One wonders what Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, the 19th-century scholar credited with reviving Hebrew as a modern language, might say if he knew his great-grandson were an openly gay host of several hit cooking shows on Israeli television.
“Mazel tov,” perhaps?
Gil Hovav is indeed Israel’s most famous culinary TV personality. He is Ben-Yehuda’s descendant, and yep, he’s gay.
He’s also opinionated, wickedly funny, and coming to San Francisco on April 22 as part of the Out in Israel festival. Hovav will take over the kitchen at Regalito Rosticeria, a Mexican restaurant in San Francisco’s Mission District, where he will help cook a four-course dinner and shmooze the night away.
“The idea of cooking in Regalito came during my last visit to San Francisco two or three months ago,” Hovav said from his Tel Aviv home. “I met one of the owners and loved it. It’s fun, cool and hip.”
San Francisco is a kind of second home for Hovav. He lived in the city for more than three years while his longtime partner completed postdoctoral work at Stanford University. He fell in love with the city’s open spirit and gay-friendly attitude.
Hovav and his partner made friends in the LGBT community, though he drew the line at Congregation Sha’ar Zahav, San Francisco’s largely LGBT Reform synagogue.
“I will not set foot in a synagogue,” Hovav said, explaining that he is not religious. But his partner wanted to pray during the High Holy Days, and got himself a ticket to Sha’ar Zahav’s Yom Kippur service.
“When he got back,” Hovav recalled, “he said, ‘Never in my life have I seen so many African-American lesbians wearing yarmulkes.”
Foodie that he is, Hovav also loves the region’s many fine restaurants. For a few seasons, he hosted “Captain Cook,” an Israeli TV show that featured a globetrotting Hovav sampling the world’s best eateries. That was only one of several shows he hosted, and he also has written many cookbooks and novels.
And to think it all began with Hovav at his grandmother’s side while she prepared classic Sephardic dishes.
“We lived in a big house with my parents, my grandmother, my aunt, her husband and three kids,” Hovav recalled. “My grandmother was the matriarch and was such a great woman that I preferred to spend every minute as a child with her.”
She taught him the basics of cooking, though he never expected to have a career in food. He attended the Hebrew University to study Arabic (a language he already knew), then later worked “as an Arabic teacher and bartender at a bar of criminals, and as a cleaning lady.”
Then he landed a job as a journalist, writing bar reviews — easy, since he was a seasoned barfly. That led to a stint as a restaurant critic, then TV star. He insists he is no professional chef, and that he has never studied cooking or worked in a restaurant.
He’s not a professional gay person either, though he has become one of Israel’s most familiar gay celebrities. But he took no tortured path to get there.
“When I came out at 25, it was so easy it was embarrassing,” he said. “My parents admired us as kids. They said our teachers should thank the Lord every morning they had us. So they said, ‘Good for the gay community; now they will have a leader.’ ”
Hovav refuses to accept that mantle, even though he endorses complete equality for LGBT Israelis. He once grabbed a sign at a pro-LGBT protest in Jerusalem, chanting slogans as he marched with the sign overhead. It was only later he looked at the sign, which read “I’m a proud lesbian!”
Because of his high profile on TV, Hovav has become a de facto gay leader. One test of Israeli tolerance came when he was asked to become the spokesman for a supermarket chain. But before he said “yes,” the chain ran a few focus groups.
“Being gay and promoting a supermarket was unheard of in Israel,” he recalled. “They did not take chances. In little towns they asked people, ‘Do you mind that a gay man is touching your food?’ It was a brutal question, but the answer was, ‘None of your damn business.’ That was very encouraging to the gay community.”
However, he is not doctrinaire about the cause. Hovav does not believe it’s in the best interests of the LGBT community to force the issue with a pride parade in conservative Jerusalem.
“I think one should fight battles to win,” he said. “Of course it’s our right to have a parade in Jerusalem, but since there are so many bigger problems, you shouldn’t be right: You should be smart.”
He does like to help others when he can. Like the time he cooked for 500 firefighters working at the site of the downed World Trade Center shortly after 9/11. Even at that dark time, he wanted to brighten their day with shakshuka, a popular spicy egg dish in Israel (which he will also be making at Regalito).
“I wanted to serve them the ultimate Israeli breakfast,” Hovav recalled. “They said, ‘How interesting.’ For them it was huevos rancheros.”
Gil Hovav will speak and cook April 22 at Regalito Rosticeria, 3481 18th St., S.F. $40, includes four-course fixed-price dinner. Two seating periods, 6-6:30 p.m. and 8-8:30 p.m. Information: www.regalitosf.com/2010/04/106.