By Mark D. Zimmerman
MELVILLE, New York — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his family are embroiled in numerous scandals. Recent court documents show that the Prime Minister is a suspect in two investigations of “fraud, breach of trust and bribes,” with the Israeli newspaper Israel Hayom saying on its front page recently that his indictment is imminent. Netanyahu’s son Yair is being condemned in Israel and the United States for recently posting a cartoon critical of some of his father’s supposed opponents. The cartoon showed the faces of George Soros, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, and others, pasted over the original faces from a classic anti-Semitic cartoon suggesting that Jews control the United States (bringing praise from KKK leader David Duke among others). And Benjamin Netanyahu’s wife Sara is about to be indicted on charges of fraud and breach of trust, according to Israeli Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit. Sara Netanyahu has been at the center of previous controversies, including a lawsuit filed by Manny [Meni] Naftali, the caretaker of the family’s residence, who was awarded NIS 170,000 by the court. Which of the following describe scandals that have swirled around Mrs. Netanyahu?
A. According to the court case won by Manny Naftali [who is of Moroccan descent], Mrs. Netanyahu complained about a Shabbat meal she had been served, saying, “We are sophisticated Europeans. We don’t eat as much food as you Moroccans. You are stuffing us, so that when they photograph us abroad, we look fat.”
B. When President and Mrs. Trump visited Israel, Mrs. Netanyahu greeted Melania Trump, saying, “You know in Israel all the people like us. The media hate us but the people love us. Like you.”
C. Monique Ben Melekh, wife of Eli Moyal, former mayor of Sderot, had criticized Prime Minister Netanyahu’s handling of the Gaza war. In response, Mrs. Netanyahu accused Ben Melekh and Moyal of being jealous of the prime minister, saying “He [Moyal] is jealous of him [the prime minister] because he is so successful, because he is a great leader!! And your man just babbles and babbles…Why do you have to spit into the well you drank from? What kind of person does something like that? I can’t help thinking of the BBC drama Downton Abbey, with its upstairs/downstairs intrigue, scheming staff and the bubbling cauldron of endless gossip.”
D. Another Netanyahu household employee, Gil Eliyahu, said that he was awakened in the middle of the night and ordered to return to the prime minister’s residence to heat up a bowl of soup for Mrs. Netanyahu. He was also ordered to return to the residence once for failing to wish her good night. “You have to say goodnight to me before you go,” she allegedly said to him.
E. Mrs. Netanyahu kept the deposits from bottles returned to the recycling center, even though the government had paid for the bottles that she returned.
Zimmerman is the author of the Rashi, Rambam and Ramalamadingdong series of Jewish trivia e-books. Learn more at http://www.rrrjewishtrivia.com