By Lara Vapnyar
Years from now, will people ask each other where they were and what they were doing on the day when president Trump was impeached?
In case they are, I’m going to remember that I spent that evening eating sushi in the company of Yalie Jews, in the sterile model apartment in Brooklyn Heights, with the drawn blinds depicting an everlasting sunrise over Manhattan, and a stunning luxurious bathroom with a sign “please, don’t use!” (Thankfully, there was also a more modest bathroom with no warnings).
This was an event hosted by a real-estate developer David Kramer, and organized by Shabtai, a “secret” Jewish Society at Yale, founded by Rabbi Shmully Hecht, senator Cory Booker and Noah Feldman, as a platform for bipartisan intellectual debate. Or as Shmully puts it, “A place to engage with people you disagree with.”
Most attendees at these events are Yale professors, students or alumni, with occasional random guests like myself who get excited by the extravagant terms like “pluralism” or “bipartisan” that are almost extinct in our dark times.
When I arrived, there were just the host and two speakers in the room, the tall and imposing Tony Schwartz, in a pin-stripe suit and colorful socks, who ghosted The Art of the Deal and the subdued Keith Urbahn, the man working on bringing to light a book by the famous Anonymous (remember that damning NY Times op-ed?)
I was struck by the irony of the situation. Tony, a progressive, who hates Trump with a passion, happened to write a book that might have helped led Trump to presidency (at least, that’s Tony’s devastating belief.) Keith, a republican, who is ambivalent about Trump, but supporting him on some of the issues, is publishing a book that might bring Trump down.
My reverie was interrupted by an excited crowd of students and alumni, followed by Rabbi Shmully himself, who didn’t walk, but charged in, balancing a huge box of Hanukkah menorahs, talking a mile a minute, and giving off enough steam to power a train engine.
Soon we were all seated on the model chairs and sofas, which brought to mind a gathering at the shtetl and simultaneously the European salon.
Shmully’s wife and a Director of Shabtai, the graceful Toby Hecht, started the conversation with a story of different approaches to lighting the Hannukah candles, suggesting that it’s important to respect the difference of opinion. Just a couple of years ago, I would’ve thought that she was stating the obvious, but now that we’re sadly past the times for civilized debate, her words sounded almost nostalgic to me.
Both presentations were very engaging. Keith told a fascinating story of hunting the Anonymous so he could persuade him to write a book, and Tony read from his moving memoir of the last thirty years of his life spent atoning for writing The Art of the Deal. I thought that Tony must have felt like the designer of Titanic Thomas Andrews, only Thomas Andrews went down with his ship, and Tony had a misfortune to rise with his.
But what I was really looking forward to was the discussion at the end. I couldn’t quite believe that the promised “plurality of opinions” was still possible, I felt like a child excited to open her gift, but afraid to end up disappointed.
Well, my expectations were exceeded with the very first comment.
One of the attendees noted that we weren’t steered by their moral character, when picking a doctor or lawyer, so it shouldn’t matter in our choice of a president either. She asked Tony if it wouldn’t be wiser to separate the moral and the practical. His resounding scream in response of that question shook the sterile room: “Absolutely not!”
Keith offered a more nuanced response. He said that he saw moral character on the spectrum, and that Richard Spencer was a 100% immoral, so he wouldn’t never support him, but Trump wasn’t as bad.
The guests engaged in the heated discussion of whether Trump was or was not as bad as Richard Spencer for a while, then switched to other topics, like facts vs feelings in politics, and the myth of neutrality, and the sad impossibility of having a balanced view of the world while imprisoned in your ideological bubble.
At the end, one of the students asked the speakers whether it was still possible to persuade your political opponent rather than simply outshout him.
Surprisingly, both speakers seem to be optimistic on the topic. Both believed that even though persuading your opponent was getting increasingly difficult, we absolutely had to try.
The last word at these events always belongs to Shmully. He spoke of Tony’s childhood trauma of not having a bar mitzvah. Then Shmully grabbed Tony by the shoulders and insisted that he should perform a bar mitzvah for him. For second, it looked like he would perform it right there and then. Tony, who is 67, tried to resist, but ended up promising that if he ever decides to have a bar mitzvah, Shmully would be the one to perform it.
Shmully proceeded with an inspired speech about importance of Love, another old concept that became extravagant and almost extinct. “We were here in the name of love and enlightenment,” Shmully said, “not for material advancement or self-promotion. No one here,” Shmully pointed out, “is selling either books or condos in this room.” A real-estate developer in the back responded with a skeptical “well…”, which was met with a roaring laughter.
And with that, the guests left the perpetual sunset to enter a very dark and very cold night, armed with souvenir menorahs in their purses and backpacks.
Lara Vapnyar is a Russian-American author currently living in the United States.
She can be contacted at: vapnyar@hotmail.com