So it’s a huge mazel tov to Michael Lewis — the 62-year-old Jewish businessman who has just tied the knot with Kitty Spencer in a lavish three-day Italian wedding.
As the eldest daughter of Charles “blood family” Spencer, and niece of the late Princess Diana, there is now an aristocrat — noch — in the Lewis fold. He meanwhile is the second Jewish person to join the Royal mispoche — following Sophie Winkleman, married to Lord Frederick Windsor.
As we digest the fag end of the simcha, via breathless coverage in Hello! magazine, perhaps it’s time the former Lady Spencer was given a steer on what to expect from marriage to a Middle-aged Jewish Man (hereafter called the JMM).
Not the average JMM, mind. The divorced, father-of three is worth the thick end of 80 million quid. He’s chairman of the Foschini Group, which was founded by his grandfather, Meyer Lewis, who made the family’s fortune with the Lewis furniture chain in the 1930s. What’s more, Michael Lewis’s clan embraces their heritage. In 2011, his family donated £3 million to the University of Oxford to fund the appointment of a professor of Israel Studies. Michael Lewis himself founded and formerly served as chairman of the Israeli biotech company ProChon Biotech Ltd. So far so menschedik.
And he’s not averse to tradition. The South Africa-born tycoon is believed to have married his first wife, Leola, 59, in an Orthodox Jewish ceremony in 1985. Indeed perhaps it was a nod to tradition that saw him pick a white dinner suit for his wedding to Lady Kitty. A sort of post millennial kittel?
Yet how will his new bride, a tender 30 years his junior, handle some of the — shall we say — nuances usually associated with Jewish men of a particular vintage?
Being of sturdy blue-blooded stock, the new Mrs Lewis (ooh, it already sounds so right for the shul ladies’ committee) will doubtless ace the challenge of the Jewish bit. After all, it was reported in early 2020 that Lady Kitty was converting to Judaism. And she has been seen attending synagogue with Lewis. And so she will already be familiar with that JMM thing of eating herring standing up at a kiddush then moaning about indigestion on the way home from shul, while also whingeing about the whisky, something about which all JMM are mavens.
However there are factors to consider which aren’t — but should be —covered in the conversion process.
Let’s start with the fact that many JMM remain in thrall to their mother, whether she is still of this world or not. If she is (till 120!) there will be the phone calls — a heady mix of guilt and smothering ownership flavoured with a few rhetorical questions about whether the new lady in her son’s life believes in consigning precious grandchildren to nannies.
Even if those mothers or grandmothers have sadly passed on, they leave a footprint undiminished by the passing of time. Not least in the kitchen. Their chicken soup is untouchable. Lady Kitty — quit while you’re ahead and acknowledge your broth is more of a tribute act. Or if he suggests, “it’s not quite like my mum’s” — just tip it over his head.
JMM can be, shall we say, a little set in their ways. If they find a sweater they like, they buy it. Many times. And in many shades. Should you try to take them off piste into more experimental territory, they beam with gratitude before dusting down that favoured V neck. Equally, they fume if someone takes their seat in shul or changes the font in the newpaper’s personal finance section.
They are also difficult to please when it comes to hotels. Lady Kitty will have the chance to billet in some of the best places on the planet. But only after they’ve changed rooms three times before he settles.
That said, JMM like things just so — don’t move the stapler if its home is in the middle drawer of his study. In fact, best not to touch it at all.
Of course, having reached an age where the likes of Mr Lewis have accrued success and experience in equal measure, you might expect the JMM to feel comfortable with his past choices. Forget it. It’s possible, Lady Kitty, that even a zillionaire tycoon drives past a row of semis and says things like “I could have bought them for thruppence 30 years ago — look what they’re worth now”.
Indeed JMM love to live in the past. So when, Lady Kitty, your husband introduces you to some of his long standing female friends, be prepared to be confused. It’s likely he’ll refer to this vintage collection of gal pals by their single names — even if they’ve been married for 30 years. Especially if they’ve been married for 30 years.
Not that all this suggests that Michael Lewis and Kitty Spencer will be troubled by their partnership. If anything the new bride is likely to find many advantages in the match (and that’s setting aside any questions about what the attraction was to the zillionaire chatan.)
For a start Michael Lewis is five years older than her father, Earl Spencer, and will doubtless show excessive concern for her well-being. I mean that slinky slip of haute couture might look very fetching. But honey, you need a coat. Watch out for the way he talks to his adult children on the phone too — you’d be forgiven for thinking they were not potty trained yet.
JMM are innately cautious — they plot a route on the sat nav then argue against it. They check the weather (and check it again on several different apps). They set off ridiculously early for appointments, functions and dinner parties because they worry about finding somewhere to park.
But his pleasures will be simple. He’ll be happy watching that Larry David episode about Palestinian chicken for the umpteenth time.
And if you, Lady Kitty, thought your girl friends were good for gossip, they’re not a patch on the mustardy tang of the JMM’s capacity for tittle tattle. Perhaps it’s borne of countless golf games, or shul meetings. So when you have tender morsels to share he will devour them with wolfish delight.
So I wish Mr and Mrs Lewis every happiness in their new life together. And I’m sure the beautiful Kitty will adore being married to her JMM.
Sure he may fuse the entire state of New York if he attempts to change a plug. And if you buy a flat pack bookshelf on the basis of his wildly over ambitious promises, you’ll have to keep your books in a box until he gives in and hires a handyman.
But he’ll be warm, loving, dependable and protective. Just don’t move the stapler and, chuckelee, you’ll be sorted.
