Larry King and wife Shawn
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RABIN MEDICAL CENTER
King
Looks Presidential
As
Clinton Plays Backup
Story and Photo by Tim Boxer
 arry
King
is hot as a master of ceremonies. He introduced President Bill
Clinton at a dinner for Italians. As Larry stood behind the
lectern adorned with the presidential seal, he had a vision of his
mother looking down and remarking with much pleasure: “He made it!
Not a doctor, but a president!”
At
a New York dinner Larry introduced Clinton again. As Clinton is now
an ex-president, Larry glowed as the star of the annual dinner of
American Friends Rabin Medical Center.
More
than 650 attended at the Waldorf-Astoria where Nava Barak,
president of the Israel Friends, presented an award to Alan
Patricoff, co-founder of Apax Partners.
Among
the guests were her husband, Ehud Barak, Kitty Carlisle Hart,
jewelry designer Aya Azrielant, Israeli Ambassador to U.S. Daniel
Ayalon, and Dr. Dan Oppenheim, ceo of the Rabin
hospital in Petach Tikvah.
“I’m
here to play backup for Larry King,” Clinton declared.
Larry
even had someone introduce him. His younger brother, Martin
Zeiger, head of Barr Labs pharmaceutical company, told how Larry
used to get in trouble at school. Their mother went to the school
almost as often as Larry.
“My
brother used to hang out with a bunch of kids who were bums. Not bad
boys – sick yes, demented perhaps – but not bad.”
Martin
said he and Larry once went to the Embers restaurant in Miami. At
the next table was Meyer Lansky.
Larry
couldn’t resist asking, “Meyer, did you see Godfather II?”
Martin
was terrified. He saw his future in cement shoes.
“Of
course I saw it,” Lansky replied. “It was marvelous fiction.
They had me murdered at the Miami airport but,” he chuckled,
“here I am.”
Larry
said he had no idea how famous he’d become till he went to the
Western Wall. Next to him was a rabbi davening intently, shaking
back and forth. Suddenly he turned and asked, “What’s with Perot?”
Not
to be outdone, honorary dinner chairman Mortimer Zuckerman,
publisher of the New York Daily News and U.S. News &
World Report, said Barak’s futile efforts to forge a peace
with Arafat reminded him of the tourist at the Western Wall who met
a rabbi who’d been praying fervently 10 hours a day ever since
June 1967.
“What’s
it like talking to God every day for 30 years?” he asked.
“It’s
like talking to the wall,” the rabbi answered.
Nava
Barak praised Clinton as “a true friend who worked tirelessly for
peace. I want to say thank you, Mr. President, todah chaver.”
“She
ought to run for the Knesset,” Larry announced. “That’s what
former first ladies do.”
Clinton
was quite hopeful that peace would come. On a recent visit to Rwanda
he saw how peace had come to one village where murderers and
survivors are living together.
“Barak
did not waste his time in seeking peace,” Clinton said. “He was
simply ahead of his time. What Arafat did in walking away from
Barak’s offer is not the wave of the future. It is the last gasp
of an old order.”
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