Re: stereotypical Jewish performers?

[Marvin <physchem...>]

----- Original Message -----
From: Kame'a Media <media (at) kamea(dot)com>
To: World music from a Jewish slant <jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org>
Sent: Thursday, March 23, 2000 4:18 PM
Subject: Re: stereotypical Jewish performers?


>
>
> Marvin wrote:
>
> > > >
> > > >Blacks have a name for this kind of performer - Uncle Tom.  I've
never
> > > >heard
> > > >of a similar name for Jewish performers who took on the streeotypical
> > role.
> > >
> > > A:  Uh, Al Jolson?  I'm probably being cruel--or, more to the point,
> > > simplistic.  jat -- rlc
> >
> > I'm not sure that this is a good example.  Jolson was doing what was
usual
> > then in the Yiddish theater.
>
> Jolson made some Yiddish recordings ("A Khazndl af Shabes");
> I don't think he performed in the Yiddish theatre,
> but rather in vaudeville.
>
> > Perhaps it was a stereotype, but it wasn't the
> > non-Jew's stereotype specifically.
>
> This sentence is confusing.
> Do you mean Jolson (a white Jew) in blackface,
> was not a gentile-inspired sterotype of a Jew or,
> what do you mean?
>
> Wolf

I was responding to the suggestion that Jolson was an example of a Jew
performing as a streotypical Jew.  I hope that clarifies what I wrote.

---------------------- jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org ---------------------+