. The Israeli's claim to oil fame was a deal with Iran in which Israel was a big trans-shipper of Iranian oil. At the time, cooperation between Iran and Israel, was both unmentionable and a 'BIG SECRET'. But then if I, a dumb Jew living in Palo Alto knew it, what the hell kind of secret could it be?!



In about 1970 in a moment of 'genius', I decided to raise a private equity fund to drill for oil and/or gas in Israel. Talk about pissing into the wind. It was so ludicrous that a standup comic could do wonders with it. First I tried to contact someone, anyone, in the Israeli Energy Dept. 

After months of being shoved around like a whore in church, I grew so frustrated that I literally phoned Golda Meir, the Prime Minister of Israel. Being half in the bag made making the phone call easy. It was midnight in Palo Alto; 10:00 in the morning in Jerusalem and the booze had wired me for sound. Everyone knows that an alcoholic with a telephone can be one huge pain in the ass.

Never did speak with Golda Meir but that experience became my first lesson in Israeli bureaucracy which was one tough mother to overcome. Unloading responsibility was the then cornerstone of Israeli governmental bureaucracy.

A few weeks after my phone call, Mrs. Meir's office passed me to off to the Israeli Energy Minister, Zvi Dinstein, who gave me my second lesson in how to deal with Israeli bureaucracy. You have to have the patience of Job because it was wait, wait, wait. 

Mr Dinstein, after a few weeks of my waiting, passed me off to the head of the Israeli Oil Co. who was a bright, nice guy and a survivor of Israel's War of Independence. It is interesting to me that the names of assholes can come to my mind easily but nice people's names not so easily and I can't recall his name.

He came with his attorney to visit me in the States. The Princess was having multiple orgasms at the prospect of hosting a dinner for two Israelis. It was only one of two times that my JAP approved of the deal. The other time was when the Princess came with me on one of my 7, in 13 months, insane trips to Israel. She loved it. I was busy promoting. She was busy sightseeing without me. The Princess was the ultimate travel freak, particularly when not with me. But she was dead right about the deal.

The deal, after spending tens of thousands on travel and entertainment of my own money (hangovers and me were intimate) was a total fucking failure. The rich Jews, potential investors, looked at me like I was a bull with a bastard calf. That whole story for another time.

You can be sure that the Princess gloried in 'I told you so.' Suffice it to say that while the money was gone my testicles, to the dismay of the Princess, were still there if barely.