The invitation we received for dinner was somewhat unusual, but nothing to write home about. What happened once we got there was……well, I’ll get to that in due time. Just hold your horses.

Fred, its Esther F. on the phone. They want to invite us for Fri. night. Is that OK? Any meal I don’t have to cook is fine with me, assuming that neither the food nor the conversation is toxic, which, in this situation, I knew it wouldn’t be. And if the folks doing the inviting play their cards right, they’ll receive some dessert and a bottle of wine, which is what we usually provide. (By the way, to be clear, this ‘Esther’ is not the Esther of Ron and Esther; nor Esther, the daughter of other friends; nor is she Esther RealEstate, the woman who sold our old apartment; nor Esther Computer or Esther Hairdresser, whose connection to us is self-evident. She is Esther of Esther and Yehuda, a family we have known for many years, and with whom we get together from time to time.)

We should bring dessert, by all means. But don’t bring any wine. That was the whole point of the invite. Esther had volunteered on some moshav, and there was a winery there. So she bought a bottle, and as I seem to be the fussiest person about wine she knows, she wanted to share it with us. Fair enough.

You know when you’re approaching our hosts’ apartment by the sound of the hound(s). The resident guardian of the hearth these days is Chekhov, found as a youngster wandering alone in the streets of East Jerusalem and since grown into a strapping specimen with a sweet disposition. Would there be anyone else? Tiferet, one of their daughters, was back home for a few months before her trip to The States. Her being there was not a surprise. But also hanging out was Serena, a friend of Esther’s from the Gush, whom we had never met but seemed nice enough.

We were soon seated around a table, but not the table in the salon, where we usually eat. That evening it was pleasant enough to dine al fresco, in the small area behind their garden apartment. There was just room for the six of us (not counting Chekhov, who was under the table not at). Between Esther and Tiferet, they came up with a distinctive meal, with salads sufficient to please the most hardened herbivore and fishcakes for protein. You want meat and potatoes? That would have to be the conversation, lots to chew on.

But first things first. Yehuda made kiddush, giving Esther an opportunity to mention my being a ‘wine expert,’ a statement with which I vehemently disagreed.. An enthusiast, yes. I like wine. I’m willing to pay a little extra for a better bottle, and I’ve taken the trouble to learn what I can about viniculture here in The Land. But I’m far from being an expert. Someone once accused me of being a chef. I’m not that either, as in I don’t make my own mayonnaise. I just try to keep Barbara well-fed.

I was sitting next to Tiferet, and we began discussing her trip to The States, where she was going to study Yiddish at YIVO, because it’s not enough that she is fluent in English (her mother being from New England), Russian (because that’s what her father speaks best), and Hebrew (because….well, you know). It was sort of appropriate for me to mention my fleeting connection with the National Yiddish Book Center in Massachusetts. I had been out photographing in Brighton Beach, and I came upon a threadbare upholstered chair abandoned in the middle of a block, near the flea market where I was heading. On the chair was an equally threadbare copy of De Maupassant stories in Yiddish (and if I can rescue stray cats, I can sure as hell take in an abandoned book or two). ‘How did you know it was De Maupassant,’ somebody else at the table asked. Because it said so on the cover, I replied. The fonts may be different, but it’s the same letters, after all. And I know who Guy De Maupassant was. I even had a selection of his stories in my own library, until the book fell apart in my hands. (Look up previous articles about ‘down-sizing.’) Anyway, I contacted the Book Center and sent them my find, which is probably nestled on a shelf with a million others. And that was that. Tiferet would have considered studying Yiddish with them, but she is more than twenty-five, and they didn’t want her. Can’t win ‘em all.

And then it was Serena’s turn to lean across the table and start a conversation with Barbara, one ‘professional’ woman to another, Serena being a writer and a mentor to other women just starting out. Whenever someone asks Barbara what kind of work she has done over the years, I jump in and ask, ‘How much time do you have?’ Do you really want to know, I often wonder, or are you just trying to make conversation? Many of you know that one of my fundamental principles is, Never ask a question unless you are absolutely certain you want to know the answer. Although I think Serena did want to know, which is why she asked. Ten minutes later when the topic had been exhausted, we were on to other things.

The conversation had a very distinct stop-and-go-quality to it, with Esther every so often turning to her husband and asking, ’Yehuda, do you understand what X (usually me) just said. Although his English is quite good, when you get a conversationalist throwing in a barrage of Americanisms collected from a lifetime of listening to the expressions of even older generations, the non-native speaker may remain a bit bewildered. (If you’re not sure what I’m talking about, re-read the first few sentences of this article.)

As we were finishing our meal, Yehuda had to (had to!) mention to Serena that I’ve done some performing in my time, which prompted her to ask me to sing something. I needed to make something very clear: there is a ‘standard’ repertoire that goes with Shabbat dining. But that’s not what I do. Shalom Aleichem, OK. Fri. night or Shabbat lunch kiddush, OK. Havdalah, OK. Stop right there; that’s it. What about Eishet Chayil; don’t you sing that? Never have, never will – by mutual consent. What about all the zemirot? You can go ahead if you want; let me know when you’re done. (The fact is that almost no one I know sings zemirot, and with the few who do, it seems to be more as ‘you’re supposed to’ than ‘you want to.’)

How about something in English? And before I knew it, I was handed a much-used song book with the words and music to dozens of standard numbers from well-known musicals. I perused the list; was there anything that suits my fancy? And then….. The September Song, music by Kurt Weill, lyrics by Maxwell Anderson, originally from   Knickerbocker Holiday, first produced in 1938. (Here’s the original version by Walter Huston.) Would I sing that? Nothing could stop me, although the high notes at the end are a challenge these days.

And that was that, probably the first and only time this song has been included in a Friday night dinner. But, as I think about it, one might consider The September Song to be a secularized Kohelet, condensed into five minutes. Anyway, as Natania would say, that’s my story, and I’m sticking to it. Those assembled ‘benched’, and we headed our separate ways, Barbara and I back to our apartment, and the rest to decide who would take Chekhov for his nightly excursion. And that was our second meal partaken under the shadow of war.

Wait a minute! Aren’t you going to say something about the wine? That’s why you were invited after all. As I said, the food was first-rate, although a bit idiosyncratic. As were the company and the conversation. What more can you ask for?