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New York City anecdote
It’s Tuesday evening, and I’m having dinner with a friend at an Italian restaurant at Lexington Avenue and East 87th Street. We are planning to go to a talk by Israeli former general, renowned plastic surgeon, and now right-wing politician Arieh Eldad of the Moledet party. Eldad is a figure of interest to me as he supports the transfer of Arabs from the lands west of the Jordan, something I have advocated for many years, though Eldad always adds that such transfer must be voluntary. He also says that Arab citizens “who are ready to be faithful to the Jewish democratic state of Israel are welcome to stay and retain all their rights as citizens.” The event is scheduled for 7:30 at Congregation Edmond Safra, which I had never heard of prior to the Eldad talk. I mention to my friend the oddity of a Jewish synagogue being named after a contemporary person, evidently the billionaire banker Edmond Safra who was apparently murdered in a mysterious fire in Europe about ten years ago. At 7:15, we leave the restaurant. My friend, who had invited me to the event, doesn’t have the address of the synogogue with him, but I remember it clearly, from the e-mail he had sent me about it, as 11 East 83rd Street. We walk from the restaurant to 83rd Street between Madison Avenue and Fifth Avenue. But there is no synagogue on that block. I have misremembered the address, and it’s rather embarrassing. We’re standing in front of a parking garage where 11 East 83rd Street would be, if there was an 11 East 83rd Street, wondering what to do next. At that moment a cab drives up and a woman gets out right in front of me. She looks as though she might be familiar with the neighborhood, so I ask her, “Do you know where Congregation Edmond Safra is?” She immediately answers: “It’s on East 63rd Street.” Of course, that’s it. I must have misread 63rd Street as 83rd Street. I’m amazed that she knows this precise information about a synagogue that is 20 blocks away, and I thank her and exchange further words with her. As my friend and I are about to get into the cab that the woman has vacated she says, from the sidewalk where she is now standing, “I was Edmond’s lawyer.” So there we were, on East 83rd Street, a full mile from the synagogue we were looking for, and the first person who comes along, and whom I ask for help, not only knows exactly what street the synagogue is on, but was the lawyer for the man after whom the synagogue is named.
Ben W. writes:
LA: “So there we were, on East 83rd Street, a full mile from the synagogue we were looking for, and the first person who comes along, and whom I ask for help, not only knows exactly what street the synagogue is on, but was the lawyer for the man after whom the synagogue is named.”Mike Berman writes:
I had a similar experience recently when I was concluding a long story about Victor Niederhoffer while my wife and I were driving out on our way to Queens. Victor then stepped out and crossed the street in front of us. Are coincidences G-d’s way of remaining anonymous or a way to say hello?Ben W. writes:
Mike Berman: “I had a similar experience recently when I was concluding a long story about Victor Niederhoffer while my wife and I were driving out on our way to Queens. Victor then stepped out and crossed the street in front of us. Are coincidences G-d’s way of remaining anonymous or a way to say hello?”LA replies:
And besides, Mike is engaging in what John Derbyshire would call “god-porn,” a barbaric attack on civilization.Janet writes:
Are you being contaminated by Paul Auster’s stories, or is this a real one—a case of reality beating fiction?LA replies:
It’s real. Posted by Lawrence Auster at April 30, 2008 10:44 AM | Send Email entry |