Message From Shmuley To Muammar Poem by gershon hepner

say your tent is Bedouin-style
but it is air-conditioned,
and your weapons that are vile
though no longer nuclear-fissioned
aren’t ones that a true Bedouin
should be as proud of as you are.
Though Englewood must let you in
it hopes that you will keep as far
as possible from its suburban
avenues and homes and shuls,
and stay in Libya with your turban,
riding camels, horses, mules,
in deserts where a tent will keep
you safe from weather that’s unruly,
while roasting Bedouin-style a sheep,
not shmoozing in a shul with Shmuley.
Of all the gin joints in this land
why must you after my own hanker?
Englewood has got no sand,
and isn’t even Casablanca,
where you could play it once again,
as Bogey once request Sam,
and it remembers murdered men,
and hit men who don’t give a damn.

Inspired by the reaction of the inhabitants of Englewood, including R. Shmuley Boteach, to a forthcoming visit by Col. Muammar el Qaddafi, reported by Joseph Berger in the NYT (“Qaddafi’s Visit Upsets N.J. Residents, ” August 28,2009) :

ENGLEWOOD, N.J. — At a run-down estate on Palisade Avenue here, construction workers and landscapers clamber around in what appears to be a hurried top-to-bottom, inside-and-out makeover — all in anticipation of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi and his traveling tent. Colonel Qaddafi, the Libyan leader, will be coming next month to address the United Nations, and the logistics of his stay are complicated by the Bedouin-style, air-conditioned tent that he uses to greet visitors. In a visit to Russia, for example, the tent was pitched in a garden at the Kremlin; in Rome, a public park. Colonel Qaddafi had wanted to plunk his tent down in Central Park, but New York officials rejected the idea. Next on the list was the Libyan-owned estate on Palisade Avenue, which would produce one of those only-in-America cultural collisions. Many Americans are incensed at the Libyan leader for his past sponsorship of terrorists and would probably prefer that he not come at all. But Englewood is a suburban city of 30,000 with a large Orthodox Jewish population, a community that has particularly detested Colonel Qaddafi because Israel has been a favored target of terror. In fact, Englewood’s largest yeshiva is right next door to the estate on Palisade Avenue. Another neighbor is Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, who has strode the national stage by analyzing relationships on “The Oprah Winfrey Show, ” acting as a spiritual mentor to Michael Jackson and writing the popular book “Kosher Sex” and 20 others. His Web site bills him as “Rabbi Shmuley, America’s Rabbi.” On Wednesday, the rabbi addressed reporters gathered on his lawn. He took note of the star-crossed coincidence that Colonel Qaddafi could become his neighbor, and sounded like Humphrey Bogart in “Casablanca” lamenting, “Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine.” The rabbi said, “When you have an international financier of terror moving in next door, it’s very unnerving.” What is more, he said, workers installing a 2,000-foot black metal fence around the Libyan compound have cut down 10 of his trees and a stretch of his chain-link fence. He is considering a lawsuit.

8/28/09