Remembering Connie Francis, Italian Singer Who Sang Hebrew and Yiddish Songs

Connie Francis, the pop singing star of the 1960s who died last week at the age of 87, had an affinity for Jewish music, having released an album of popular Jewish songs including Tzena, Tzena, Mamele, Oyfen Pripitshok, and Shein vi di Levone.

As Phylissa Cramer wrote in The Times of Israel, 

Francis, whose real name was Concetta Rosa Maria Franconero, grew up in Newark, New Jersey, in the 1940s, when the city was home to a large Jewish population (including Phillip Roth, four years her senior). “If you weren’t Jewish, you needed a password to get in,” she once told an interviewer, the Forward reported in 2018.

Francis wound up deploying the Jewish culture and language she picked up in her childhood neighborhood as she emerged as a vocal star in the late 1950s and early 1960s. She performed at Borscht Belt resorts during their heyday, then recorded an album of Jewish music as part of an effort to make herself as widely known as possible in the early 1960s.

In 1989 at a concert at the Diplomat Hotel in Miami Beach, she sang the song from the movie Exodus intertwined with Hebrew and English versions of Hava Nagila. She introduced the song with a dedication "to the great state of Israel, a nation of people who are truly an inspiration to the whole free world."

NBC Pays Tribute to Comedian Joan Rivers in a TV Special

NBC honored the life and legacy of the late comic with "Joan Rivers: A Dead Funny All-Star Tribute," an hour-long television special that aired on May 13.

As Amaris Encinas wrote in USA Today,

Her daughter, Melissa Rivers, an executive producer on the special that aired on May 13, believes her mother would be pleased with how it turned out. “This tribute is everything my mother would have wanted — hilarious, unfiltered, and filled with people she respected (and roasted)," she said. "And as usual, she was still the funniest person in the room. It’s incredibly moving to see so many iconic comedians come together to celebrate her legacy, especially the women whose careers she helped make possible by breaking down so many doors."

“I know she’d be thrilled to see how far things have come, and she’d still have notes," her daughter added. "This is more than a tribute. It’s a reminder of the trail she blazed and the joy she brought to so many.”

"Given that I’m dead, I assume someone will finally decide to honor me," Rivers said in a letter she left for her daughter, Melissa Rivers. "Well, it’s about time."

The comedy special, which featured cameos from famous comics, was filmed at the Apollo Theater in Harlem on the opening night of the 2024 New York Comedy Festival, NBC said in a news release.

Here's a video clip of comedian Chelsea Handler in one of the tributes from the show. Enjoy! 

Remembering Yaakov Kirschen, "Dry Bones" Political Cartoonist and Humorist

Israeli political cartoonist Yaakov Kirschen died on Monday at 87 at the Meir Medical Center in Kfar Saba, following a lengthy illness.

As Danielle Greyman-Kennard wrote in The Jerusalem Post,

The famed cartoonist, known for Dry Bones, has been published by many leading newspapers in both Israel and the Diaspora - including The Jerusalem Post, which was the first to enjoy publishing Kirschen’s work in January of 1973.

"Bones, as his friends and colleagues called him, was a wonderful artist
and satirist who always hit the nail on the head with his cartoons," former Post editor-in-chief Steve Linde shared. "He really was a national treasure."

No political leader in Israel or the US was safe from Kirschen's perceptive and satiric wit. In addition to his daily cartoons, he wrote humorous books, gave lectures, and delivered jokes about life in Israel and other Jewish subjects. One of his long-time aims was achieved a few years ago with the publication of The Dry Bones Haggadah.

Here's a video clip from a Kirschen presentation in which he tells a few jokes about life in the Nixon era.

Enjoy!

Remembering Peter Yarrow, Folksinger and Songwriter of Puff, the Magic Dragon

This past week we lost one of the most famous Jewish songwriters and performers of folk songs when Peter Yarrow died at 86.

Best known as one third of the folksinging group Peter, Paul, and Mary, Yarrow co-wrote the song Puff, the Magic Dragon in 1962, a song about the loss of innocence and the inevitability of children growing up and taking leave of their childhood toys.

As John Rogers wrote in The Times of Israel, 

Born May 31, 1938, to Jewish Ukrainian parents in New York, Yarrow was raised in an upper-middle-class family that he said placed a high value on art and scholarship. He took violin lessons as a child, later switching to guitar as he came to embrace the work of such folk-music icons as Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger.

After months of rehearsals, the three became an overnight sensation when their first album, 1962’s eponymous “Peter, Paul and Mary,” reached No. 1 on the Billboard chart. Their second, “In the Wind,” reached No. 4, and their third, “Moving,” put them back at No. 1.

From their earliest albums, the trio sang out against war and injustice in songs like Seeger’s “If I Had a Hammer” and “Where Have all the Flowers Gone,” Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind” and “When the Ship Comes In” and Yarrow’s own “Day is Done.”

In this interview recorded seven years ago, Yarrow reflected on the origin and meaning of the song.

Enjoy!

Remembering Steve Lawrence, Nightclub, TV, Recording Star and Actor for More Than 50 Years

Steve Lawrence, who was born Sidney Liebowitz on July 8, 1935 and enjoyed a 50 year performing career, died on March 7 in Los Angeles of complications of Alzheimer's disease.

The son of a cantor at the Brooklyn synagogue Beth Sholom Tomchei Harav, he was best known as a member of the pop vocal duo "Steve and Eydie" with his wife Eydie Gormé, and for his performance as Maury Sline, the manager and friend of the main characters in the 1980 film The Blues Brothers. Steve and Eydie first appeared together as regulars on Tonight Starring Steve Allen in 1954 and continued performing as a duo until Gormé's retirement in 2009.

As Robert D. McFadden wrote in The New York Times,

The Liebowitz boys were all musically gifted. By 8, Sidney was singing in a synagogue choir, and by 12 he was composing songs. He dropped out of Thomas Jefferson High School before graduation to sing in bars and nightclubs.

He began calling himself Steve Lawrence, the given names of two nephews. He won “Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts” at 15 and sang for a week on Godfrey’s morning radio show.

Billed as “Steve and Eydie” in Carnegie Hall concerts, on television and at glitzy hotels in Las Vegas, the remarkably durable couple remained steadfast to their pop style as rock ’n’ roll took America by storm in the 1950s and ’60s.

Long after the millennium, they were still rendering songs like “Our Love Is Here to Stay,” “Just in Time” and “One for My Baby (And One More for the Road)” for audiences that seemed to grow old with them.Record sales put him in the top ranks of America’s pop singers in the early 1960s, and despite competition from rock groups, his club and concert dates with Ms. Gorme remained enormously popular.

As a tribute to the class act of Steve and Eydie, we're sharing a long medley of music by Richard Rodgers with lyrics by Lorenz Hart or Oscar Hammerstein. Songs: The Most Beautiful Girl In The World, Falling In Love With Love, A Wonderful Guy, I Married An Angel, Where Or When, My Heart Stood Still, Blue Moon, Manhattan, Isn't It Romantic, Glad To Be Unhappy, It Might As Well Be Spring, Spring Is Here, It Never Entered My Mind, Bewitched Bothered And Bewildered, My Romance, My Funny Valentine, With A Song In My Heart.

With special thanks to Buzz Stephens for posting this video on YouTube.

A SPECIAL NOTE FOR NEW EMAIL SUBSCRIBERS:  THE VIDEO MAY NOT BE VIEWABLE DIRECTLY FROM THE EMAIL THAT YOU GET EACH DAY ON SOME COMPUTERS AND TABLETS.  YOU MUST CLICK ON THE TITLE AT THE TOP OF THE EMAIL TO REACH THE JEWISH HUMOR CENTRAL WEBSITE, FROM WHICH YOU CLICK ON THE PLAY BUTTON IN THE VIDEO IMAGE TO START THE VIDEO. 

Remembering Richard Lewis, Master of Dark, Neurotic Comedy

Comedian Richard Lewis, who parlayed his neurotic Jewish personality and self-deprecating humor into a 50-year career as a standup comedian and actor, died last Wednesday. He was 76. 

 As Andrew Silow-Carroll wrote for the Jewish Telegraphic Agency,

Although he considered himself retired as a standup, he appeared again as a regular in the current season of “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” playing a version of himself in the HBO show created by and starring his childhood friend Larry David. 

“Richard and I were born three days apart in the same hospital and for most of my life he’s been like a brother to me,” David said in a statement released by HBO. “He had that rare combination of being the funniest person and also the sweetest. But today he made me sob and for that I’ll never forgive him.”

Lewis’ sensibility, in clubs and on screen, could be as dark as the funereal suits he often wore. In a signature joke, he spoke about an uncle who was so depressing that he would sit at home listening to the soundtrack of “The Pawnbroker,” the grim 1964 film about a Holocaust survivor.

In this video, Curb Your Enthusiasm creator and star Larry David pays tribute to his childhood campmate and long-time friend. 

A SPECIAL NOTE FOR NEW EMAIL SUBSCRIBERS:  THE VIDEO MAY NOT BE VIEWABLE DIRECTLY FROM THE EMAIL THAT YOU GET EACH DAY ON SOME COMPUTERS AND TABLETS.  YOU MUST CLICK ON THE TITLE AT THE TOP OF THE EMAIL TO REACH THE JEWISH HUMOR CENTRAL WEBSITE, FROM WHICH YOU CLICK ON THE PLAY BUTTON IN THE VIDEO IMAGE TO START THE VIDEO. 

Remembering Paul Reubens, Comedian Best Known as Pee-wee Herman

Paul Reubens, the 70-year-old actor, comedian, writer, and producer, died Sunday in Los Angeles. He was best known for creating and portraying the character Pee-wee Herman. 

Reubens joined the Los Angeles troupe The Groundlings in the 1970s, and started his career as an improvisational comedian and stage actor.

As Andrew Dalton wrote in the Times of Israel,

The character with his too-tight gray suit, white chunky loafers and red bow tie was best known for the film “Pee-wee’s Big Adventure” and the TV series “Pee-wee’s Playhouse.”

Herman created Pee-wee when he was part of the Los Angeles improv group, The Groundlings, in the late 1970s. The live “Pee-wee Herman Show” debuted at a Los Angeles theater in 1981 and was a success with both kids during matinees and adults at a midnight show. HBO would air the show as a special.

Reubens was born to Jewish parents, Judy and Milton Rubenfeld, in 1952. His father fought in World War II as a pilot for the Royal Air Force and the US Army, and later was one of the five founding pilots of the Israel Air Force during the Israeli War of Independence in 1948.

In 2006, Reubens appeared on the Conan O'Brien show, talked about his childhood tea parties and accepted a challenge to try to fit into his iconic Pee-wee tight fitting gray suit.

A SPECIAL NOTE FOR NEW EMAIL SUBSCRIBERS:  THE VIDEO MAY NOT BE VIEWABLE DIRECTLY FROM THE EMAIL THAT YOU GET EACH DAY ON SOME COMPUTERS AND TABLETS.  YOU MUST CLICK ON THE TITLE AT THE TOP OF THE EMAIL TO REACH THE JEWISH HUMOR CENTRAL WEBSITE, FROM WHICH YOU CLICK ON THE PLAY BUTTON IN THE VIDEO IMAGE TO START THE VIDEO.

Remembering Singer Tony Bennett and His Jewish Connections

When legendary singer Tony Bennett died Friday at the age of 96, it didn't take long for The Forward and The Algemeiner newspapers to come up with his connections to Jewish life.

As Dan Epstein wrote in The Forward,

Throughout his eight-decade post-war career as a singer, performer and recording artist, Bennett regularly employed his melodic gifts and mellifluous phrasing in service of songs composed by many of the 20th century’s great Jewish songwriters. In fact, quite a few of the Jewish-penned numbers in Bennett’s discography were particularly significant for him — not just as chart hits, but as key career turning points and cornerstones of his lasting musical legacy.

These songs include Rags to Riches by Richard Adler and Jerry Ross, The Best is Yet to Come by Cy Coleman and Carolyn Leigh, Chicago by Fred Fisher, Our Love is Here to Stay by George and Ira Gershwin, and White Christmas by Irving Berlin.

In The Algemeiner, Shiryn Ghermezian wrote:

The I Got Rhythm singer was not Jewish but his daughter, vocalist Antonia Bennett, converted to Judaism in 2013. She married Ronen Helmann, a native Israeli, and together they gave the late singer a Jewish granddaughter named Maya in May 2016.

Bennett was drafted in the US Army at the age of 18 in 1944, and was part of the 255th Regiment that during World War II liberated the Kaufering concentration camp in Landsberg, which was 30 miles south of the Dachau concentration camp in Germany.

In September 2014 Bennett visited Israel and performed for 90 minutes in Tel Aviv's Mann Auditorium. Here's Tony singing The Way You Look Tonight by Jerome Kern and Dorothy Fields from that show.

Enjoy!

A SPECIAL NOTE FOR NEW EMAIL SUBSCRIBERS:  THE VIDEO MAY NOT BE VIEWABLE DIRECTLY FROM THE EMAIL THAT YOU GET EACH DAY ON SOME COMPUTERS AND TABLETS.  YOU MUST CLICK ON THE TITLE AT THE TOP OF THE EMAIL TO REACH THE JEWISH HUMOR CENTRAL WEBSITE, FROM WHICH YOU CLICK ON THE PLAY BUTTON IN THE VIDEO IMAGE TO START THE VIDEO.

Remembering Alan Arkin - Comic and Serious Character Actor, Director, Producer, and Screenwriter

Alan Arkin, star of film and TV for more than 60 years, died last Thursday in California at the age of 89. Born in Brooklyn, he was the son of Ukrainian and German Jewish immigrants.

As Andrew Silow-Carroll wrote in The Times of Israel, 

Over a nearly seven-decade career, he imbued comic roles with pathos and serious roles with a touch of sardonic humor. He was working until nearly the end of his life, co-starring with Michael Douglas from 2018 to 2019 in Chuck Lorre’s Netflix comedy series “The Kominsky Method.” That role, as agent Norman Newlander, earned him two consecutive Emmy Award nominations.

Arkin made his film debut — and received his first Academy Award nomination — opposite Reiner in “The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming,” about a Soviet sub that runs aground off New England. The phrase he teaches his comrades — “Emergency! Everybody to get from street!” — became a catchphrase.

Here is the "Emergency" clip from that very funny satiric movie, which also starred Carl Reiner, Eva Marie Saint, Theodore Bikel, and Jonathan Winters.  

Enjoy!

A SPECIAL NOTE FOR NEW EMAIL SUBSCRIBERS:  THE VIDEO MAY NOT BE VIEWABLE DIRECTLY FROM THE EMAIL THAT YOU GET EACH DAY ON SOME COMPUTERS AND TABLETS.  YOU MUST CLICK ON THE TITLE AT THE TOP OF THE EMAIL TO REACH THE JEWISH HUMOR CENTRAL WEBSITE, FROM WHICH YOU CLICK ON THE PLAY BUTTON IN THE VIDEO IMAGE TO START THE VIDEO.

Remembering Sheldon Harnick, "Fiddler on the Roof" Lyricist

Sheldon Harnick, who wrote the lyrics for Fiddler on the Roof, Fiorello, and She Loves Me, died last week in New York at the age of 99.

As Robert Berkvist wrote in The New York Times,

“Fiddler on the Roof” was more than a hit show; it was a phenomenon. It won nine Tony Awards, including one for its score. It was made into a hit movie in 1971, has been performed all over the world, and has had five Broadway revivals, most recently in 2015. (A Yiddish-language production was an Off Broadway hit in 2019 and played a return engagement in late 2022.)

In addition to “Matchmaker, Matchmaker,” the score included a number of songs that would soon be regarded as classics, including “Tradition,” “Sunrise, Sunset” and Tevye’s humorously wistful lament “If I Were a Rich Man” (“There would be one long staircase just going up/ And one even longer coming down/ And one more leading nowhere, just for show”).

As a tribute to Sheldon Harnick, we're sharing a video of an on-stage discussion with Jeffrey Lyons during the Florida Holocaust Museum's 2013 To Life event, when Harnick explained how the song If I Were A Rich Man evolved from a Hasidic nigun during the development of Fiddler on the Roof.

Enjoy!

A SPECIAL NOTE FOR NEW EMAIL SUBSCRIBERS:  THE VIDEO MAY NOT BE VIEWABLE DIRECTLY FROM THE EMAIL THAT YOU GET EACH DAY ON SOME COMPUTERS AND TABLETS.  YOU MUST CLICK ON THE TITLE AT THE TOP OF THE EMAIL TO REACH THE JEWISH HUMOR CENTRAL WEBSITE, FROM WHICH YOU CLICK ON THE PLAY BUTTON IN THE VIDEO IMAGE TO START THE VIDEO.    

Remembering Ed Ames: Singer, Actor, Ardent Zionist, and Inadvertent Mohel on Johnny Carson Show

Ed Ames, the singer, actor, and ardent Zionist, died in Los Angeles on May 21 at the age of 95.

Best known for his singing career with three of his brothers as The Ames Brothers, and his acting in the role of Mingo, a Cherokee tribesman in the TV series Daniel Boone, Ames was a committed Zionist and president of the California chapter of the Zionist Organization of America.

Ames also became known as an unintentional mohel after a guest appearance on the Johnny Carson Show.

As Dennis Hevesi wrote in The New York Times,

Mr. Ames played Mingo for the first four of the show’s six seasons, from 1964 to 1968. But his most memorable moment during those years did not come on “Daniel Boone.” It happened on April 29, 1965, when he was Johnny Carson’s guest on “The Tonight Show.”

In a segment that soon became a staple of “Tonight Show” highlight reels, Mr. Ames set out to teach Mr. Carson how to toss a tomahawk, using a rudimentary drawing of a sheriff on a wooden panel as his target. He threw the tomahawk across the stage. When it embedded precisely in the sheriff’s crotch, the audience reacted with loud, sustained laughter.

Mr. Ames tried to retrieve the tomahawk, but Mr. Carson grabbed his arm. As another roar of laughter subsided, Mr. Carson looked at Mr. Ames and said, “I didn’t even know you were Jewish.”

He was.

A SPECIAL NOTE FOR NEW EMAIL SUBSCRIBERS:  THE VIDEO IS NOT VIEWABLE DIRECTLY FROM THE EMAIL THAT YOU GET EACH DAY.  YOU MUST CLICK ON THE TITLE AT THE TOP OF THE EMAIL TO REACH THE JEWISH HUMOR CENTRAL WEBSITE, FROM WHICH YOU CLICK ON THE PLAY BUTTON IN THE VIDEO IMAGE TO START THE VIDEO.  

Remembering Harry Belafonte - Singing Hinei Ma Tov with the Israeli Army Choir

Singer Harry Belafonte, who died on April 25 at the age of 96, had many Jewish connections.

As Lisa Keys wrote for the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA),

A New York City native, Belafonte, an acolyte of singers Paul Robeson and Josh White, was the one of the first Black artists to achieve widespread commercial success in the United States. While he was raised a Catholic, his life frequently dovetailed with Jewish causes, values and individuals.

Among Belafonte’s many Jewish connections — which included brokering a meeting between Nelson Mandela and Jewish leaders in 1989 — was his marriage to his Jewish second wife, dancer Julie Robinson. The couple, who were married from 1958 to 2004, raised two children, Gina and David.

In 2011, Belafonte revealed in his autobiography, “My Song: A Memoir,” that his paternal grandfather was Jewish. Belafonte’s parents were both Jamaican immigrants: his mother, Melvine, was the child of a white mother from Scotland and a Black father, and his father, Harold George Bellanfanti, who later changed the family surname, was the son of a Black mother and white Dutch-Jewish father.

In England in 1995, Belafonte sang Hinei Ma Tov with the Israeli Army Choir.

Enjoy!

A SPECIAL NOTE FOR NEW EMAIL SUBSCRIBERS:  THE VIDEO MAY NOT BE VIEWABLE DIRECTLY FROM THE EMAIL THAT YOU GET EACH DAY ON SOME COMPUTERS AND TABLETS.  YOU MUST CLICK ON THE TITLE AT THE TOP OF THE EMAIL TO REACH THE JEWISH HUMOR CENTRAL WEBSITE, FROM WHICH YOU CLICK ON THE PLAY BUTTON IN THE VIDEO IMAGE TO START THE VIDEO.

Remembering Chaim Topol: Iconic Israeli Actor, Singer, and illustrator

Last Thursday we lost one of the great Jewish entertainers of our time with the death of Chaim Topol at the age of 87 after a multi-year battle with Alzheimer's Disease.

He was best known for his role as Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof — first in stage productions of the famed Shalom Aleichem musical in London and then later in the iconic film, before eventually returning to the stage with the role.

It was during the London run that he began being known by his last name only, as the English producers were unable to pronounce his first name.

As Amy Spiro wrote in the The Times of Israel,

Born in Tel Aviv in 1935, Topol began his acting career while completing his service in the army’s entertainment troupe where he met his wife, Galia. After his release, he joined a theater group, appearing in multiple productions before his first film role, the 1961 drama “I Like Mike.”

But it was his 1964 role in the film “Sallah Shabati” that first gained Topol serious attention, both domestically and internationally. Topol played the title role in the now-iconic film about the hardships of a Mizrahi immigrant family living in a transit camp.

In later years, Topol – who also wrote several books and illustrated several others – devoted himself to philanthropy, in particular as president of the Jordan River Village. The facility, which opened in 2012, runs a year-round camp in the Galilee for children living with chronic illnesses and disabilities.

 Topol illustrated approximately 25 books in both Hebrew and English. He also produced drawings of Israeli national figures. His sketches of Israeli presidents were reproduced in a 2013 stamp series issued by the Israel Philatelic Federation, as was his self-portrait as Tevye for 2014 commemorative stamp marking the 50th anniversary of the Broadway debut of Fiddler on the Roof.

Video clips from "Fiddler" are showing up all over the Internet, but today we'll share two clips showing other sides of Topol... singing Eli, Eli, the poem written by Hannah Senesh, on Yom Hashoah in Auschwitz-Birkenau on a March of the Living in 2012, and a scene from Sallah Shabati.

A memorial ceremony was held on Friday morning at the Cameri Theatre in Tel Aviv. Hundreds of people came to pay their respects in the ceremony in which Culture and Sport Minister Mikki Zohar, Rivka Michaeli, Oded Cutler, Gabi Armani and Topol's daughter Adi gave speeches.

Zohar said "His works will be remembered for ever, etched into Israeli culture."

A SPECIAL NOTE FOR NEW EMAIL SUBSCRIBERS:  THE VIDEO MAY NOT BE VIEWABLE DIRECTLY FROM THE EMAIL THAT YOU GET EACH DAY ON SOME COMPUTERS AND TABLETS.  YOU MUST CLICK ON THE TITLE AT THE TOP OF THE EMAIL TO REACH THE JEWISH HUMOR CENTRAL WEBSITE, FROM WHICH YOU CLICK ON THE PLAY BUTTON IN THE VIDEO IMAGE TO START THE VIDEO. 

 

 

Remembering Richard Belzer: Stand-up Comedian, Actor, and Author

Richard Belzer, who died in France on Sunday at the age of 78, was an American actor, stand-up comedian, and author. 

He was best known for his role as BPD Detective, NYPD Detective/​Sergeant, and DA Investigator John Munch, whom he portrayed as a regular cast member on the NBC police drama series Homicide: Life on the Street and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit,as well as in guest appearances on several other series. He portrayed the character for 23 years, from 1993 until retiring in 2016.

As Jason Zinoman wrote yesterday in The New York Times,

Belzer is best known for his performances as a detective on TV, but his acting career was built on a signature persona in comedy, as a master of seductive crowd work who set the template for the MC in the early days of the comedy club. Often in jackets and shirts buttoned low, he cut a stylish image, spiky and louche. He could charm with the best of them, but unlike many performers, he didn’t come off as desperate for your approval. He understood that one of the peculiar things about comedy is that the line between irritation and ingratiation could easily blur.

Here's a video clip of a Belzer stand-up comedy performance in 1978 when he imagined what Bob Dylan sounded like at his Bar Mitzvah and what he would sound like as a Yiddish-inflected singer in his 80's.

Enjoy!

A SPECIAL NOTE FOR NEW EMAIL SUBSCRIBERS:  THE VIDEO MAY NOT BE VIEWABLE DIRECTLY FROM THE EMAIL THAT YOU GET EACH DAY ON SOME COMPUTERS AND TABLETS.  YOU MUST CLICK ON THE TITLE AT THE TOP OF THE EMAIL TO REACH THE JEWISH HUMOR CENTRAL WEBSITE, FROM WHICH YOU CLICK ON THE PLAY BUTTON IN THE VIDEO IMAGE TO START THE VIDEO.

Remembering Freddie Roman - Master of Standup Comedy and Borscht Belt Icon

The world of Jewish humor lost one of its shining lights this week with the death of Freddie Roman, a stand-up comedian whose career spanned the decades when comedy and the Catskills were synonymous.

Roman's career expanded to years of shows in Las Vegas and in Florida. He was the Dean of the Friars Club for more than 20 years.

Roman was born Fred Kirschenbaum in Jamaica Queens, New York in 1937. He got his start in the Borscht Belt after working in his father's shoe store and then sold life insurance for a few years before making comedy his full-time job.

Starting out as social director at the Homowack Lodge in Spring Glen, New York, he worked his way through the Catskill mountain resorts and got to know all of the comedians who performed in the hundreds of hotels situated 90 miles from New York City.

He created and co-starred in Catskills on Broadway, a revue which brought the comedy of the Borscht Belt to Broadway in 1991 and then toured the country.

We're remembering Freddie today with a video clip of one of his classic routines in which he touches on some of his favorite topics -- love and marriage, aging, retirement, and living in South Florida.

Enjoy!

Remembering "Grease" Star Olivia Newton-John and Her Jewish Heritage

Film star Olivia Newton-John died last week at the age of 73. Best remembered for her role as Sandy alongside John Travolta as Danny in the movie version of the Broadway musical Grease, she was proud of her mother's Jewish heritage as the daughter of Nobel Prize winner Max Born.

The four-time Grammy winner sold 100 million records in her career, including I Honestly Love You and Don't Stop Believin'.

In an interview with Israel's i24 news in 2019, Newton-John talked about her maternal grandfather, his friendship with fellow physicist Albert Einstein, and how he helped German Jews escape to England during World War II.

A SPECIAL NOTE FOR NEW EMAIL SUBSCRIBERS:  THE VIDEO MAY NOT BE VIEWABLE DIRECTLY FROM THE EMAIL THAT YOU GET EACH DAY ON SOME COMPUTERS AND TABLETS.  YOU MUST CLICK ON THE TITLE AT THE TOP OF THE EMAIL TO REACH THE JEWISH HUMOR CENTRAL WEBSITE, FROM WHICH YOU CLICK ON THE PLAY BUTTON IN THE VIDEO IMAGE TO START THE VIDEO.

Remembering Larry Storch, Stand-up Comedian and Actor on F Troop and Many TV Series

Today we remember actor and comedian Larry Storch, who died on Friday at 99. Storch was best known for his comic television roles, including voice-over work for cartoon shows such as Mr. Whoopee on Tennessee Tuxedo and His Tales, and his live-action role of the bumbling Corporal Randolph Agarn on F Troop. 

Storch was born in New York City to Alfred Storch, a realtor, and his wife, Sally Kupperman Storch, a telephone operator. His parents were observant Jews. He attended DeWitt Clinton High School in the Bronx with Don Adams, who remained his lifelong friend.

Storch was originally a comic. This led to guest appearances on dozens of television series, including, Mannix, Car 54, Where Are You?; Hennesey; Get Smart; Sergeant Bilko; Columbo; CHiPs; Fantasy Island; McCloud; Emergency!; The Flying Nun; Alias Smith and Jones; The Alfred Hitchcock Hour; That Girl; I Dream of Jeannie; Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C.; Gilligan's Island; The Doris Day Show; The Persuaders; Love, American Style; All in the Family; and Kolchak: The Night Stalker.

His most famous role was from 1965 to 1967 as the scheming Corporal Randolph Agarn on the situation comedy F Troop, with Forrest Tucker, Ken Berry, and Melody Patterson.  

Here is a video clip of Storch in an episode of F Troop.

Enjoy!

A SPECIAL NOTE FOR NEW EMAIL SUBSCRIBERS:  THE VIDEO IS NOT VIEWABLE DIRECTLY FROM THE EMAIL THAT YOU GET EACH DAY.  YOU MUST CLICK ON THE TITLE AT THE TOP OF THE EMAIL TO REACH THE JEWISH HUMOR CENTRAL WEBSITE, FROM WHICH YOU CLICK ON THE PLAY BUTTON IN THE VIDEO IMAGE TO START THE VIDEO.

Remembering Gilbert Gottfried and His Shrill-Voiced Stand-up Comedy

The world of Jewish comedy lost one of its shining stars yesterday with the death of Gilbert Gottfried at the age of 67. Gottfried's specialty was crude humor and delivering punch lines in an annoying, grating voice.

His numerous roles in film and television included voicing the parrot Iago in Disney's Aladdin animated films and series, Digit LeBoid on PBS Kids's long-running Cyberchase, and Kraang Subprime in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Gottfried was the voice of the Aflac Duck until 2011. He appeared in the critically panned but commercially successful Problem Child in 1990. 

He was a cast member of Saturday Night Live's 6th season. Gottfried's persona in SNL sketches was very different from his later characterization. He rarely (if ever) spoke in his trademark screeching, obnoxious voice and never squinted.

In this video clip from a Just for Laughs Festival appearance in Montreal, Gottfried tells the audience of how he was the inspiration for Herman Melville when he wrote his classic Moby Dick.

Enjoy!

A SPECIAL NOTE FOR NEW EMAIL SUBSCRIBERS:  THE VIDEO IS NOT VIEWABLE DIRECTLY FROM THE EMAIL THAT YOU GET EACH DAY.  YOU MUST CLICK ON THE TITLE AT THE TOP OF THE EMAIL TO REACH THE JEWISH HUMOR CENTRAL WEBSITE, FROM WHICH YOU CLICK ON THE PLAY BUTTON IN THE VIDEO IMAGE TO START THE VIDEO. 

Remembering Bob Saget, Stand-up Comic, TV Sitcom Star, and Host of "America's Funniest Videos"

Bob Saget, whose comedy career included playing a wholesome dad on the 1990s sitcom Full House, hosting America's Funniest Videos, and performing raunchy standup comedy, died Sunday at 65 after a show in Orlando, Florida.

As Shira Hanau wrote for the Jewish Telegraphic Agency,

Even before he got to Hollywood, Saget honed his comedy as a misbehaving Hebrew school student at Temple Israel in Norfolk, Virginia.

“Well, a lot of it was rebellion,” Saget told the Atlanta Jewish Times in 2014. “In my Hebrew school training, I would spend more time trying to impress the girls in the class. I remember the rabbi taking me up to his office and saying ‘Saget, you’re not an entertainer; you have to stop doing this.’ I couldn’t stop.”

In 2021, Saget participated in a Purim spiel, or comedic reading of the Purim story, to benefit the Met Council, in which he played the villain of the story, Haman. “I’m self-loathing, too,” he quipped as he and other members of the cast sounded groggers to drown out Haman’s name.

Saget recalled his Jewish upbringing, including his Hebrew school experience and the Jewish foods his bubbe cooked, in the foreword he wrote for the 2011 book, “Becoming Jewish: The Challenges, Rewards, and Paths to Conversion,” by Rabbi Steven Carr Reuben and Jennifer S. Hanin.

“I was born a Jewish boy. I was circumcised. Thank God by a professional. That is not something you want done by a novice. Or someone doing it for college credit. So I ‘became Jewish’ instantly upon birth,” he wrote.

Saget did not consider himself to be very observant. But he did feel sense of spirituality on a trip he took to Israel with his parents in the 80s or 90s.

“It was quite a gift and there were many spiritual things that happened throughout and that I think is still the closest I’ve felt, because you can actually see it and feel it in the air in Israel,” he said.

Having lost his sisters and both of his parents — his father in 2007 and his mother in 2014 — at the time of his conversation with Sanderson, Saget talked about the difficulty in feeling spirituality or belief in God after experiencing so much loss.

“I go back and forth with my belief system, by the way. I’m not the best, most observant Jewish person you’ve ever met or talked to, and yet I’m Jewish and proud to be,” he said.

Here's a sample of Saget's comedy -- a skit on Saturday Night Live where he played a coach of a high school football team. 

Enjoy!

A SPECIAL NOTE FOR NEW EMAIL SUBSCRIBERS:  THE VIDEO MAY NOT BE VIEWABLE DIRECTLY FROM THE EMAIL THAT YOU GET EACH DAY ON SOME COMPUTERS AND TABLETS.  YOU MUST CLICK ON THE TITLE AT THE TOP OF THE EMAIL TO REACH THE JEWISH HUMOR CENTRAL WEBSITE, FROM WHICH YOU CLICK ON THE PLAY BUTTON IN THE VIDEO IMAGE TO START THE VIDEO.

Remembering Jay Black of "Jay and the Americans", Teen Idol of the 1960s and 1970s

On October 22 the world of pop music lost one of its biggest stars, Jay Black, lead singer of the group Jay and the Americans, who died at 82.

Black was born as David Blatt in Astoria, Queens and grew up in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Borough Park. In his later career, he was known for touring New York State and Florida, singing, mainly solo, and preceding his singing with a stand-up comedy routine. 

Jay and his brother spoke Yiddish fluently. In 1966, he recorded a Yiddish song "Where Is My Village" about the Holocaust. In an interview with The Forward, he admitted being tossed out of three yeshivas as well as New Utrecht High School in Brooklyn.

As Ron Kampeas wrote for the Jewish Telegraphic Agency,

He was selling shoes in 1962 or 1963 at Thom McAn when a buddy, Marty Kupersmith, who knew Blatt from the Jewish doo-wop circuit, asked him to take the place of Jay Traynor, who had quit Jay and the Americans, a group that had scored a single hit in 1962.

There was a condition: Blatt had to take on the first name Jay.

There are differing accounts of how he got the name Black; there’s evidence he was using it professionally before he joined Jay and the Americans, but he insisted he muttered “Jay Blatt” when Mike Douglas, the daytime talk show host, asked him his name, and Douglas repeated “Black” and it stuck.

Black, raised in an Orthodox family, had sung as a youngster with the choir of Cantor Moshe Koussevitzky. He became known for his powerful reach-for-the-rafters voice and his dramatic delivery. Bandmates dubbed him “The Voice” and it stuck.

With his dark good looks and his operatic delivery, he affected a Latin persona; one of the band’s most popular numbers was “Cara Mia,” in which he pledges to his presumably Italian object of adoration that “I will be your love until the end of time,” escalating into a heart-stopping falsetto. The song peaked at #4 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.

There were other hits: “Come a Little Bit Closer” (which peaked at #3 on the charts), about an encounter with a seductress in a Mexican border town that ends badly; and their cover of the Drifters’ “This Magic Moment” (peaked at #6). The group was big enough to open for the Beatles in 1964, at the Fab Four’s very first U.S. concert.

In this video of a performance in 1978, Black sings four of his most popular hits, Cara Mia, This Magic Moment, She Cried, and Come a Little Bit Closer, as he is touched and hugged by screaming fans in the audience who follow him onstage.

We're also sharing a video of him singingin Yiddish Vi Is Dus Gesele that was posted on YouTube by Albert Diner.

Enjoy!

A SPECIAL NOTE FOR NEW EMAIL SUBSCRIBERS:  THE VIDEO MAY NOT BE VIEWABLE DIRECTLY FROM THE EMAIL THAT YOU GET EACH DAY ON SOME COMPUTERS AND TABLETS.  YOU MUST CLICK ON THE TITLE AT THE TOP OF THE EMAIL TO REACH THE JEWISH HUMOR CENTRAL WEBSITE, FROM WHICH YOU CLICK ON THE PLAY BUTTON IN THE VIDEO IMAGE TO START THE VIDEO.