9/7/93

Coca-Cola and the Jewish Question

Coca-Cola – the Great Satan – has been banned.

    A movie called ‘The Coca-Cola Kid’ was shown on cable TV last week, wherein a hard-nosed piss-and-vinegar ex-Marine Coca-Cola salesman named Beaker is despatched to Australia. He discovers a remote desert town where peculiar local customs prevail, where folks only drink a brand called McCoke. He sets out to ram his beloved brown bubbly down their throats.
    The very next day, right here in The Jerusalem Post, there was a report headlined "Haredim want Coke stripped of hechsher.” Another peculiar local custom.
    Can you just imagine the fallout if Coke had its kashrut certificate revoked? Never mind that Pepsi lost its certificate a month ago; a lot of people think there's poetic justice in an Israeli boycott of Pepsi. But this is Coke, for crying out loud.
    This, then, is Israel's version of the Cola War, and what would happen if Coke got the heave-ho, pitting Beaker against the Badatz....

    Clarence Osborne Kennedy Eagleson VII is the chief executive officer of Coca-Cola Ltd. in Atlanta, Georgia. Rabbi Itchke Muhlshtock is a big shot in some little shul somewhere in Bnei Brak. The only bond between them is that when Rabbi Muhlshtock slurps his weekly glass of Coke while khlopping his cholent, Clarence O.K. Eagleson VII gets a little bit richer.
    Rabbi Muhlshtock did not set out to make trouble for Clarence Eagleson, but what he saw while waiting for the bus on the way to the mikve early that fateful morning put the two men on a collision course. The American Way versus the Jewish Way.
    What he saw was an ad on the side of the bus. It was a picture of someone drinking Coke. It was a picture of a woman drinking Coke. A woman with naked arms.
    Right here in the middle of Bnei Brak!
    He turned to Viletzky, who was also waiting for the bus. Viletzky was going to have his tefillin repaired. "You want to tell me, Viletzky, why I have to be insulted by a picture like that when I'm on my way to get my soul cleansed? Huh?"
    Viletzky was trembling. "We should tell the rabbi."
    The two men looked at each other, nodded silently, and ran off together to the shul.
    Half a world away, at that moment, Clarence Eagleson was asleep in his stately mansion, troubled by a dream. He dreamed that his yacht had run aground and he was marooned on a desert island full of odd-looking bearded men dressed in black, drinking Pepsi. Must've been the oysters he'd had for supper, he thought to himself the next morning over a late breakfast of bacon and eggs and a rum and Coke.

TWO DAYS later, a man in a gray pinstripe suit presented himself to Miss Wood, secretary to Clarence Osborne Kennedy Eagleson VII. "It's urgent," he told her, "I must see him at once." She pushed a button on her intercom. "James L. White to see you sir, says it can't wait."
    "Send him in."
    The CEO watched his Vice President For World Affairs cross the immense executive office. "Morning, Jim. this isn't our golf day, is it?"
    "No, Clarence. We've got trouble."
    "Hmm. Bosnia again?"
    "No, supplies are getting through. Consumption on both sides of the conflict is rising steadily."
    "Somalia then."
    "We changed the campaign there and sales have shot up."
    "Well, then, where on Earth is there still a person left who can resist an ice-cold Coca-Cola?"
    "Israel, sir." 
    "Don't be ridiculous."
    "That's only the tip of the ice cube. It's a religious ban. They say we sponsor immoral temptations, like the MTV cable TV channel. They accuse us of desecrating their holy Sabbath. And something about naked women on billboards poisoning the souls of the youth."
    "Blast it, man, I thought you said Israel; you mean to say Iran, of course."
    "Hell, no. Iran is practically bathing in Coke. They've taken us back with open arms. You wouldn't think that only yesterday Coke was the Great Satan there. No, Clarence, I mean Israel."
    Eagleson banged a fist on his desk. "Pepsi! Those bastards! They're behind this."
    "Actually, Pepsi was banned a month ago. Same thing."
    "I don't get it. American Jews drink the stuff. We even put their little symbol on our cans and bottles to say it's ... uh --"
    "Kosher."
    "Yeah, kosher."
    "Well that's the crux of the problem over there in Israel. They're saying we're not kosher anymore."
    "The hell we're not!" Eagleson lit his pipe and pondered for a moment. "Jim, what's 'kosher'?"
    "How the devil would I know, I'm a Baptist."
    With little trouble, Miss Wood found a Jew working in the accounts department. Dave Geffen was summoned.
    "How are you, Dave? We treating you well enough here? Family okay? Good, good. Tell me, Dave, what's 'kosher'?"
    "It means there's no pork in it. And no milk and meat mixed together."
    "Thank you Dave. That will be all."
    "Have a good day, sirs."
    Eagleson stroked his chin. He looked confused. "Jim, are we putting pork in our Coke?"

BEAKER GOT the call just as he returned from his latest mission, in Australia. Every last damn foreigner was going to drink Coke before he was about to call it a day. He had got the Chinese guzzling the stuff, the Nagorno-Karabakhians, even the Iranians. Up Mount Fuji there was now a Coke machine, thanks to Beaker. At the South Pole he had set up a Coke distributorship. He had nearly run Guinness out of Belfast, and there was a monastery in innermost Outer Mongolia where the monks subsist on tree bark, grubs and Coca-Cola.
    He had never been to Israel before.
    The El Al stewardess smiled pleasantly. "Drink, sir?"
    "Coke."
    "I'm terribly sorry, sir, but we can't serve you Coke. We run a strictly kosher airline," she explained, flicking her eyes in the direction of a group of black-garbed men standing close together at the back of the plane, murmuring loudly from prayer books.
    "Coke," he repeated tersely.
    "Perhaps you'd like some nice Israeli orange juice," the stew suggested.
    “Coke! Coke!" Crazed, Beaker leaped out of his seat. "Stop this plane! This is a journey to hell! Give me Coke or give me death! I'm an American citizen, I have rights! And foremost among them is my God-given right to drink Coke wherever on Earth I go!" It took four burly  men to subdue him.
    When the plane landed, Beaker shoved past passengers applauding the safe landing and sprinted down the gangway, charging across the tarmac for the terminal. No Coke machine there. The woman at the cafeteria took his money and gave him a can of 7-Up and said rudely, "take it or leave it." He flung it back at her.
    He was stopped at customs and asked what was in his luggage. "Coke," he said, "nothing but dozens of cans of thirst-quenching Coca-Cola. And a change of underwear." They confiscated the Coke.
    He got into a taxi. The driver didn't know where the poor fellow could buy a Coke. "I get you woman. I get you drugs. I get you tickets to Betar Jerusalem. But Coke? The rabbis say no, so it's no." The cabbie lowered his voice to a whisper.  "Unless... unless I take you to Gaza."
    "Go," Beaker ordered him.
    "$500," the cabbie said.
    "Go fast."
    The taxi driver found a dilapidated cafe on the edge of town, took the $500 and asked for a tip.
    Beaker hurried in and went directly to the counter. "Coke."
    "Large or small?"
    "Both," he said, kissing the waiter on both cheeks.
    Mahmud, the owner of the cafe, sallied by. "You are American, yes? You have dollars?"
    Beaker grinned as he emptied the glasses. "You can have my dollars if I can have your Coke. Say, what is it with you Israelis? This is the only place outside of Pyongyang where a guy can't get a decent fizzy drink."
    Mahmud explained to Beaker the subtleties of the Who's An Israeli issue, and Beaker told Mahmud about his mission. They became fast friends.
    "So you see, Mr. Beaker, why we Palestinians must have a state of our own. They take our land, slaughter our children, rape our pregnant women, put us in prison, and don't let us drink Coke. Who can live like this, tell me that. In America, would a Christian priest say that an innocent Arab is forbidden from drinking his favorite drink because of some insane belief? We are a democracy-loving people, Mr. Beaker, you tell your friends in America that, and we are living in an evil regime. The Palestinian peoples have only one desire. That is to sit under our olive trees in our ancient homeland, waving our national flag and sipping our beloved national drink, Coca-Cola from America. That is why we rise in revolt against the Israelis. If we must kill to drink Coke, to choose our own destiny, to unfetter the shackles of the unreasonable will of rabbis and politicians and generals who tell us how to live, then we must kill, Mr. Beaker. You tell your friends in America that." 
    When Beaker left Mahmud's cafe late that night, his head was spinning.   
    Those poor Palestinians, he thought.
    Those damn Israelis.

    THE FOLLOWING morning, Beaker shaved, showered, changed his underwear, donned his three-piece herringbone suit, buffed his Florsheims and left the Tel Aviv hotel, getting into a cab. "Take me to the rabbi in Bnei Brak," he barked.
    The cabbie snickered. "Which rabbi in Bnei Brak?"
    Beaker described his mission. The driver apologized that his meter was broken, but for $500 he would find a rabbi for him.
    They arrived at the corner of Rashi and Rabbi Akiva. The driver hollered out his window: "Hey, rabbis! Here's one for you!" And then he took Beaker's money and sped off.
    A dozen bearded, black-clad men converged on the ex-Marine. One of them came forward for a closer look. "Did you put on tefillin today?" Another tsk-tsked and said to him: "You don't look Jewish." Beaker smiled amiably. "Church of Christ, actually." Everyone gasped. A bewigged woman crossed the street and demanded to know what the balagan was all about. Beaker described his mission. The burgeoning crowd listened intently.
    "Feh!" said the woman, a mother of 15. "I wouldn't wash my toilet bowl with Coke, it's so unkosher."
    "Madam," Beaker said ernestly. "We don't put pork in Coke. There's no milk, no meat, just a lot of sugar and coca leaves, kola nuts, caramel, water and fizz. That sounds pretty kosher to me."
    A man from the crowd was propelled forward. "Tell him, Itchke," the others said. Itchke Muhlshtock stepped up to the Coca-Cola Kid.
    "It's not kosher because of the women's bare arms."
    "That's silly. We're not putting women's bare arms in the bottles."
    The crowd prodded Itchke. "You can't expect a Jew to drink your product when your billboards are displayed at events held on Shabbos."
    The crowd murmured in agreement.
    "Rabbi, I've got 80 million Coke logos covering this country. Are you saying I should pull 'em all down every Friday and put 'em all back up every Sunday?"
    "If it's God's will." More murmurs.
    "See here," said Beaker petulantly. "You've got your God to worry about; I've got Clarence Eagleson. Every single day, 100 million people buy his product. That's more people than there are who believe in your God."
    There was a collective geshrey. Mrs. Blumenthal fainted. All the children were sent away. The crowd closed in on the dapper salesman. "Antisemite!" cried a hothead from the back.
    "Oh yeah? Some of my best friends are Jews who drink Coke."
    "Sha!" Itchke Muhlshtock shouted above the din. "I have a solution." The crowd simmered to silence, as the talmudic scholar turned to the ex-Marine. "You want this country to buy your product? You need our permission. So here's what you do. Instead of sponsoring Saturday soccer games, sponsor a yeshiva."
    "Are you nuts?"
    "I'm not finished. Clarence Eagleson must repent. He must stop luring Jews to desecrate the Sabbath."
    "You're nuts!"
    "And stop showing promiscuous women on your advertisements. You can show one of us instead. A picture of a wise old rabbi, drinking Coke with his cholent. With a slogan like, maybe, 'Badatz Is It.' Then we'll be convinced it's really kosher; make Coke Jewish and then Israelis will buy it. A good idea, no?"
    The crowd applauded. Everyone looked to Beaker for a sign of approval. Beaker looked at them dumbly. His mouth went dry. Finally, he spoke. "Point me to the nearest bar," he said. "I need a drink."