Re: Ratner's

[Eliott Kahn <Elkahn...>]

>
>Of course, American Jewry is just another segment of the greater
>celebrity-driven consumer culture.  Successful entertainment figures
>are routinely claimed as "one of us"; a famous pop star validates and
>enhances the audience's own cultural identity, however transparent
>that identity  may have become.  (And in America, this identity  has become
>for many, --through generations in the 'melting pot',-- transparent enough
>as to be able to read the NY Times through it).
>
>Go figure:  At Ratner's Delicatessen in NYC, there are door-sized posters
>of those exemplary Jewish role models and embodiments of Jewish values,
>organized crime figures Meyer Lansky and Ben 'Bugsy' Seigel.  What would a
>Jewish parent tell their kid if asked who these men are?
>How would he/she explain what their larger-than-life images are doing up on a
>wall
>in a kosher restaurant?
>
>Wolf, for the record, the posters of Jewish mobsters are at Ratner's 
>because Meyer Lansky used to hold court in the back room. Much of (all 
>of?) the restaurant will be removed after the newly remodelled and 
>expanded Lansky Lounge reopens. It's something of a chic watering hole 
>among the affluent set now gentrifying the Lower East Side.

RE: your other remarks: As usual, there's a good amount of truth to them. 
But are you bitching as a Jew or a Canadian?

Eliott




>Wolf
>
>PS:  Hankus -- Billy Joel may have had a sweet-tooth for Catholic girls
>(Only The Good Die Young), but he attended  regular schools in Hicksville, LI,
>dropping out in his sophmore year.
>
> >
> >
> > I love much of Billy Joels', Burt Bacharach's (and Felix Mendelssohn's)
> > work, but I would never in a million years classify any of it as "Jewish
> > music."
> >
> > This in no way is meant to disparage their genuine Jewish feelings or
> > positive identifications as Jews. But as long as we insist on putting these
> > ethnic labels on works of art, we might as well try to be as accurate as
> > possible.
> >
> > Eliott Kahn
> >
> > At 09:11 PM 5/22/00 -0400, you wrote:
> > > > The following is from Jewhoo, a fun website for those of us who
> > > > like to play the
> > > > guessing game.
> > > >
> > > >     "billy joel: l.i. raised singer and songwriter who does not
> > > > need a listing
> > > > of his credits. he is unquestionably jewish and has declared in
> > > > interviews that
> > > > "the jews are my people".
> > >
> > >This is absolutely true, that he has "declared" this. I know this 
> because I
> > >am the source for this. I interviewed him a few years ago and asked him
> > >point blank if he was or wasn't, and he said of course he was, he didn't
> > >understand why there was ever any question about it. Somewhere in this 
> mess
> > >of an office I have the actual transcript but I can't put my hands on 
> it at
> > >the moment. But he made clear that his parents were Jewish and that,
> > >although he is not a regular synagogue-goer, he thinks of himself as a 
> Jew.
> > >
> > >As for his music being "Jewish," that's a whole can of worms I don't 
> want to
> > >go near.
> > >
> > >--Seth Rogovoy
> > >
> >
>

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