20/6/97

This is Your Life, No. 1 Chicken

Rivka ג€“ the fairest of Zionist fowl ג€“ gave her all for her country.

    "Ladies and gentlemen, your host, Murray Schnitzer!"
    (Wild applause which, because this is an Israeli studio audience, changes to rhythmic clapping.)
    "Welcome to another episode of This is Your Life. You know, folks, it is said that the national animal of Israel is the cockroach. It is not. It is the chicken. No other creature inhabits such a central role in the national psyche as the chicken. In the days of austerity, what did we dream of? Not steak or lamb chops or tunafish, but chicken! When the price of chicken goes up, it's front page headlines. When it goes down, front page advertisements.
    "Tonight, we turn the spotlight on a venerable Israeli we all know and love. She is the nation's longest-living chicken, she has seen it all, and here she is folks, Rivka the No. 1 Chicken!"
    (Rhythmic clapping. A lady in the audience, clapping out of synch, is chucked out. Rivka is sitting on a plastic chair that, like every chair in this country, has one leg shorter than the others. She looks nostalgic and misty-eyed. Her mascara is starting to run.)
    "I can't believe it," says Rivka. "Me, of all chickens."
    Murray smiles sweetly and the lights are turned off. "It is 1948. You had just been laid. Do you remember ... this?"
    (A light bulb turns on directly above the chicken.)
    "Click."
    Rivka gasps. "Momma!"
    (The audience is deeply moved.)
    "She was a good egg," the light bulb reminisces. "No trouble at all. And I knew even then she would not wind up in some fricasee."
    (Suddenly there is a tinkle. "Oy!" the light bulb croaks, "I think it's my filament. Somebody, get me an electrician." But it is too late, and the Tadiran Standard Size One expires. The TV screen goes blank for a moment and a slide appears: "Stay tuned -- technical difficulties." A commercial break follows:)
    "Howdy, kids! My name is Reverend Irwin Feltcher and I'd like to talk to you about -- da-dummm, bar-r-r-rump-pah -- conversion. We at the Children of Israel Mission believe you don't really have to be Jewish if you don't want to. Why not try our faith? It's fun, fun, fun all the time, you never have to fast, and we promise the niftiest afterlife of any religion. Get with it, dudes, call toll-free and we'll send you a real Mickey Mouse Crucifix Badge absolutely free of guilt! La-la-la-la-la-la..."
    "You're back with Murray Schnitzer. Rivka, do you remember ... this voice?"
    "Let's get to work, hevra, we've got an order for 3,000 from Bnei Brak, 2,000 for Kiryat Malachi and five fat ones for Golda, she's making soup for an emergency cabinet session."
    Rivka scratches her comb for a moment and then screeches with delight. "Lemuel!"
    Lemuel, the manager of the kibbutz chicken roost, walks on stage grinning. He gives Rivka a peck and sits down next to her. "You remember that day, Rivkele? A real stinker, almost 40 degrees, and just as we're starting the night shift there's a tremendous tumult. Arab raiders! They got you and Sophie and a few others, and fled across the border. I never thought I'd see you again."
    Rivka shakes her head sadly. "I was so depressed. And scared. Who knew what those unkosher marauders might do with me?"
    "And then the war came. I listened to the radio every second, praying. We captured the Sinai, I didn't care; Gaza, the Golan, so what; we took Jerusalem, and by then I was losing hope so I called Golda and said nu, what about Kafr Thulth? Twenty minutes later the West Bank was ours, and you were liberated."
    "Those were the days."
    Lemuel reaches over and fondly ruffles Rivka's feathers. "The day we were reunited, I swore you'd never get your tuches in a pot. Though truth be told, I never thought I'd see it on a chair."
    (Rivka giggles coyly, the audience sighs rhythmically and thousands of viewers turn off their TV sets in disgust.)
    "Our next guest comes all the way from Givat Gorgle. Listen carefully, Rivka..."
      "Ven Gott made de chicken, it vas a tiny step for Him but a great giant leap for de Jewish Pipple."
    "Oh my, it's the Old Perfessor!"
    (Everyone rises in respect as Prof. Ido Kurkevanovitch enters. He is a dignified, bespectacled old egghead who devoted his academic life to the study of socio-poultriology. In 1963 he won a Pullet Surprise for his acclaimed work, "Kaparot From the Chicken's Perspective.")
    "You're looking in ze pink, Rivka. Mine Got, I haven't seen you since --"
    "-- Since 1970, the campus riot."
    "Ja, I vill never forget, you were running around like a chicken  -- vell, you know vat I mean."
    "And then the Vegetarian Society pelted your car with eggs."
    "Ach, I remember like it vas yesterday. De vindows got schmeered mit albumen, it vas no yolk."
    (Everybody laughs, which embarrasses Kurkevanovitch because the pun was unintentional.)
    The camera returns to Murray, who is holding up a slick coffee-table book. "Professor, I understand you've just been published."
    "M-hm, that's right Murray."
    "Selling well?"
    "Like you vouldn't believe."
    "It's called 'The History of Israel' and there's nothing you didn't know about chickens that isn't here. For example, in 1977 Israelis became the world chicken-eating champions. We were second in egg-eating in 1956. (Oohs and aahs from the audience.) And I'll bet you didn't know that in 1987 the US Army was fed kosher chickens from Jerusalem. (Spontaneous, patriotic cheer.) Or that in 1959 the royal subjects of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth imported two tons of chicken skins from the State of Israel. It's all here in this fabulously illustrated book." (Standing ovation.)
    Rivka starts to sweat from the bright stage lights, which is unusual for a chicken. But she perks up when the next guest arrives: the chairman of Tnuva, Manfred J. Cacciatore.
    The chairman is wealthy, and looks it. He is wearing an Italian herringbone suit, made with real herringbones, and a gold watch he awarded himself in 1962 as Socialist Executive of the Year, when he devised the system whereby chickens are graded in size from 1 up to 3, and eggs from 3 up to 1.
    Cacciatore smiles at Rivka, although she's a NIS 17.50 write-off.  "My, how you've grown," he clucks, admiring her large breasts and fat thighs.
    Rivka blushes, which poultry rarely do. "It's the kibbutz food," she says, and several kibbutzniks in the audience titter derisively.
    "Chicken feed, compared to projected sales at NIS 10.25 a kilo."
    "Tsk, tsk," Rivka admonishes with a cheeky grin, "you're counting 'em before they're hatched, so to speak." 
    "I am reminded," the chairman continues, masking his pique at being humbled by something he sells to be stuffed, "of Alfred Hitchcock. He was fond of fresh chicken" -- he glared at Rivka -- "but not in its embryonic state. Quoth he: 'I'm frightened of eggs, worse than frightened, they revolt me. That white round thing without any holes... have you ever seen anything more revolting than an egg yolk breaking and spilling its yellow liquid? Blood is jolly, red. But egg yolk is yellow, revolting. I've never tasted it.'"
    "For that matter," Rivka says, "neither have I."
    The program is nearly over, time for Rivka to sum up her life.
    "I was born a socialist, so my earliest memories are of terrible hardship. The ma'abarot, hunger, austerity. Those poor immigrant children, fed with dreams of a better life, a country they could call their own. Their weary mothers waiting in line for egg rations. The bitter debates in Knesset, in the streets. Ben-Gurion said it was a choice between rationing food or immigrants; Menachem Begin said continuing austerity would create a generation of invalids. We were only chickens, but we did what we could.
    "Such suffering. But we prevailed. And look how far we've come: from powdered eggs to egg shampoo; from soup to souffle; from a shtikl pulke a week to an all-you-can-eat choice of fresh or frozen in four sizes, plus goose, duck, quail, you name it.
    "You take a look at a supermarket nowadays; does the Jew really have to feed his family a miserable reminder of his wretched roots? In a restaurant they like fancy, but at home, humble and traditional. Who's a Jew?, everyone asks. The answer is: he is what he eats, a nice kosher chicken, old-fashioned, simple.
    "Like we used to say in the roost, 'A Jew should pig out with chicken, and chicken out with pig.'"
    Murray Schnitzer, sensing this schmaltzy show could do with some social value, cuts in. "Before we're through, I must ask one last thing. It's a quandary that has been niggling at mankind for at least 1,500 years. Rivka," he says breathlessly, "as the world's only known talking chicken, can you tell the human race, once and for all, what came first, the chicken or the egg?"
    The audience is abuzz. The camera zooms in. The prime minister is alerted.
    "I," Rivka says proudly, "am a Zionist chicken." She pauses to take a sip of water. "The answer to your question is: My country came first."
    (Prolonged applause. The audience converges on the stage to chat with the guests. A fat lady, who says she met Rivka's cousin Bertie at a dinner party, gives Rivka a heavy hug, squeezing her kishkes.)