By YONATAN SREDNIPresident Shimon Peres and Barbra Streisand(photo credit: Yosef Avi Yair Angel)
‘She’s coming!” my wife announced excitedly late one Friday night a few months ago as she pointed to something in the weekend newspaper.“Who’s coming?” I asked, without bothering to look up from my novel.“Barbra, of course!” I looked up. “Your Aunt Barbara? She comes every year.”“No, not her,” my wife waved dismissively, “Barbra Streisand is coming to Israel!” “Oh,” I said quietly, returning to my book.“Do you know what this means?” I knew what it meant. My wife was a life-long Barbra Streisand fan. Another perk of making aliya a few decades ago was saving money on Streisand concert tickets, but I’ll be damned if ”Babs” didn’t find a way to follow us to Israel.“Do you remember the last Barbra Streisand concert we went to?” my wife asked.Of course I did. We were on a trip to the San Francisco area to visit our daughter and her family, and our son-in-law just happened to mention that Barbara Streisand was performing in San Jose, a mere 15-minute drive from where we were staying. So we got tickets to the concert and sat way up in the nosebleed section of the HP Pavilion, home of the San Jose Sharks hockey team, and watched Barbara belt out some of her classic hits. We could hardly see Streisand herself, but at least we had a good view of the giant video screens they showed her on. It was worth the money – at least according to my wife.“You know that I went to school with her, right?” my wife asked rhetorically.I nodded and let her retell the story she had told me dozens of times.“Ok, we didn’t actually go to school together at the same time,” she qualified the facts, “but we both attended The Yeshiva of Brooklyn girl’s school. I started there the year after she left, but we both went to that same school. Then she later went on to Erasmus High School in Brooklyn –” “Yes, I know, with Neil Diamond,” I said, finishing her thought.“That’s right. Neil Diamond was also at Erasmus then. Did I mention that before?” “Only once or twice,” I fibbed.“Anyway,” she continued, “we need to get tickets for one of Barbra’s concerts here in Israel. She’s coming for a special event for the president of Israel, a 90th birthday celebration.”“Barbra Streisand is turning 90?” I deadpanned, trying to mask my sarcasm.“No, Israel’s President Shimon Peres is turning 90,” she corrected me. “Lots of famous people are coming for his 90th birthday celebration: former US president Bill Clinton, Mikhail Gorbachev and even Oscar winner Robert De Niro.”“Are you talking to me?” I asked in my best Sicilian accent.“Of course, I am talking to you. You’re the only one here,” my wife chided me.“Now, as I was saying, Barbra is coming especially to sing at the party for Shimon Peres but will perform two concerts in Israel for the public as well. I wonder which songs she’ll sing.”“Well, I doubt she’ll sing a sultry version of ‘Happy Birthday, Mr. President’ like Marilyn did for JFK. I don’t think Peres could handle that.”My wife shook her head at me. “No, I wasn’t talking about the party. I was talking about which songs she’ll sing at her public concerts in Tel Aviv.”“I know. I was just kidding,” I assured her. “Listen, I don’t want to rain on your parade, but what does it matter? We’ve already heard her in concert before. Maybe we should just skip it this time.”She gave me a very stern look. “I don’t ask a lot from you, just that we go to one Barbra Streisand concert every once in a while. Is that too much to ask?” “Please don’t get all emotional,” I pleaded, trying to reason with her. “Are you going to cry me a river? What’s the matter? Is it that I don’t bring you flowers anymore? I know that you are a woman in love with Barbra Streisand, but we can’t continue to hold on to those memories of the way we were.”She looked away in anger and we sat in silence for a couple of minutes.“Ok,” I finally said, “if it’s that important to you, I’ll order us tickets.”She smiled and came over to hug me, then returned to her seat. Thankfully, she dropped the Streisand talk – for a full five minutes.“So, do you think she’ll sing ‘Evergreen’ from her movie A Star is Born or maybe something from Funny Girl” she asked.“Well, that depends on the audience,” I explained. “She has to sing what the people want because people who need people –” “I wonder if she’ll sing something in Hebrew,” my wife interrupted me. “She does a great ‘Avinu Malkeinu’, remember? She mixed it in with some clips from her films like Yentl and that one she directed herself and acted with Nick Nolte in –” “The Prince of Egypt?” I suggested with a smirk.“No, it was The Prince of Tides, silly.”“Of course,” I nodded.“It’s pretty amazing,” my wife added, “that Barbra Streisand kept her original name and didn’t change it like most famous actors and singers do.”“It’s even more impressive that she kept her original nose,” I mumbled.“What did you say?” my wife asked defensively.“I said nobody knows Barbra Streisand like you do, dear,” I smiled. “After all, you’re the Streisand expert.”“Well, maybe if you paid a little more attention at the next concert,” she said.“Of course, I’ll try,” I promised. “But you know me. I can’t remember song titles to save my life. I’m no Marvin Hamlisch.”“Marvin who?” she asked. “Oh, never mind. By the way, do you remember my Aunt Barbara?” “Vaguely,” I said, tongue firmly planted in cheek.“Well, I hear she plans to come to Israel soon. Maybe we can get her a ticket to the Streisand show, too. Oh, and I’ll let her know that she can stay with us for as long as she likes.”I picked up my novel again and made a sour face behind it while I hummed softly.Happy days are here again. •The writer has an MA in Creative Writing from Bar-Ilan University.
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