‘Wasn’t Greenspan Jewish?’

A story for our time, as told to Harley Schlanger, by the intrepid chronicler of life in the shtetls of the 21st century, Herschel Zvi.

“Oy, that Greenspan, what a schmeckle,” Tevye blurted out, to anyone who would listen. It was late afternoon at Hesch’s Tavern, and those who came in for a cold drink on the hot dusty afternoon were already in a bad mood, as Hesch had run out of ice. The last thing they wanted on such a day was to hear Tevye kvetch about Alan Greenspan and the Jews while sipping a schnapps mixed with a shpritz of warm seltzer.

Though Tevye was a bit annoyed to hear no response, he wasn’t going to let Greenspan off the hook.

“The man was a disaster for the Jews,” he continued. “A shanda. How could we get rich with a man like that running the country?”

Tevye looked up, and noticed Mendel the baker and the rabbi’s son were nodding their heads in agreement. Encouraged, he continued.

“I lost everything, twice,” he said, “thanks to him. Ja, ja, I must admit the first time it was my fault. How was I supposed to know that Yankele could sell bonds that were not insured? Who ever heard of such a thing? I was planning a trip with my Golde when they came due,” he said wistfully, a tiny tear forming in the corner of his eye. "And then they crashed, and I was again as poor as the mice in my barn.

“But the second time, it was all due to that schmuck Greenspan. Yankele—you know Yankele, nu, the second cousin to the Rothschilds bankers in Odessa? He came to me, all excited. ‘Reb, Tevye,’ he shouted, speaking so fast it was hard to keep up. ‘Reb Tevye, I know how you can refinance your home. You can do it with no money down, it’s called an interest-only loan!’

“I have to tell you, he grabbed my attention.”

I looked around the tavern, and saw every eye on me, except for the tax collector, Schmidlap, who was busy staring at the stack of papers he was shuffling in his lap.

“So Yankele,’ I inquired, ‘How does this work?’

“For the next ten minutes, he rattled on, speaking faster and faster, spit flying, hardly stopping to breathe. All I remember is he said that you sign a paper, the bank gives you money, and for the next two years, all you pay is interest! Better yet, the interest payment is much smaller than the rent! It was an answer to my prayers, a miracle!”

“I should have remembered the lesson from the Talmud, that there is often a heavy price to pay for each prayer answered.”

For a minute, you could hear a pin drop, it was as quiet as when the old rabbi Weinberg fell asleep in the Temple in the middle of little Ruthie’s Bat Mitzvah.

Mr. Kaplan broke the silence—“Tevye, don’t keep us waiting, tell us, what happened next?”

It’s a story I swore I would never tell, but what could I do? Everyone—except for that big shot Schmidlap—was leaning forward, wanting to know.

Well, what could I do? My mama always said silence is golden, and it says in the Good Book, better to say nothing and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt—but, it also says “what is true is true, and it will all come out in the wash some day”—so I continued.

“On the very day after two years, the banker from Odessa—you know, the Rothschild second cousin—came to my barn, carrying a notebook and followed by a policeman.”

“‘Tevye,’ he said, ‘I have some very bad news. I’ve come to collect the balance of your loan.’”

“I was confused by this. ‘I’ve been paying every month,’ I stammered. ‘What is it you need now?’ I asked, once my voice returned.

“Without pausing, the banker looked me in the eye, with a crooked smile on his lips, and said, ‘The principal! If you don’t pay today,’ he added, looking around at the barn, which he assumed would soon be his, if I couldn’t pay, ‘we will have to take over the property.’

“‘How could this happen?’ I asked.

“Did you not read the contract?’ he asked, his smile growing larger. I tried to explain that Yankele told me it was a standard contract, and he responded, his grin opening to a smirk: ‘And you believed that schmeggege?’

“Without saying another word, he signaled to the police officer to remove me from my barn and place a fancy-schmanzy padlock on it. It was then that I remembered what Yankele had told me when I was signing the papers. ‘One of these days,’ he blurted out happily, ‘you can thank Greenspan for this. He is making the markets work for the little guy.’

“As a little guy, I don’t remember asking for such help.”

“As he walked away, Yankele told me, his voice full of good cheer, ‘Tevye, the best news is, you don’t have to pay my commission until the deal is done.’”

After a few moments of silence, Mendel shouted, “Tevye is right, Greenspan is a schmeckle.” The air was soon filled with curses against Greenspan, his mother and any other relative they could think of. From behind the bar, Hesch led a chant of “Long life to Tevye” and promised a free shot of warm seltzer to anyone who is thirsty—though he said he had run out of schnapps an hour ago.

When the good-natured clamor died down, Schmidlap cleared his throat and said, “I knew Greenspan when he was young. He played the clarinet in a klezmer band. His mama told him he could be the next Benny Goodman. Too bad he had a tin ear—if he could’ve played a lick, Tevye might still have his barn….”

“What I really want to know,” Schmidlap continued, exuding the confidence of a financial insider, “Where was this Glass Steagall guy when you really needed him, Tevye?”

An answer came from a dark corner in the bar—“I think he was partying with Jeffrey Epstein,” triggering bursts of laughter from Hesch’s loyal customers and Tevye’s neighbors.

“Whatever happened to Yankele?” asked Bernie, who had just moved to Kasrilevke.

“Oy, Yankele,” Tevye said, no bitterness in his voice. “He’s working for some schmendrick named Kushner, selling luxury real estate in Gaza and Albania.”

With that, as people were leaving, it was Sadie Kaplan who had the last word. “I don’t get it,” she said, “wasn’t Greenspan Jewish?”