It’s only fitting that a casual “telephone introduction” in December 1969, followed by a cross-country, pen-pal courtship and an initial meeting in Las Vegas six months later, would culminate in the first wedding in Korea between two American Jews.
For me, a San Francisco native, and my wife, the former Elizabeth Teitsman of New York, long distances were never an issue. I was a newly admitted attorney serving as an army officer, and Liz, a full-time schoolteacher. We weren’t going to let a military tour of duty in Korea keep us apart once we became engaged in August 1970.
With help from 8th Army Chaplain, Conservative Rabbi Richard Yellin in Seoul (who officiated) and Amy Vanderbilt’s etiquette book, I planned the entire wedding, from invitations to menu to music, while Liz quickly arranged to “ship out” for Korea to start her married life.
Our wedding was the featured event of the annual Chanukah religious retreat observance and was attended by virtually every Jew then in Korea, including the Israeli ambassador. The local sisterhood even gave Liz a surprise welcoming shower.
More than 150 wedding guests feasted on a strictly kosher meal, including steaks flown in from Japan and a cake baked under Rabbi Yellin’s supervision in a “koshered” military commissary. Ours was not only the first known Jewish wedding between two Americans performed in Korea, but was believed to be the country’s largest Jewish religious service ever held before that date.
Circumstances prevented any members of the Atterman or Teitsman families from attending in person. However, the parents gathered in Palm Springs at the exact same time the wedding service was taking place in Seoul. The proud fathers jointly broke symbolic glasses and toasted their children’s union thousands of miles away with cries of “mazel tov!”