Giuliani loses his kosher seal
On Oct. 8, 1994, Mayor Rudy Giuliani officiated at my wedding. Yeah, that Rudy Giuliani. My wife, Liz Bruder, and I met working on Rudy’s successful mayoral campaign in 1993. She raised money; I raised Cain. I’m Jewish, Liz is Catholic. Rudy knew that.
Now that Rudy “Co-Conspirator #1” Giuliani has revealed himself to be an antisemite on clandestinely-recorded audio transcripts, Liz and I are getting remarried on Oct. 8, our 29th anniversary.
You’re all invited. Except Rudy. This time, we’re gonna do it right. A rabbi and a priest will marry us, not an antisemitic, thrice-divorced, ex-mayor who thinks Jewish men have “small penises” because we “can’t use them after getting married.”
“Whereas,” added the worldly Rudy, “the Italian men use them all their lives so they get bigger.”
Hard to believe, even from Modern Rudy? Google it.
While you’re at it, Google Rudy’s defamatory remarks about the sexuality of actor Matt Damon and former Mayor Mike Bloomberg and his misogynistic rant about the breasts of the woman suing him for wide-ranging sexual assault, harassment, abuse of power and wage theft — who surreptitiously taped him making those crude comments.
To top it off, Rudy’s sick of “that freaking Passover after like 3,000 years”. Crazy, right?
Alcohol is truth serum. The more you drink, the more truth you tell. Rudy must’ve had a lot to drink before his accuser hit record on her phone.
I can hear and see Rudy and his buddy Donald Trump knee-slapping in the Oval Office about ending democracy, Jewish tropes, penis-size theories and mocking “very liberal” Matt Damon. With a couple of “Grab ’em by the pussies” thrown in for “locker room talk.” Good thing Jewish Jared and Converted Ivanka weren’t there. Or maybe they were.
Rudy was curious about religions other than his own. He seemed as comfortable talking to a priest in a church or a rabbi in a synagogue. Though I didn’t see him at a mosque or in the presence of an imam.
I never heard Rudy utter an antisemitic slur and neither did Jewish friends of his I talked to who no longer speak to him. Rudy was friends with Rabbi Joseph Potasnik and I watched him embrace ChabadLubavitch Grand Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson outside his synagogue at 770 Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn.
Nonetheless, Rudy was and is ignorant about Judaism, African Americans, homosexuals and Muslims. Ignorance is where antisemitism, racism, homophobia and all other “isms” and phobias are born. When I told him that Liz and I were getting married and asked him to officiate, Rudy asked if we were going to do Pre-Cana, a course or consultation with a priest for couples preparing to be married in a Catholic church.
“I would if I was Catholic,” I replied. “But as you know, Rudy, I’m Jewish.”
Liz and I told Rudy that we’d decided against a religious ceremony for our inter-faith marriage. That’s why we asked him to officiate the civil ceremony.
As the product of two devout Catholic parents and a Catholic school education, Rudy still retains the rigid, willful ignorance of his youth. For 79 years, he has held tightly to his parochial worldview of unfamiliar people not from Italian-American East Flatbush of the ’40s.
Rudy had, at least, seemed to evolve in his thinking about gay people. After separating from Donna Hanover and moving out of Gracie Mansion in August 2001, he moved in with political supporter Howard Koeppel and his longtime partner, Mark Hsiao.
Koeppel and Hsiao get credit for enlightening Rudy about homosexuality. But, unfortunately, not enough. When same-sex marriage was not yet legal in New York State, Rudy reneged on his pledge to preside at their wedding.
Rudy’s daughter, Caroline, is pansexual and polyamorous; she previously identified as bisexual. She should teach her father about alternative sexualities.
Giuliani’s been around the world. He was the hero of post-9/11, knighted by the Queen, Time magazine’s Man of the Year. Yet, “others” remain suspect and suspicious to him.
Republican Rudy would often point out the Democrats working on his campaign as proof of his bipartisan support. We also happened to all be Jewish: Deputy campaign manager Richard Schwartz; Bruce Teitelbaum, liaison to the Jewish community; field director Darryl Fox; outreach advisor Rabbi Lenny Guttman and myself, the campaign spokesman with the funny way of spelling Frydman.
Rudy didn’t kick Yasser Arafat out of Lincoln Center because he loves Jews. He did it to pander for votes from Israel-loving Jews like me. It worked.
This is how Rudy thanks Jewish men who voted for him three times?
By belittling our penises and Passover?