Celebrating The Kosher Terroir's 1st Anniversary : Interview of Simon Jacob by Eva Trieger

We invite you to celebrate our first anniversary of The Kosher Terroir podcast! My sister-in-law, writer Eva Trieger, joins me for an engaging interview, where we review the year's shows while charting the remarkable evolution of kosher wine over the past few decades. We've covered everything from the transformation of Israel's Judean Hills to the global reach of kosher winemaking in places like South Africa and California. 

The journey of kosher winemakers often starts in unexpected places. We dive into the inspiring stories of those who've made aliyah to Israel and thrived in the wine business despite facing significant challenges. Our discussion touches on the intricate balance non-observant winemakers must strike to produce kosher wine, highlighting the resilience and dedication within the global kosher wine community.

We experience life through the lens of a religious Jewish winemaker, recounting visits to diverse wineries across the globe and sharing personal anecdotes. Sit back and enjoy this rich tapestry of stories and insights from our past year of episodes into the world of kosher wine!

For more information:
Eva Trieger
e-mail:  evamtrieger@gmail.com

Web Site: https://www.sdjewishworld.com/category/byliners/writers-photographers/trieger_eva/

Transcript

S. Simon Jacob: 0:09

Welcome to The Kosher Terroir. I'm Simon Jacob, your host for this episode from Jerusalem. Before we get started, I ask that, wherever you are, please take a moment and pray for the safety of our soldiers and the safe return of all of our hostages. The following episode of The Kosher Terroir is our first-anniversary commemorative edition. A number of listeners from around the world have continued to ask for more information about me. Yes, me, S Simon Jacob.

S. Simon Jacob: 0:51

So in a conversation a few months ago with my sister-in-law, eva Trieger, a teacher and feature writer for a Jewish newspaper from the greater San Diego metro area and, by the way, she's one of my greatest fans we discussed her doing a feature article on the kosher terroir. Her questions were particularly thoughtful and I really enjoyed our question-answer banter, so I decided to use her interview as the basis for our first anniversary episode and share it here with all of you. If you're commuting in your car, please focus on the road ahead and enjoy. If you're home, please choose a delicious kosher wine. Sit back, relax and listen in on this historical wine adventure.

Eva M Trieger: 1:41

So that leads me to my first question what's the first kosher wine that you remember drinking?

S. Simon Jacob: 1:47

Oh God, that's a good question, very good question. For me, the first kosher wine I ever remember drinking, honestly, was back when I was about 15, 14, 15. I mean, we had wine in the house, so like Manischewitz or something like that, but I remember drinking specifically at the Chazan. For more, synagogue took me for bringing with the Rebbe in Brooklyn and this was an environment that was totally foreign to me, and he took me there and we climbed up on these bleacher-type things that were really benches stacked on top of benches, stacked on top of benches.

S. Simon Jacob: 2:56

It was the most flimsy, dangerous thing I'd ever done in my life. And all of these guys were up there and every time the Rebbe started to sing a nigun, they all started jumping and what have you? And this stuff is all rocking back and forth. I thought I was going to die and I thought there was absolutely no way out of it. And at the end of it, we all lined up, several thousand of us lined up, and we all went up in this line in front of the Rebbe and as each one of us got to the Rebbe, we had a little plastic cup. He would pour in a little bit of wine and we'd say the Barakah and he would say amen to the barakah and it's called a kosher barakah and that's what we'd do and that's the first real wine I remember ever drinking.

S. Simon Jacob: 3:56

Okay, but you know it wasn't if you ask me what's the first good kosher wine I remember drinking. I have a bunch of those memories, but that was the first wine.

Eva M Trieger: 4:08

All right. And how have kosher wines grown in the last 20 years?

S. Simon Jacob: 4:12

Okay, so we were actually today in a place called. We were outside of Jerusalem, in what's called the Judean Hills. These are the hills of Jerusalem around, and 30 years ago there were many, many orchards, many, many orchards. Orchards of peaches and cherries and apples and all sorts of things Very little grapevines. 2,000 years ago, everything was covered with grapevines.

S. Simon Jacob: 5:02

When the Muslims came in several hundred years ago, they basically eliminated all grapes except table grapes, so there was no wine. You're not allowed to drink wine, muslims are not allowed to drink wine, so they basically eliminated all of the vineyards and what have you? And so there was almost nothing in the Judean hills and what have you? And so there was almost nothing in the Judean hills since then, since I would say, you know, you asked me 20 years, but I want you to understand how the magnitude of it. Since the early 90s, there were almost no vineyards in the Judean hills. Now, 98% of all agriculture in the Judean hills is grapevines, are grapes. So in this last you'd said 20, this is 30. In the last 30 years, everything has shifted over to growing grapes. Wow. So it's huge, a huge deal. And all over Israel it's repeated itself. All over Israel, amazing, there's grapes being grown everywhere here.

Eva M Trieger: 6:19

Okay, so your interviews on The Kosher Terroir go far beyond just describing the wines available in Israel. In each episode, you're talking to people who are, you know, sharing with you their struggles and their triumphs. You know, like before the war, during the war. So is there anything that you see as like a unifying thread that draws all these winemakers together?

S. Simon Jacob: 6:46

Okay, so one of the things about The Kosher Terroir and the reason it was called that and not The Israeli Terroir or Israel wines, is because I wanted to be able to speak to and speak for all kosher winemaking globally. So some of the winemakers are in. One of the winemakers I interviewed was in South Africa. There's a couple of them that have been in California. I've also spoken not only to winemakers but also to distribution people. I've even spoken to consumers about kosher wine and an interest in the people who are involved in it, and there hasn't been an episode that I've recorded, that I haven't learned something in.

S. Simon Jacob: 8:01

It's been amazing, it's been totally amazing.

Eva M Trieger: 8:04

Yeah, I have. Like I said, I've listened to. I haven't listened to all of them yet, but each one I listened to. I learn amazing things and and I'm so blown away by the, the depth of not just what these people understand and know about wines and what they've learned about wines, but also, as you said, I mean, what they've learned about distribution or what they've learned about refining things. It's incredible. Yeah, it's very exciting.

S. Simon Jacob: 8:32

So the latest one I just did, which is actually only going to be released tomorrow, is with Joseph Herzog, is with Joseph Herzog. He is the member of the Herzog family who actually manages and runs their entire California operation. So his responsibility is their winery in Oxnard, all of their contracts with all of their growers, which literally are across California and in Oxnard, and their kosher their high-end kosher restaurant called Terrasaur. He's an amazing person and that's something that's being released tomorrow. Okay, cool. We've got people literally honestly all over the world. In Italy, in Paris, there's a chef we spoke to who's just incredible and he always involves wine. In Spain, elvi Wines.

Eva M Trieger: 10:11

That's such a cool interview.

S. Simon Jacob: 10:13

It's Moses and David.

Eva M Trieger: 10:16

They said they were the only kosher distributor or the only kosher venue.

S. Simon Jacob: 10:22

They're the only kosher wine makers in Spain thats solely kosher. There are a few winemakers in Spain that make wine that is kosher as well as not kosher. I think there might be one more now that's coming out, but overall I think they were the first and definitely the biggest.

Eva M Trieger: 10:43

That was a really cool. That was a great one. I really enjoyed that.

S. Simon Jacob: 10:46

They're a lot of fun. They're super people, and the person who makes the wine there is the wife and the sister. The father and the son are the marketing guys, Right? The people who are actually in the background getting their hands dirty making the wines are the mom and the sister. So it's really. They're really kind of amazing oh.

Eva M Trieger: 11:09

So the other thing that interests me about the kosher terroir is a lot of these people.

S. Simon Jacob: 11:14

They did not necessarily start out as winemakers so yeah talk about that a little bit, if you could, about their careers or background where they came from so that's one of my big interests, because I've got a lot of people who listen to the podcast, who are, just so that you know, we have somewhere north of 8,000 downloads on the podcast. We've got 56 countries that it's being listened to and I was quite amazed at the breadth and depth of the listenership. One of the things people are always interested in is actually two things. One is I'm interested in wine. How do I get in the wine business? Okay, so they're interested in stories that are telling them about people who, like themselves, decided to get into wine and the path they took to get there. The other is people who've made aliyah to Israel and when they made aliyah, it's a hard thing to do, but how did they make aliyah, how did they succeed in doing it and how did they end up in Israel involved in wine, which is, I want to make aliyah and I want to be in wine. Now how do I do that? So that's one of the you know, a couple of the questions I always ask people what's your background from and what have you? And people come into it from all different avenues. And people come into it from all different avenues.

S. Simon Jacob: 12:45

One of the winemakers, who's probably the most prominent winemaker in Israel with the highest credentials. He's a master of wine Iran pick at Saraw Winery. He was in the Air Force the Israeli Air Force and he had to go to test the simulator for an aircraft in Germany and he went to Mosul. And you know, when they had a break, a bunch of the guys decided to go out and go to a restaurant in Mosul. Mosul is an incredible German wine region, so they make a wine called Riesling. That's their specialty. It's very light and it's wonderful and it's delicious, especially in the summer.

S. Simon Jacob: 13:37

So he happened to be there and he said you know, okay, he'll go out to dinner with these guys. And they said, oh, let's get some wine. And he said I don't know from wine, you know like what wine? And they said well, we're in Mosul, you need to drink a Riesling. He said Riesling, what's a Riesling? And he tasted it and it blew his mind. It was so delicious. So he decided wait a second, I really like this stuff. I can't believe that there's such a variety of wines that are out there in the world. Yeah, so people come to wine from all sorts of places and the truth is that wine isn't about the wine, it's about people. Wine isn't about the wine, it's about people and each of them get kind of pulled into it by the people they meet and it's interesting. Wine makes the conversation easier and it really allows people to communicate.

Eva M Trieger: 14:45

Well, I do. I really love the podcast and I mean, like I said, each time I listen to a different episode, I'm really struck by, again, like just the grit of the people who are there. Like, I think one of the episodes that really made an impression on me was the two guys, the friends, who had a vineyard, and they were both called up and their wives took over and stepped in and you know, and just even the fact that the wives not only did the harvesting and the wines but brought it online, so there was a, you know, marketing presence. I mean, it was just amazing.

S. Simon Jacob: 15:19

We just visited them again a couple of weeks ago and with Ovadia when he came into town, and we did a barbecue there and they're such special people, incredibly special people. And it's from one of the podcasts. Actually it was kind of interesting. They don't sell their wine in the U? S and they don't really have a way to get their wine to the U? S. But one of the listeners was so impressed that she called me and said how can I donate money to them? Cause I want to get them some money because I really am impressed with what they've done. And she and she sent them money. Wow, and it was like and they came to me and said, simon, like wow, you know, we did this podcast. We didn't expect people were going to send us money, so it was kind of fun.

Eva M Trieger: 16:10

That is amazing.

S. Simon Jacob: 16:11

People are wonderful.

Eva M Trieger: 16:14

So you talk to a lot of people that make kosher wines, would you say. Are all of them religious? Are they all Torah observant Jews?

S. Simon Jacob: 16:19

No, no, in fact, they're Torah observant at different levels In Israel. Unfortunately, the way the law is now, unless you're an absolute Shomer Shabbat it's not only in Israel, in America too, unless you're a Shomer Shabbat Jew, where you are outwardly Shomer Shabbat and there's absolutely no question as to whether or not you're a religious Jew you cannot touch the wine in its production, right? So winemakers who are obsessive and compulsive about every little detail that they do, who are involved in winemaking down to the absolute nitty-gritty, when you tell them, sorry, you can't touch the wine, they go nuts.

S. Simon Jacob: 17:23

So the winemakers who are making kosher wines who are not religious, have to have people who are their hands. So what happens is they basically have assistants who are religious and anytime they want to taste something, they withdraw the wine from the barrel and they put it in a glass and they hand it to them so that they're not interacting with the wine in the barrels at all. But they are tasting and the people have to be really, they have to follow orders. Precisely because these guys are really, really crazy about procedure and detail. I mean, they are really incredible winemakers and to be a winemaker, you've got to be really, really detail-oriented and they document every little detail about everything. So that's what they go through. So the winemakers who are not religious really have to jump through hoops to be able to do this.

Eva M Trieger: 18:33

You were talking to somebody. I'm sorry, go ahead, yeah.

S. Simon Jacob: 18:35

No, and there's some winemakers who it's just too much for them and and if they get pushed by the rabbanut or what have you, the wrong way, they end up being come becoming anti-religious and they will not make kosher wine right right and it's a pity yeah, it is.

Eva M Trieger: 18:54

You talked to somebody a few weeks ago and it was fascinating because they were talking about how the barrels or the vats are, you know, and how even the spaces between them, like they couldn't touch, there couldn't be any. There are layers, the way a wine vat.

S. Simon Jacob: 19:10

The big stainless steel vats are constructed. They allow other liquids to flow through their skins in order to either cool or heat the wine. And that's where it becomes. Just even if there's two liquids on either side of the metal, it taints it through the metal, and that was something I learned for the first time. I didn't know that at all.

Eva M Trieger: 19:46

It was fascinating, it is fascinating.

S. Simon Jacob: 19:49

That was a session with Rabbi Wolf, who gives hashkacha in Europe.

Eva M Trieger: 19:56

Okay.

S. Simon Jacob: 19:56

So yeah, rafael.

Eva M Trieger: 19:59

Wolf, all right, I don't know if you know the answer to these questions, but I'll ask so. Do you know what percent of the kosher wines are purchased and consumed in Israel?

S. Simon Jacob: 20:08

Probably significantly more kosher wines consumed in the United States than in Israel, but it's catching up quickly. Israel's wine population is growing. I would say it's probably the United States number one, israel number two. Then pretty far behind France and England, okay.

Eva M Trieger: 20:42

uh, then pretty far behind france and england, okay and um, yeah, and then there's others like south africa, and what have you right? Okay, um, and and how about? Was it like australia or new zealand? Are they buying kosher wine?

S. Simon Jacob: 20:50

yes, yeah, they're, they're actually winemakers in australia and new zealand. Um, they, they make kosher wines in New Zealand and also Australia. There's a winemaker, richie Harcum, who makes wine in Australia and I'm going to try to grab him for a podcast pretty soon. He's a very interesting guy. He likes to make wines that are very health conscious, without sulfites and what have you. And being in Australia where you're so far away from the markets, not preserving your wines is a risky thing, so I want to have a conversation with him about it. But yes, there's a number of wines that come. If you go to kosherwinecom in the United States, you'll see that there's a number of wines from New Zealand. There's especially some lovely whites from New Zealand and also Australia.

Eva M Trieger: 21:54

So that was my next question how do you find the people that you interview?

S. Simon Jacob: 22:02

I'm sitting in the middle of the world here, so I know it seems far away, jerusalem, but I'm literally sitting in the middle of the kosher wine world. When I made Aliyah eight years ago, when I first moved to Israel eight years ago, I made a commitment to myself that I was going to try to do two things. One was get a rabbi to learn with on a regular basis, and the other was that I was going to get to know, um, a number of the Israeli winemakers. Uh, the latter part of that commitment. Um, I've really, you know, fulfilled. Uh, the first part of the commitment. I've got a rub that I learned with uh, not certainly not enough, but I do learn with him but that opened me up to a lot of different kosher winemakers and a lot of different people who like kosher wine.

S. Simon Jacob: 23:03

And that's actually, you know, probably the biggest thing that drove. It was that there's a person named Yossi Horowitz who lives in Manhattan, who lives in New Jersey now, but he works in Manhattan, and he decided that he was saving all of these kosher wines in his cellar forever and there was no reason to drink them. And it was disappointing, because you save a wine you're interested in, the wine. You really want to drink the wine, but you're not going to drink it alone. And because we're not drunks, we're winos but we're not drunk. And with that, how do you organize on a regular basis some sort of a wine get-together? So he created something called the Rosh Chodesh Clubs, the RCCs, and once he created the RCC, literally once a month people get together and each of the groups because it's limited by how many people can drink out of a single bottle, meaning a single bottle can be distributed among maybe 12 people, totally 13 max. And so he he got together where everybody has to bring a wine that's at least seven years old and that's got certain you know capabilities, certain special, special things. And the seven year old-old is only with regard to certain reds there's certain whites that you really don't want to drink that old. So it was just a balance to make sure that everybody was bringing something that was worthy of being shared and that there wasn't somebody who was coming and being cheap about which wines he was bringing.

S. Simon Jacob: 24:59

And what happened was he created that in Manhattan. I think about six months. He was running this program in Manhattan at his house, and one of the guys makes food, so he started becoming the chef to produce food for this, and then people started to franchise the idea out not for money, but they started saying, hey, I really like that idea, let's do it. So now there's one in Toronto, one in Lakewood, new Jersey, there's one in San Diego. There's a group in San Diego who goes. There's a group in LA who knows? There's a group in LA. In New Jersey.

S. Simon Jacob: 25:39

There's actually three groups In Manhattan. There's a Hasidic group, there's a Syrian group, there's a you know, there's all sorts of of them one in Beth Shemesh, one in Renana, one in Jerusalem, and it's amazing. So what it's done is it's created these little clusters of people who love wine and get together, and at the beginning I started to go to different ones. Like on my way back to Israel from America, I would stop in London and I would try to. One night I hit a Manhattan one, a New Jersey one and a Brooklyn one and got on a plane and flew to London and that next day I was in the London one and there was a lot of cross-pollination because of that. So you're getting a lot of people who know each other and know of each other and it's become a really wonderful group. That's amazing.

S. Simon Jacob: 26:48

Yeah, and everybody knows a winemaker from here or from there. What have you? Everybody's sharing stories, so that opens up the population pretty dramatically.

Eva M Trieger: 26:59

Now I know that you visited kosher wineries in other countries, as we were saying before and again, are there similarities between those various wineries or differences? I mean, what do you see?

S. Simon Jacob: 27:12

Okay, kosher wineries that are not inherently kosher, meaning that there are many wineries where they take a non-kosher winery and they produce kosher wines in it. So in those wineries they have mashkiachs, they have people who control the production and make sure that people are not touching it that are not allowed to touch it. In those instances the barrels, the vats, everything have are taped over with tape that has Ashkaha labeling on it, that has hashkacha labeling on it, and it's quite intense as far as being able to go in. Nobody is allowed to touch anything except this limited group of people who are there to do it. So even if I go into a winery like that, they're so kind of intense about it that they won't, I couldn't go, I couldn't go near a barrel and and they don't want anybody to even touch barrels, but that's like a, that's like a little crazed but it's, but they're set fences wherever they set them.

S. Simon Jacob: 28:33

So but then if you've got a winery that is a kosher winery, that is totally kosher, and the winemaker is a religious Jew, and what have you, then things become a lot more, you know, a lot easier to deal with. And they know I'm a religious Jew, so they allow me to come in and taste some of the wines coming out of the vats and what have you? One of the most incredible things to taste is a rosé or a white that's in a steel vat, that's cold and just still kind of bubbling because it's still at the end of its end of its what you call it end of its fermentation, and it's just incredible. One of my favorite things to drink.

Eva M Trieger: 29:27

Okay, all right. So do you have a go-to wine?

S. Simon Jacob: 29:35

Okay, I have a go-to wine for different levels of people. Okay Right, I have different go-to wine. Okay, I have a go-to one for different levels of people. Okay right, I have different go-to wines for them. Um, and I, I I can tell you I have a favorite wine, but it's not really a go-to wine because I I drink it once in a blue moon. Um, because I only drink with people who know what it is and it's, and there's so little of it that I don't like to to go to waste it okay, what is that one?

S. Simon Jacob: 30:06

okay it's, it's called ponte canne. It's a french wine. I've heard you speak of it. Yeah, okay it's. I particularly like the 2003 and it's a wonderful. Um, it's a wonderful Bordeaux wine and it's deep red. You know, an incredible wine. So I happen to love that wine, all right, but there's a bunch of Israeli wines that I also love and cherish and I'm always being introduced to wonderful wines If it's a person who doesn't, who is not a typical wine drinker.

S. Simon Jacob: 30:53

There's some wines that, as an example, the Blue Bottles, the Moscato wines, the Bartonura Moscato that's not a wine that highfalutin wine lovers it's kind of something they put their nose up to. They look at it. It's like, you know, drinking apple juice or something. It is truly wine and it's truly miraculous how they get that to be consistent. So that's an incredible wine. There's some dessert wines made by Iacovoria, dessert wines made by Iacovoria, one called G for Gortz, gortz Tremener. He makes a wine called G and a wine called V and they're going to release a wine called S for somebody on, and they're sweet and they are so delightful. They're not sickly sweet, they're just really delicious Um wines.

Eva M Trieger: 31:59

I know that you've been interviewing people all over Israel as well, so is there any place that you had not visited in Israel before doing the podcast?

S. Simon Jacob: 32:10

Um, um, hmm, that's a good question.

S. Simon Jacob: 32:13

Yeah, I've met a whole bunch of people that I've never visited, or, you know, I've never been to the husband and wife team, the two who are in Hasella. They're next to Tekoa, they're a winery, that is. I'd never been anywhere near before and it was wonderful to go there and it was wonderful to go there. We actually they have next to them a place called Arugot Farm where they have this unbelievable swimming pool that I just took a bunch of my kids to. It's an echo pool, so there's lilies growing in and there's little salamanders and what have you, but it's safe and filtered and it's an incredible place to go and swim in the middle of the desert. It's like an oasis in the middle of the desert. Also, I went up north to visit a very large winery called Reconati and that was literally right near the Lebanese border, which right now is really kind of crazy, and we were watching fires on either side of the winery and also what was going on in Lebanon, where they were actually retaliating for the strikes that were coming out of Lebanon.

Eva M Trieger: 33:38

Yeah, I heard that interview. That was also really amazing, and the guy you were speaking with you know.

S. Simon Jacob: 33:43

I just Effie Coates is an amazing guy. He's a super, super knowledgeable person.

Eva M Trieger: 33:50

Yeah, so you made Aliyah with your wife about eight years ago. Yeah, and most of your children made Aliyah years before that. Was that always in your plan?

S. Simon Jacob: 34:02

It's been in our plans since your sister agreed to become my wife. Okay, she made me promise that we would make Aliyah within five years. And that was quite a number of years ago 40, some odd years ago, almost 50 years now and I had to keep every five years asking for an extension. And she granted it, you know like she granted it willingly and what have you. But then we finally said you know, come on, we've got eight of our nine in Israel. Grandchildren are there. We have one in America who has eight kids of his own, which are a whole bunch of eight grandchildren. So that was keeping us in America, but the overwhelming majority of the kids were in Israel and it's a place we always wanted to go.

Eva M Trieger: 35:08

Okay, what do you think about living in Israel? Is the most fulfilling or the most exciting thing about being in Israel is the most fulfilling or the most exciting thing about being in Israel.

S. Simon Jacob: 35:21

I can't express to you how you know people view Israel as this incredibly unsafe place, right? They just do. I mean, it's what they're customed to or what they see in the TV. I can't tell you how safe and incredible it is to grow children here in Israel. It's an absolutely incredible place. It's kind of like what it was like to grow children in the United States in the 40s or 50s.

S. Simon Jacob: 35:59

I guess People care for each other. They care for each other's kids. If you're in a playground and a kid does something, that's really stupid, you know you can grab somebody else's kid and tell them don't do that. You know you don't want to die and their parents will thank you for parenting their children rather than you touch my kid again and I'll sue you. I mean, it's become crazy in America. So that's. It's a lovely place to grow children here. Everybody cares about each other's welfare from that perspective. So that's wonderful.

S. Simon Jacob: 36:51

I kind of say that we're living in the fishbowl of Kedushah and of Judaism. We're living in it. It's not something that we have to infuse into ourselves. It's infused into us just by being here. I wake up every morning and I walk to synagogue, which means I walk down the stairs looking out over the walls of the old city. It's just. Everything is about you know Judaism and what have you. I know there's places in Tel Aviv where you can go and you don't get that sort of impact, but Jerusalem's the biggest city in Israel and it's very. There are a lot of very religious people here. But it's also, you know, I get people walking down our steps wearing shorts and t-shirts and stuff, men and women, and it's very open. It's very, you know, like you know, welcome home. You're here. It's just a wonderful place to live, beautiful.

Eva M Trieger: 38:12

How can American Jews show their support best for Israel right now?

S. Simon Jacob: 38:17

Okay. So there's a few ways. One is to get on a plane and come here and see it for yourself. That's one of the best ways you can enjoy it as well as show your support, but I know a lot of people can't do that and a lot of people are scared to do that. One of the best ways you can show your support at least to— One of the best ways you can show your support at least to this there's plenty of people who are looking for money from from you know, people in America. But actually one of the biggest industries that's been impacted the most the wine industry in Israel is geared to providing wine via restaurants, and a lot of the restaurants, especially during the beginning of the war and the middle of the war, were either shuttered or were having a very difficult time time, either because they you know the people weren't going, or you've got so many people who are in the military service, who are actively in military, that you know there are these families all over the place that are missing parents, meaning not because they've died, but because they're in the front, they're out in service.

S. Simon Jacob: 39:43

This war in Israel is almost a commuter war. You get in your car and you go to the front. I mean, the northern border is two hours north of us in Jerusalem. The northern border is two hours north of us in Jerusalem. The southern border in Gaza is two hours south of us in Jerusalem. You know, we're in a little country. We're in a country the size of New Jersey. It's like having something going on in Philadelphia and something going on in Manhattan. That's how close it is to people who are, you know, living in New Jersey. In fact, it's closer. To be honest, new Jersey is even bigger than Israel. So the people are.

S. Simon Jacob: 40:27

There's a bunch of people who are serving, men and women who are serving. So there's a whole population of people who have been pulled out. At the same time, there's a whole population of people who live near the southern border, live near the Gaza border. Most of those have returned home. There's a five-kilometer swath of land across the entire northern part of Israel. All right, that has just had to be vacated so that all the people who are living there have been displaced, and they're living all over Israel.

S. Simon Jacob: 41:05

We have a bunch of people living in Jerusalem who have been displaced from the north, from communities like Shlomi, communities like Kiryat. Shmona is evacuated, it's totally evacuated. There are only people there who want to run for shelter. You know, every few minutes it's really difficult. They've moved them into a lot of the hotels, but you know. So you think, oh well, they're living in hotels, so that's cool. Except that what they do is they pull all the furniture out of the room and they put five beds on the floor, because these are big families and they're living on the floor on these beds in suit out of suitcases. It's impossible, and they have no idea when they're going home and when this is going to end.

S. Simon Jacob: 41:59

And their homes will be there when they get here some of the school systems have accepted kids into their school systems, so they come and the buses will pick them up outside the hotels and take them to the school systems. But none of this was meant to be and none of this is normal. It's all, like you know, kind of trying to deal with something that's difficult. So what can you do? All right, and, as I said, the wine businesses are particularly impacted. The workers have gone back to war. The foreign workers who were here left the country. The wineries are having a very difficult time.

S. Simon Jacob: 42:52

Doing something as simple as buying Israeli wine makes a huge impact to the industry and to Israel. It's an incredible impact, and not only you know. It's something you can buy and you can enjoy and drink and enjoy with your family and friends and be doing something really positive for Israel. So there are a number of ways to help Israel, but I think the most impact and the least impact to you is to just buy Israeli wines and enjoy them. Let me talk a little bit about how I actually got into kosher wine yes, or wine for that matter.

S. Simon Jacob: 43:42

I have a father who was very interested in wine only because he became successful. He was an actuary and he became successful in the United States. We're immigrants. We came into the United States my dad was from Calcutta, india, my mother was from London, england, and I was born in Singapore and we emigrated to the United States.

S. Simon Jacob: 44:05

And when we did, my father started to work and he was a very bright person with very little money at the beginning and he and he built a very successful business and he enjoyed um, he enjoyed his success and he one of the ways he enjoyed his success was drinking, uh, really world-class wines. He, he, he learned about wines, he got interested in them and he spent time enjoying them and visiting wineries all around the world One of the banks, you know innovative, high-end wineries that were popping up in California. And high-end didn't mean that they were expensive, it meant that they were really high quality and they were new and innovative. And what have you and my father got involved with him? And when he did, he enjoyed the wine and I happened to have a bomb shelter in my house from the 60s.

S. Simon Jacob: 45:47

From the 50s and 60s they built a bomb shelter under my house so when I moved into it I had it and I used to store wine in my bomb shelter. So I was kind of the guy who, the eunuch who was watching the harem. And because I didn't drink any of I didn't drink non-kosher wine and actually I didn't drink very much wine to begin with but I started to get interested in it and my father started to pick up some really good kosher wines from California and from Israel and you know we especially the Herzher wines, and I enjoyed them and I started collecting them. And then I became obsessed with kosher wines. So I started collecting a lot of them and meeting people and getting involved and again I collected a whole bunch of different kosher wines over the years.

S. Simon Jacob: 47:04

And again I collected a whole bunch of different kosher wines over the years from 1976 through 2000,. Whatever, and it wasn't until the early 2000s that I started to meet people through the RCCs that liked wines. And then all of a sudden we had a discussion and I had these wines that people were dreaming about tasting and I actually had them in my cellar. So we started tasting and as we started tasting those wines and sharing them. I met a bunch of people and I ended up with a pretty good name as far as somebody who knew something about wines, and it was a lot of fun, so that's what I did.

Eva M Trieger: 47:50

That's awesome.

S. Simon Jacob: 47:51

So that's how I got into it. That's how I got into it in the beginning.

Eva M Trieger: 47:54

Beautiful. Okay, that is great. And then NAMI inherited those wines, right, many of them.

S. Simon Jacob: 48:03

You know, I'll tell you, I had this cellar with a few thousand bottles of wine and then I decided to sell it Because initially I had somebody who was willing to transport it to Israel for me.

S. Simon Jacob: 48:19

But those were older wines and they're fragile and to put them through an ocean voyage probably would have destroyed those wines. So instead somebody said to me hey, you know, you're moving to Israel, do you want to sell those wines? And I said make me an offer. And he made me an offer and I said not enough. And then he wanted certain wines, but I told him no, the only way I was willing to sell them was to sell them, all of them. And because I didn't want to pick and choose and have him take the cream of what I had and leave me with the others, so I ended up selling them, much to Nami's dismay, though. I did keep some of the bottles and he is my guy in America when I'm ordering bottles that are only available from there but some of them of my scotch collection ended up with Nami and he's been nursing and nurturing it on.

Eva M Trieger: 49:23

So that's been going on. Do you remember this is kind of an aside, but do you remember when you met me and Joel in Phoenix, and so?

S. Simon Jacob: 49:31

we met in Phoenix.

Eva M Trieger: 49:32

You were on business and we were visiting and we went and we decided to get a drink and it was early, it was like four o'clock in the afternoon and we went into the lounge at this hotel and I think it was maybe the Biltmore it was the Biltmore, I believe.

S. Simon Jacob: 49:47

Okay, yeah, I think it was the.

Eva M Trieger: 49:48

Biltmore and you knew the guy who was briefing the group on Scotch because you'd met him in Scotland.

S. Simon Jacob: 49:54

Yeah.

Eva M Trieger: 49:56

And Joel, and I just thought it's really true, simon knows everybody.

S. Simon Jacob: 50:00

No, I don't know everybody, but I'm a drunk, so I do know anybody who's involved with alcohol.

Eva M Trieger: 50:05

Yeah, that was so funny Okay.

S. Simon Jacob: 50:08

We had during Nami's son's bar mitzvah this last Sabbath. Last Shabbat we had two spectacular scotches. One was a scotch that we it was bottled in 1968, and it was a 30-year-old scotch that we opened at his Brit.

Eva M Trieger: 50:36

At Nami's Brit or Yosef's no at Y opened at his Brit At.

S. Simon Jacob: 50:37

Nami's Brit, no, at Yosef's Brit. And then we opened it again at his bar mitzvah and drank a significant share of the bottle. And we also had a bottle of Springbank from. That's a 35-year-old Springbank. That was also from, I think, 1972. That was also an incredible bottle of scotch. And we also had a bottle of Johnny Walker Blue, which is normally a scotch that anytime you see it people like finish that bottle and it was hardly touched at the bar mitzvah because the other scotches were just out of this world. So it was kind of funny to see. Great yeah.

Eva M Trieger: 51:21

Well, Simon, thank you so much for the interview.

S. Simon Jacob: 51:23

Thank you, thank you, and I'm very excited about the upcoming podcast.

Eva M Trieger: 51:28

I'll listen to that one. Yeah, thank you.

S. Simon Jacob: 51:30

Be well. Remember you there. My love and thanks again for your time. Take care All I will. I will Take care. Bye-bye. This is Simon Jacob, again your host of today's episode of the Kosher Terroir. I have a personal request. No matter where you are or where you live, please take a moment to pray for our soldiers' safety and the safe and rapid return of our hostages. Please subscribe via your podcast provider to be informed of our new episodes as they are released. If you are new to the Kosher Terroir, please check out our many past episodes and thank you for listening to the Kosher Terroir.