Members of the Tribe

by Zev Chafets

  The Skelos foreign policy was not only pro-Israel and anti-Soviet, it was also anti-Greek. Throughout the campaign Carol Berman had been attacking the policies of the Athens government for which she held Skelos personally responsible. The incumbent responded by declaring a personal boycott of his ancestral homeland.

  “I won’t even visit Greece as long as the present government is in power,” he said. “I disagree with their policies toward Israel and especially their closeness to the PLO. But I resent Carol Berman’s insinuations that individual Greek-Americans are anti-Semitic.”

  I decided to accompany Skelos to a campaign meeting at the Green Acres Senior Citizens Center in Hempstead, where he was scheduled to give a talk with the admirably Republican title “What’s in the Legislation for You?” The audience was composed mostly of Italians and Jews, but Skelos didn’t even mention foreign policy; senior citizens vote age interests, not ethnic ones. On the way into the meeting hall he stopped in a card room where half a dozen men were playing poker. “I have some things to say that I think will interest you,” he promised, but they were unconvinced. “We know what you’re gonna say, Senator, and we’re wit ya,” said one, chewing on a King Edward corona and dealing a new hand.

  After Green Acres, Skelos swung through a residential neighborhood, where he rang doorbells and shook hands with housewives. He then went to a branch campaign office, where I was introduced to Al Ball, a retired importer who was serving as a Republican committeeman and Skelos cheerleader. Ball, a Jew, took me next door, to Roma’s. There, over pizza, he told me about his candidate.

  “You want to know about Dean Skelos? Fine, this is Dean Skelos. When he went to Russia he took all sorts of things with him, prayerbooks, tefillin, you name it.” He looked around the restaurant and lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Listen, I’m not even allowed to repeat all the things he did when he was over there. But believe me, he wasn’t just a tourist, okay?” I nodded, and he resumed his normal voice. “Let me tell you something else. Jews know that you’ve got to have Christian support. Not just vote for fellow Jews. That’s the basis of Carol Berman’s campaign, and to me it’s abrasive.”

  Al Ball was once a liberal, but for the past ten years he has been a conservative Republican. “Look around at the crime, at the situation in the schools, at the secularism in society today,” he said, as if these evils were lurking just in back of the pizza oven. “I don’t think that liberal policies are the answer. And I’ll tell you the truth, I also don’t like Carol Berman from the Jewish angle. She’s too abrasive. That’s it.”

  By the time I got back to Berman headquarters for my first meeting with the Democratic candidate, I was expecting a cross between Don Rickles and Ariel Sharon. But Carol Berman proved to be a petite, somewhat brittle grandmother, a Jewish Nancy Reagan with frosted curly hair, prodigious energy, and a Brooklyn accent that made “war” into “woe-ah” and “sure” into “shoo-ah.”

  Berman introduced me to John Carbonara, a burly retired New York police lieutenant who was serving as her driver-bodyguard, and the three of us piled in her car for a round of campaigning. Like Skelos, Berman had a Cadillac (“I’ve already worn out a Lincoln town car in this campaign,” she said), but when I mentioned this to her she scowled, offended by any comparison to the Rockville Centre usurper.

  “Look,” she told me as Carbonara guided us to our first meeting of the evening, “Skelos is attempting to woo the voters with all sorts of cheap tricks. But I’m not just Jewish at election time—I’ve been Jewish for five thousand years. And I have the right to remind voters that I was a Jewish senator, not just a senator who happened to be Jewish.”

  Our first stop was a women’s club bazaar at a local restaurant. Berman charged in, kissing cheeks, fingering merchandise, and calling everyone by their first names. This was her fifth senate campaign, and she worked the room with a deft touch, wasting no effort, talking to everyone but pausing with no one. After watching her for a few minutes I felt thirsty and retired to the adjoining bar, where I found John Carbonara sipping a 7-Up. A powerful man running to fat, he wore horn-rimmed glasses that gave him an incongruously studious look.

  I asked Carbonara how he, an Italian cop, liked working for a Jewish woman Democrat. “Hey, no problem,” he said seriously. “First, I pride myself on being a liberal thinker. Second, when it comes to Jews, I got a real soft spot. I see TV programs about the Holocaust and I can’t help myself from crying. And third, as far as her being a woman, well, Carol is competent. Maybe some women aren’t, ya know, but let me tell you something, pal, this lady works her ass off.”

  Just about then, Berman came steaming out of the bazaar, cast a disapproving look at my shot glass, and began towing the huge Carbonara in the direction of the Caddy. We were behind schedule for a neighborhood kaffeeklatsch and she urged Carbonara to step on it. He said nothing, and kept the car at a steady thirty-five.

  There were about twenty people—all of them Jewish—at the gathering, which was held in the basement rec room of a supporter. Berman greeted most of the people there by name, was briefly introduced by her hostess, and then took the floor for ten minutes of canned campaign rhetoric. Most of it consisted of anti-Skelos barbs. The Republican was, according to her, soft on crime and real estate interests, a part-time senator, and a coward: “He’s afraid to debate me,” she insisted, shaking her head with condescending pity.

  Halfway through her presentation she introduced me to the group, making my presence sound like an endorsement by the Israeli government. From there she led into her Jewish theme.

  “My Jewish identity is very strong and well known,” she said. “When I was in the senate I single-handedly stopped the Arabs from buying the Bank of Commerce in New York. I almost single-handedly got questions about the Holocaust on the Regents Exam. As a Jewish housewife, I held hearings about price-gouging of kosher food at holiday time. I was responsible for Raoul Wallenberg Day.” Berman ticked off these achievements on her fingers, and the audience murmured its approval.

  After the speech, several people came over to say hello to me. One or two claimed to have read my books, although their tentative tone told me it was a claim born of courtesy. Two or three asked if I knew their relatives in Israel (I didn’t) and one man wanted to know if Menachem Begin had Alzheimer’s disease (I didn’t know). In the meantime, Berman shook hands all around, nibbled on a symbolic cookie, and then went charging into the night. It was time for the great B’nai B’rith confrontation at the Rockville Centre Central Synagogue.

  Like many long anticipated and loudly ballyhooed political confrontations, this one proved an anticlimax. When we arrived at Candidates’ Night, it emerged that the event was not a debate at all, but serial appearances by various office seekers. Dean Skelos had come and gone. Now it was Carol Berman’s turn, and she would appear alone.

  Berman opened with the same attack on Skelos’s platform and performance that she had used at the kaffeeklatsch. Once again she introduced me to the audience, and when she hit the “I’ve been Jewish for five thousand years” line, she gave me a significant look, as if I could authenticate her antiquity. I maintained what I hoped was a neutral attitude as she went on to describe her bona fides.

  “I don’t run on my Jewish credentials,” she told the assembly, “but all of you know that I was a Jewish senator, not just a senator who happened to be Jewish.” There was a smattering of applause, and she continued. “I never forget my responsibilities to my roots and my heritage. I don’t need to travel to the Soviet Union and Israel on taxpayers’ money to learn about Judaism.” Once again there was applause, mixed with a few boos. “Senator Skelos is practically professing to be Jewish. Well, I can tell you that I’m not professing to be Greek. I wouldn’t even go to Greece, with its anti-Semitic government.”

  This time there were loud cheers and also loud boos—Rockville Centre was Skelos territory, after all. A furious middle-aged man in a dark business suit leaped from his seat. “I take exce
ption to your remark about Dean Skelos,” he said in a tone of lawyerly aggressiveness. “He doesn’t profess to be a Jew, that’s nonsense. So he visited Israel and Russia, is that a crime? He went there to learn about our community and our concerns, and that’s what a legislator is supposed to do.” This time the boos and cheers were reversed. Carol Berman regarded the man with narrowed eyes and snapped, “He did the smart thing,” before taking the next question.

  Afterwards, during the coffee hour while Berman mingled with the voters, I was again approached by several people who wanted to ask about Israeli relatives or tell me about their trip to Jerusalem. One of them was the Skelos man, Elliot Winograd. He introduced himself as an Anti-Defamation League activist and former president of the congregation. Having established his credentials, he explained his outburst at the meeting. “Everything being equal, I’ll vote for the Jew,” he said. “But this woman is impossible—she’s totally incompetent. Besides, I’m a Republican. I admit it.”

  Once again Berman burst loose from the pack, shot Winograd a Sonny Liston hate stare, and led me and Carbonara in a half-run to the parking lot. By now it was past ten, and she still had to address a meeting at the Therese the Little Flower Chapter of the Knights of Columbus.

  When we arrived, a man at the microphone was making some announcements. “I wanna remind you to attend our annual horse show,” he said, and there were groans from the sixty or so people who sat on folding chairs in the wood-paneled room. “Hey, it’s an enjoyable evening, and it’s free.” This time there was applause, and he used it to bring on Carol Berman, “an old friend and former senator from our district, now running in a rematch …”

  Berman grabbed the hand mike and launched into a brief speech. There was no “I was a Jewish senator” stuff this time; she concentrated on crime, reminding them that she favored mandatory life sentences for drug pushers and tough punishments for violent rape. “Don’t forget, when I was your senator, I voted for the death penalty five times.…”

  As she went on in this law-and-order vein, I felt a powerful hand grip my elbow. I spun around and saw John Carbonara’s face about five inches from my own. He fixed me with a heavy-lidded stare and said nothing. For a moment I thought he might be angry with me. Finally, blinking away a slight stammer, he said, “I was wondering, ah, where are you staying tonight?”

  We had barely spoken since our drink at the ladies’ bazaar. I assumed that he wanted to know because he would have to drop me off. I told him I had a room at the Motorway Motel in Lawrence, not far from Carol Berman’s house.

  He digested this for a minute, and then began to shake his head slowly. “Uh, well, I’m gonna ask ya to stay with us tonight. Ya understand what I mean? What I’m saying is, you look like you could use a good home-cooked meal instead of eating alone in some motel. Am I right?” I was too surprised to answer. “Hey, I’m gonna go call my wife, tell her I’m bringin’ ya home, okay?”

  “That’s really nice, but I couldn’t let you do that,” I protested. It was past eleven by now, and I figured that it would be close to midnight before we got back to his place. I was going to say “I hardly even know you,” but it sounded like a line from a bad movie. Besides, John was already shaking his head again, like a bull brushing away flies.

  “Uh, maybe you noticed that I didn’t say ‘I’ll ask my wife’—I said ‘I’ll tell my wife.’ Wait’ll you meet her. I call her Soupy, which is short for super-wife. I already know she wants you to come stay with us and I didn’t even need to call. So it’s all set, right?”

  I had been on the road for weeks, and the truth was that I dreaded another night in a motel. There was no way John Carbonara could have known that, of course; but the idea of spending the evening with real people instead of some late-night movie was suddenly very attractive. I looked at this big blunt stranger and felt very moved. “Sure,” I told him, “I’d love to stay with you.”

  By this time Berman had finished working the room. We dropped her off, exhausted, at her house and then drove half an hour to Carbonara’s. Soupy, a.k.a. Diane, met us at the door with a kiss for Carbonara and a welcoming hug for me. She was a dark, very pretty woman who looked about thirty-five, and I was surprised to learn that her oldest son was away at college and that the baby, Joe, had just graduated from high school.

  Diane returned to the kitchen, where she was preparing an impromptu Italian feast, and Carbonara went into his bedroom, put away his pistol (“I was on the job almost thirty years and I never once had to use this,” he said proudly), and stripped off his shirt. He spent the rest of the evening in his T-shirt, his massive belly peeking out and his powerful arms flexing from time to time.

  We joined Diane in the kitchen, and Carbonara hauled out an old scrapbook. He especially wanted to show me a yellowing article from the fifties—the account of a baseball game between shipyard teams from Brooklyn and Philadelphia that had been won by a John Carbonara homer. He wasn’t at all self-conscious about the small boast; his attitude was that I, as a friend of the family, would naturally be interested in and proud of the accomplishment.

  Diane produced steaming plates of food, which we wolfed down without ceremony. The Carbonaras gossiped happily about family matters—including me, as if I were a cousin from Brooklyn instead of a stranger from Israel. Although he doesn’t drink, Carbonara produced a bottle of sweet yellow wine and poured me a glass, determined to make me feel at home.

  It was past one when their younger son, Joe, joined us in the kitchen. He has his mother’s dark good looks and his father’s intense stare and slight hesitation of speech. He also has a Brooklyn accent that makes his father sound like a graduate of Sandhurst. In conformity with the Carbonara dress code, he was shirtless.

  Earlier in the meal, John had spoken angrily about Joe’s decision not to attend college. “He’s a smart kid but all he wants to do is bum around with his friends, go out every night and chase girls,” said Carbonara. Seeing him now, I thought that he had made the right choice. He reminded me of the kids who used to dance on American Bandstand; there was something sulky about him that, coupled with his thick Brooklyn dialect, made him seem unlikely college material.

  Diane introduced me as an Israeli writer, and Joe regarded me with a surprising interest. I expected a wisecrack, but instead he blinked in concentration, his father’s mannerism, and then burst into a rapid-fire monologue, stammering occasionally over the words. It sounded something like—

  “Ugh, uh, okay. Now, you’re from Israel, right? Okay, I want ya to straighten me out on somethin’. Now, Hizbollah, up in Lebanon, Hizbollah is supported by the Iranians, am I right? And the Iranians and the Syrians, they’re allies, right? Okay, now, wait a minute, Hizbollah works out of, like, Syrian turf—I mean, it’s in the Bekaa Valley but Syria controls it. Okay—now wait—the Syrians are also supporting the Amal, right? I mean, Nabih Bari, those guys. But then, what I don’t get is—why do the Syrians let Hizbollah attack the Amal guys who are supposed to be their allies? I mean, is this, like, a trick to soften up the Iranians, or does it have something to do with the, uh, rivalry between the two Bathist parties, you know, Hafez Assad and Saddam Hussein. Can you answer me that?”

  I sat there, mesmerized by the performance. It was the kind of question American undergraduates pay thousands of dollars to learn how to ask; but Joe hadn’t been showing off. He was just curious.

  “How do you know so much about the Middle East?” I asked, and he shrugged, embarrassed. “Hey, I’m innerested in foreign policy, okay?”

  Carbonara listened to the exchange with frustrated pride. “Imagine, a kid like this not in college, not using his brains. Is it a waste or not a waste?”

  Joe, in an effort to derail his father, broke in. “Here’s one more thing I don’t get, okay? I mean, Israel’s got the strongest army in the region. So why don’t you guys just go back into Lebanon and clean it up, ya know, just kick ass and clean the entire place up?”

  This was too much for John. “Hey,” h
e bellowed, “I thought you were smart. What kinda question is that. We can’t get you to stop smoking in your room, you want the Israelis to clean up Lebanon.” He may not know much about Hizbollah, but thirty years on the street have made a realist out of John Carbonara.

  We sat up talking until almost four in the morning, and the next day around noon I awoke to the smell of breakfast. In the kitchen I found my place set at the table, and a copy of The New York Times next to the plate. Carbonara reads the Daily News—he had gone out especially to find me a Times. But when I thanked him, he brushed me off with a dismissive gesture. “It’s got a lousy sports section,” he said, digging into his scrambled eggs.

  While we were eating, Diane brought in another scrapbook. “John’s a writer, too,” she said, and Carbonara nodded assent, without a trace of false modesty. “I like to write poems. Nothing published or anything like that, just for special occasions, ya know?” He opened the book and began to recite in his rough Brooklyn voice. The poems were mostly about family events, or couplets written to commemorate something that happened on the job. “Here’s one I wrote in honor of my friend Bernie’s son’s bar mitzvah,” he said, clearing his throat. “Yes, my friend Bernie, it was quite an affair; filled with love and affection, steaks so tender and rare …”

  I had to get into the city, and I thanked Diane for her hospitality. John offered to drive me to the train. On the way we chatted about the Ninth District election. Although he was a Berman man, he admitted that he liked Skelos, too. And in a discreet way he let me know that he thought Carol was making a mistake with her “I’ve been a Jew for five thousand years” routine.