The 63rd Anniversary of the State of Israel Reception

RAd and Chef Michael Katz

At first glance, the 63^rd Israel National Day celebration doesn't seem to be related with music at all. But it was actually music that enabled me to get involved with the Israeli Embassy in the first place. And it was a pleasure for me to be invited to take part at the celebration of the 63^rd Anniversary of the State of Israel which was held at the Grand Ballroom of the InterContinental Manila.

My involvement with the Israeli Embassy actually started when I watched a piano concert of two pianists from Israel a little over a year ago. And a comment that I made immediately after that concert consequently made me one of the page turners for the pianists’ mini-concert during the 62^nd National Day Celebration. Since then, the Embassy never failed to invite me whenever they had a music event.

For this year’s celebration, there wasn’t a mini-concert since the main feature was Israeli food and wine. And in charge of the whole menu during the event was restaurateur-chef and lecturer Michael Katz. He also prepared Israeli dishes for a special food festival at the Café Jeepney also at the InterContinental Manila but it was for a very limited time only. So after some opening remarks from Ambassador Zvi Vapni, the guests were then treated to an abundance of food and wine. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to take note of the name of the dishes that I tasted at the time.

This time around, I was more relaxed since there wasn’t any pressure at all unlike last year when I had to focus or else make an embarrassing mistake while page turning. And for the past year, I also got to know more people from the Israeli/Jewish community here in the Philippines and it was a pleasure seeing them once again.

A guest, Rabbi Azaria and RAd

Michael Katz was also busy entertaining guests and accepting compliments from them because of the wonderful food that was served. I also had the opportunity to talk to him as well and he was really entertaining. He talked a lot about so many things ranging from how the type of grain eaten by cows affects the marbling of the meat to how he loves to play the drums. As I’ve said earlier, I wasn’t able to take down the names of the dishes that I tasted but Mr. Katz was so kind and gave me not just the menu of the food served at the reception but also the recipes as well.

To end this entry, I’d like to share what I told the Ambassador when he was welcoming the arriving guests: I am extremely grateful for all the opportunities that have been going my way because of my involvement with music. I wouldn’t have been able to experience all this if not for music, so even though this event wasn’t really about music, music still had a huge part in it.

Text by RAd

Photos by Kristina Tatad