New Delhi: In a recent gaffe, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seems to have put his wrong foot forward after his chef served dessert at his house to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in a shoe.
Abe, who was on a two-day visit to Israel, had been invited along with his wife Akie Abe to Netanyahu’s residence for a festive meal on May 2.
According to reports, the Israeli PM and his wife Sara Netanyahu extended warm hospitality and great food made by the PM’s special chef Moshe Sergey.
However, the faux pas happened when the Israeli diplomacy’s star chef brought out the dessert – a collection of chocolates, ornamentally arranged inside a shiny shoe.
Needless to say, the incident caused an uproar among Japanese diplomats as well as Israeli foreign officials. In a report published in Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth, a senior Israeli diplomat called the move “insensitive” and “extremely stupid”, adding that there was nothing more detestable in Japanese culture than a shoe. He even compared the act to “serving dessert to a Jew in a pig” to drive home his point.
A Japanese diplomat was also quoted by the local newspaper saying that this was disrespect to the Japanese premiere and “not funny”.
Sergey’s publicist has issued a statement on the incident, clarifying that the shoe was not a real one but a metal sculpture designed to look like a shoe.
It was created by Tom Dixon, an international sculpture artist, and is part of a collection of articles displayed on the artiste’s website as ‘door stops’. A photo of the shoe along with other photos from the dinner was posted by the chef on his Instagram account but was met with mixed reactions.
This is not the first time Segev Moshe drew criticism for his ‘eclectic’ dinner table choices. In November last year, he served dessert to the visiting US President Donald Trump in a vessel that resembled the heads of Trump and Netanyahu, conjoined together.
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