Sammy Davis, Jr: I’ve Gotta Be Me Preview | American Masters | PBS

  I had the privilege of watching a screening of this documentary at the JCC Manhattan last week, The  producer Sam Pollard there for q &a at the end.
      I remember being fascinated by Sammy Davis Jr. as a kid. He was the first black Jew that I had ever heard of. I knew that he converted to Judaism as a result of a horrible accident and he was a funny performer on tv. I also remember fondly the mogen david wine commercial that he was in .
That's about it. When I got older I learned that he was part of the rat pact mostly because of the newly dubbed brat pack that was part of the 80's movies .
      I watched this documentary to learn more about this cultural icon. I learned that he grew up poor and was a performer since he was 3 years old.  He was a great mimic and he was  one of the first modern black performers. I also found out why he wanted to be Jewish.
      I think that one of the most profound parts of the movie is how he felt he was post - racial  and though he had a lot of tough times he persisted with the help of good friends. He was very close with Frank Sinatra, Jerry Lewis, Dean Martin and Joey Bishop who were all there for him in good times and in bad.
     Once Davis was asked to perform on Yom Kippur by a Jewish director to which Davis refused stating it was Yom Kippur and he could not perform then. This of course shook up the Jewish producer. Often those who adopt a religion uphold it more steadfastly than those who were born in to it. I know that his conversion was probably not orthodox, but the lesson is just as strong.
     This documentary will be on American Masters on February 19 on PBS. It is uplifting and informative. Definitely two thumbs up. 

Made in China - How a Chinese became a Hasidic Jew - Conversion

    I'm a sucker for this kind of story. We all secretly are happy to find out that someone who is not Jewish wants to be Jewish . This man is so inspiring and its so wonderful that he is one of our Jewish brethren. 

Marrying a Jew

      Another annoying Shabbos table discussion with misguided men trying to tell me how they think that shiksas are so much nicer than Jewish girls . I hate these discussions because the same could be said of gentile men being nicer to Jewish girls than Jewish men . I hate this kind of talk because its counter productive. The idea not to date a goy has NOTHING to do with how nice or not nice a goy is . It has to do with living a Jewish life. If you want to live  an observant Jewish life its best to marry someone Jewish.  End of story. 

Ben Shapiro: Why Jews Vote Leftist?

   This is an interesting thought. Unfortunately a lot of Jews feel more like they are  white people than they are Jewish. 

Deli Man Official Trailer 1 (2015) - Documentary HD

   I saw the movie DELI MAN yesterday. It is a documentary about delis and how they are becoming extinct. What I found extremely interesting is though many people associate delis with Jews , they really weren't created by Jewish people. Delis did not exist in Eastern Europe. There were delis in Germany , but they weren't really a Jewish phenomenon . German delis were highly trief as they had a lot of pork products there. Germans brought the deli to the United States and in the early twentieth century they were the fast food of the time. When Eastern European Jews came to America the young people were enamoured with deli cuisine and many Jewish people opened kosher delis , and added some Eastern European dishes to the menu. A kosher or Jewish deli was a way for immigrant Jews to assimilate into American culture and eventually delis became associated with Jewish culture. Jewish food really is the food of  the countries we live in . The United States is no different.
           The film interviews several deli owners from around the United States and Canada. This is where things got very interesting. They featured a Houston based deli , a Toronto based deli , a California based deli as well as a few in New York.
            The golden age of the deli was the 1930's and 1940's. This explains a lot. I never really thought of delis as being Jewish or as having Jewish food . The golden age of the deli was way before my time. It was more of my grandparents' era.  My parents were very heath conscious . Though we never had white bread, we rarely ate cold cuts.
             The movie is more like an ode to the deli rather than a celebration . Many of the old  Yiddish speaking immigrants have passed on . The younger generation that is not so observant is not so into deli food. Religious Jews aren't necessarily into deli food. The few deli's that exist are of a dying breed. This is not necessarily a bad thing. Aside from being kosher or matzoh or challah, Jewish food is not really a specific cuisine, its more dependent on what country that  Jews live in.
            Ziggy Gruber has a deli in Houston where one would not think of as being a great place to open a Jewish deli, but he is successful because he has become somewhat of a Jewish celebrity there and his restaurant has become a place where Jewish people connect to their Judaism.
          DELI MAN does not really specify whether most of the delis in the film are kosher . It mostly explores a deli as being part of 'Jewish culture', Katz's , Carnegie deli and Stage door are mentioned as being specifically not kosher but of the deli men featured in the film the kashrus of their institutions are not really explored.
         DELI MAN does not make me want to eat a corned beef sandwich,. It does not really make me wish that I lived in the golden age of the New York deli. It is however a nice epilogue to the golden age of the deli and to the 'gastro Jew' . Feivish Finkel, Freddy Roman and Jerry Stiller are featured as New York Jews reminiscing about delis.  I am not sure that the goal of the film was comedy, but I did find the film to be quite comedic.
         Judaism really is about religion. Kashrus separates us from the rest of the world, but the genre of our kosher food is not what keeps us around. Thank goodness. It really does not matter whether or not Delis exist twenty years from now. Judaism will be making Jews Jewish as it always has been.

Modi's Big Black Jewish Wedding

 This is really funny. As they say the frummer one is the blacker one is... This gives that saying more meaning... Perhaps that is also part of the spoof.... 

This is 40

     I recently saw the movie This is 40. It was yet another movie with a Jewish husband and his shiksa wife. Paul Rudd was the husband and Leslie Mann was the wife. It was a Judd Apatow film and Leslie Mann is his wife in real life. Judd is Jewish, Leslie man is not. My thought is that religion was a non-issue to Apatow when he married Mann, and it wasn't because he was trying not to marry a Jewish woman. That said , Jewish women are often berated for being whiny and annoying. Well, Leslie Mann is both. Often what a Jewish man says he dislikes in a Jewish woman he finds in a gentile woman. I guess he would prefer a gentile woman to wine than a Jewish one. At least with  the show Will and Grace , another gentile male / Jewish woman pairing you knew that they would never marry. Will was going to stay gay.
     The plot of the movie was okay - couple turns 40 and feel old, but the Jewish husband /gentile wife cliche is tired or at least I am tired of it. 

Jack Black Will Do Anything To Get Into Hebrew School - CONAN on TBS

 i just watched this and i could not stop laughing. what i really like is that jack black is not apologetic about being jewish. he isn't all that observant but he is also matter of fact about it instead of self hating like the woody allen generation of hollywood jews. we've come along way baby.

madoff isn't really jewish

 i am sure that the title of this post caught your attention. oh and while i am at it rabashkin isn't really frum and neither are any of the other people who are otherwise shomer mitzvot but were convicted of ponzi schemes as of late.
gimme a break. every time i hear about a frum person involved in a major crime i hear people try to rationalize it by saying "well they weren't really frum" oh really? i disagree. i think that they were frum otherwise. i think that they did something very wrong, but they were actually shomer shabbos otherwise. to be devil's advocate, just because someone does an averah, no matter how large or small it does not blot out all of the mitzvot that they otherwise did do. i am not justifying their crimes, but just because they did a crime does not erase any good that they might have done in their lives.
the other reason i resent it when people like to wax poetically about how these frum people who were involved in embezzlement weren't really frum is because if they weren't caught they wouldnt be saying boo and because the rest of the world thinks these losers are frum. there has to be a better reaction than disassociation. i think that it would be best to say that they were frum and even frum people have nisyonos that they do not always pass and sometimes they give into their yetzer harah and do the wrong thing. they shouldn't do the wrong thing, but sometimes people do mess up big time- even frum people. we are given the laws of the torah because otherwise people would sin. DUH!!  if we were all so perfect just because we were keeping shabbos and kosher that we would not even think of being involved in fraud or an occasional ponzi scheme then "don't steal" would not be one of the ten commandments. HELLO.
instead of disassociating with the fraudsters as members of the tribe or fellow frummies perhaps learn to condemn the sin and try to make sure all of our coreligionists realize that fraud is not ok. we should try and figure out why this is happening in our community so it will stop .

the truth about jewish women

often jewish women who live in new york have been given the stereotype of being pushy and overbearing. sometimes people think that a religious woman would be subservient . well, of course maybe a religious woman of a faith other than jewish would be. but give me a break  with the stereotypes. when does loudmouthed ,overbearing and subservient describe the same person?
i dont't think that religious jewish women are subservient to men and i don't believe in the common stereotype of the loudmouthed jewish new york woman.
i do believe that jews of both genders often stand up for what they believe in  and stand up for the underdog. does this make one pushy and loudmouthed? i don't think so , but  no one asked me.

jewish film festival

the jewish film festival often has films by jews instead of films about the jewish experience. i saw a film today that was a perfect example. the film was white : a memoir of color. 

white: a memoir of color is about a jewish couple who identify more as white than jewish who  contemplate adopting a child of color. not once in this film is there a reference to why they might think it would be difficult to raise a black or biracial child as jewish . this couple eventually end up adopting a biracial black child and a fully black child. not once do they reference this as being an issue for the adoptive child. though there are black jewish people they usually have black jewish parents who share their experience of being a minority within a minority. it must be more difficult for a white jewish person to have a black jewish child. . even if one is not a very ritualistically jewish person this could be a challenge. in fact the less religious one is the more the child will be thrown into situations where he/she is different in so many ways. again , not one mention of this in the film. i'm guessing this film is aimed at the general viewing public so religion is not mentioned. this film would not have even been in the jewish film festival had the filmmaker not been jewish. i found the film to be honest and informative, but not from the jewish standpoint, just the white standpoint. 

i consider myself to be more jewish than white.

i have heard that many young christian women who are putting their babies up for adoption want to know that they are giving their child up to a church going christian family, so im not sure why religion was not mentioned. then again perhaps in the case of a bi-racial baby the birth mother cares less what the religion of the adoptive parents making it less of an issue. who knows.

i admit that though i could see myself adopting a chinese baby or a hispanic baby  i would find it more difficult to adopt a black or bi-racial child. i don't think that i could handle it. i think that some people can handle it , and for them this is wonderful. i would have liked to have seen this film document more of what the experience of adopting a black child in the jewish community would be like.  i thought this movie was going to be like that . it wasn't.

Is a Jewish Convert obligated to reveal their status? (September 2008)

   i found this link on aliza hausman's website www.alizahausman.net . its very interesting. when you are born jewish you always wonder why someone born not a member of the tribe would want to be one . chaviva galatz discusses a little of the why and mostly the just wanting to blend in with everyone else part because once you are jewish that is what you are.

lessons to learn

i would always cringe when the response to many a tragedy is that people need to dress more modestly. i always found this quite amusing. what ever happened to the importance of behaving more modestly ? now  more than ever i find this to be true.. leiby kletzky's murderer dressed like a frum jew, but he most certainly did not behave like one. it is so important for all of us who appear to be frum to make sure we are really behaving in the way someone who looks like a  frum person should.
i think that the focus on people dressing modestly is so a person will be embarrassed to act inappropriately because one looks so frum. from one standpoint i understand this . if you do a mitzvah you will internalize it eventually.  dress is just superficial , an action (mitzvah) is more powerful than a costume. we must aspire to doing many mitzvot and behaving jewish and have good midos . this way those of  us who are frum will really be frum and not just appear to be frum.

good hair

i recently watched chris rock's documentary good hair which is about the quest for black women to have good hair. as a curly haired white jewish woman i thought that i could relate. well i could, but not as much as i thought.

no matter how many perms straight haired women get, straight hair is still the optimal hair type for all people. i remember watching those hair commercials on tv where i would watch those straight haired women bounce their shiny straight hair and i would be so envious. you never see a curly haired woman in a shampoo commercial . curly hair doesn't bounce and its not shiny unless you have used waaayyy too much gel.

it is no secret that a lot of curly haired jewish women have blow outs, use a hair iron or do japanese hair straightening. some adhere so strictly to these regiments that they never wash their own hair and they are afraid of what will happen when their future husbands figure out that they really have curly hair. sometimes no one finds out until that curly haired baby is born!

black women of course hold the prize for hair straightening. as a kid i never realized that straight haired black women had straighted their hair. i thought they were all just wearing wigs.

black women straighten their hair to look more like white people . black women straighten there hair as well as get hair weaves. i think that hair weave straight hair looks more natural.

hair weaves like sheitles are often made of indian hair. chris rock went to india to investigate the hair industry in india. he showed the "religious " ceremony they have where they shave off all of their hair so they can make lots of money off of their hair.

i learned that this documentary is less about hair and more about what lengths a black woman will go to to look more white. though i may have "bad hair " i am white which means it does not matter that i have "bad hair". i also learned that even with all of the lengths these women go through to make themselves look more white they still look very black to me. they should really save their money and be at peace with their hair and their skin color.they will certainly save a lot of money that way. it is so important to be at peace with who one is.

judaism in flux

the idea of sara horowitz the modern orthodox version of a woman rabbi has been denounced by mainstream orthodoxy. i have read that some think the reaction to this will be for many disgruntled orthodox jewish woman to leave orthodoxy. others believe that if the mainstream orthodox establishment would have condoned the rabbah or any version of a rabbah that this would be a slippery slope toward reform judaism.

i don't believe that any woman who truly is an orthodox jew would cast off all of the mitzvot just because they wish women could be part of the clergy. where would these women fit in jewishly otherwise? conservative and reform judaism are too watered down . the reform judaism of a hundred years ago may have suited them , but not the reform judaism of today. this is why i suggest that these woman will go in yet a different direction. they will form their own feminist version of orthodox judaism. in fact many already have. i am aware of private minyanim where there is a mechitzah but sometimes women lead parts of the service from the women's section. they aren't completely orthodox but i wouldn't consider them conservative judaism either. im not sure what i think of this concept, but i think that more of these minyanim will develop.

i do understand why the mainstream does not agree with the rabbah/maharat/female orthodox rabbi model. they are afraid of the slippery slope. one diverges from the tradition of exclusively male lay leaders , which isn't actually assur and then slowly the non-conformity will veer too far from the right and start turning into conservative and reform judaism .

call me mayer tamuz

i went to the jewish museum yesterday and i saw the most amazing exhibit. a man named mayer kirshenblatt painted his memories of growing up in opatow , poland. his daughter had encouraged him to paint his memories starting in 1967. eventually he realized he needed to depict jewish pre-world war II poland so that people will remember how jewish people lived, not just how they so tragically died. thus he began painting.
the paintings vividly and accurately depict orthodox jewish life in the shtetl. they also have a gentleness to them. mr. kirshenblatt had fond memories of his childhood hometown which are absorbed in the aura of his paintings. the paintings fill several rooms in this exhibit.
there is a video featuring mr. kirshenblatt and his daughter where they discuss the making of the exhibit. it shows them go to opatow where he points out the locations depicted in his paintings . he meets up with elderly poles who remember his family. there was an exhibition of his paintings in poland as well as an opening where many poles attend. its fascinating.
at the end of the exhibit there are blank cards where everyone is encouraged to write a jewish memory from one's own life in the spirit of mayer kirshenblatt's paintings in which he paints his memories. there is a wall where some of these postcards are displayed. i read a few of them and included my own memory with a very inartistic drawing of my own.