Page 516 - WhyAsInY

Why (as in yaverbaum)
flagship, there to witness the passage into manhood of his thirteen-year- old son, and to celebrate with him on a forty-six-mile cruise into international waters, all while being attended to by the ship’s crew of one thousand men and women, give or take—not counting rabbis. Half of New York’s political establishment was there to daven with Gerry and his wife, Linda, as was Ivan Boesky, the famed Wall Street deal maker (and soon-to-be target of the Securities and Exchange Commission and the United States Attorney), who landed on the deck via his own heli- copter, naturally. Peter Duchin, high society’s favorite orchestra leader, conducted “Hava Nagila”—where did he learn it?—during the six- course, champagne-laced, black-tie dinner. I could go on and on with the details, but you get the point.
In his bar mitzvah charge on board the ship, Rabbi Schneier of the (Orthodox) Park East Synagogue had said, “In a home that has every- thing, Linda and Gerry also stress to their children that which gives us purpose in life.’’ What a wonderful basis for a Rosh Hashanah sermon! Right before Alenu, virtually every Jew in attendance in and around New York, and wherever the front page of The New York Times was read, would hear about and be impressed by the righteousness of the Guter- man family and how it was a living symbol of Jewish devotion. Perhaps everyone would now start saving up to rent an appropriate ocean liner.
And it was all thanks to me, somewhat.
The New York Times, which featured the Guterman festivities on its front page, estimated that the cost of the bar mitzvah exceeded “half a million dollars” (more than $1 million today), and that’s where I came in. Two weeks before the QE2 bar mitzvah, Guterman and I were together, alone, in a very small conference room, and he was borrowing $600,000 (floating a loan, so to speak) to finance the most highly lever- aged nautical religious ceremony in history and, presumably, to put any unspent dollars into his synagogue’s pishka. And I always think of the Guterman bar mitzvah as I reflect upon the next step in my career.
I was conducting my first transaction for Coronet Properties, mak- ing sure—as Norman Dansker, my new boss (who you will remember had been the president of Investors Funding Corporation, the company
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