22.10.1987

VANITY AND ILLUSIONS ON LILIENBLUM

"All right, you look like a nice guy. You listen to what I say and make sure to write it just like I tell you.

"You can say that there's 'uncertainty' in the market. That's the best thing. 'Uncertainty'. That's the smartest thing to say because I'll tell you, nobody knows what's going to be. And mean-while, it's not calm here. Just uncertain, which to the outsider looks like the same thing.

"Look at me. I sit here all day, waiting to make my living, and just up the street there, in the bourse, just a few minutes ago, I lost $10,000 in one hour. That's right. You heard the fellow who came by a minute ago-he's my partner. He says that Hassneh just dropped another nine points. There goes another $10,000.

"You think this is a way to make a living? You're a young fellow. I'll tell you something. All that matters is King Solomon was right and the only thing that matters is living and loving. That's all that matters. I sit here and they sweat me for a shekel. For a dollar.

"All right, so it isn't only 'uncertainty'. Go for the Europeans. Anything European, that's what goes now. Give you 1.7, 1.72, even may be 1.75 for a dollar, but Europeans-I'll tell you, the German mark, that's the best but you can't find 'em. If you have them, well you can get 0.95 for them, and I wouldn't be surprised if it goes to 2. Yens? Last week there were yens. Cheap. But this week? Who knows? Nobody knows what's going to be. Uncertainty.

"But you can see, nobody's down here. I'd send you down to the post office but they're all crooks down there, Georgians. We threw them out of Lilienblum. They were giving us a bad name. Crooks. They'll steal you blind. Anyone gives me a hard time, makes me sweat for a shekel, I send them down to the post office and they get ripped off, which is definitely pleasing...

"One time, this young guy comes by and he says he's got 30,000-40,000 and he wants dollars. So I said, 'Okay, we'll meet at such a such a place', where I know a cafe where I can sit down. I'm not such a young man any more. So I go with my partner-you saw him, the fat one with the dark hair who just told me about Hassneh, but do you see me crying about it? No. That's the way it goes, ups and downs, ups and downs in this business and, what's more, King Solomon was right, it's all vanity and illusion.

"So, anyway, we go to the meeting and he shows up a few minutes late and he's carrying this blue plastic bag, which is where I figure he's carrying the merchandise.

"So I say to him, 'Let's sit down here in this nice cafe and we'll have a cup of coffee and do our business'.

"But he says, 'No, I'm afraid, let's go into the backyard'.

"Now my partner, he's new in the business at this time I'm referring to, and he says, 'Don't do that. You stay in the cafe and I'll make the exchange. This affair doesn't smell right to me'. That's what my partner says..

"But I thought I was the smart one, so I tell him to wait for me and I go with the customer into the backyard.

"Well, of course, as I count my money and hand it over, he pulls out a gun, but we struggled a bit, even though I am not such a young fellow like you or my partner or even the one with the gun.

"Look", he says, pulling up a trouser leg, "you see that? That red mark, that scar? Well, that's what I have from this business. A bullet. But I fought him and he ran, and the only good thing is that he was as scared as I was and dropped my money, so at least I didn't lose anything except a few days in bed until I could walk again. And of course ever since then my partner thinks he knows more than me about how to make deals on the street. Which, as King Solomon says, is all vanity and illusion.


"But you don't want to hear war stories. You want to know what's going on here today and you won't listen to me when I tell you nothing is going on. You want action. But there hasn't been action for a long time. Not real action. No real action in fact since Peres was prime minister and did his thing. And I'll tell you, this Wall Street business, it's just like what happened here with Aridor, only they don't have us there. They don't have Lilienblum there.

"Maybe there's action in a private bank. But you can't get to one of those. No way they'll let you in unless you want to do business and then you need someone to recommend you. But you want to know about one, and you're a nice fellow, and as you can see I'm sitting here because it's not so easy for me to stand a long time since I was shot in my leg, and here I am with my legs crossed which means I've got some time and you've got some time, so I'll tell you about a bank.

"There's this old yekke, a religious man, and he has an apartment and I am not revealing its location, and it has four rooms. A customer comes in with a case with let us call it merchandise of a European kind and the banker sits that customer down in one room. In another room, there is a customer with American imports, and in the third room, there is someone with the local goods. And the old man moves from one room to the next and he does his business, taking a little percentage from each one.

"You ask why the customers cannot do business with each other without the religious man. Because they don't know each other and don't want to know each other. You never know who it might be.

"But these bankers, they are very afraid nowadays. Very frightened of something. Because if they get caught, with $100, $200, I mean in thousands you see, they won't be doing business a very long time.

"So, that the situation. You can say that the poet of Lilienblum says that the only thing that's certain is death, and for all the rest, King Solomon was right, it's all vanity and illusion, a shekel here and a shekel there. And all that matters is living and loving."


| Previous | Arithmetic of the Soul: Tel Aviv and the Intifada | Next |

Back to the top