How Al Jolson helped to remake America
A new biography from Richard Bernstein explores the meteoric success of the Jewish performer, while confronting the reviled practice of blackface that made Jolson a star
Al Jolson
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Opinion Yom Kippur Playlist: Hot Tunes for Judgment Day
We’re back with a Yom Kippur playlist. I’ve tried to follow the order of the day, starting with Kol Nidre, going to the evening and morning services, the cantor’s Hineni prayer (Here I Stand) preceding Musaf and so on. Our guests include Bob Dylan, Moishe Oysher, Chava Alberstein, The Beatles, Eminem, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Al…
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Opinion Songs to Atone By: Dylan, Jolson, Streisand, Oysher
As we approach the holiest day of the year, I’ve put together a selection of songs that sum up the day and capture its spirit, at least for me. I’ve tried to follow the order of the day, from the introductory prayer to Kol Nidre, the Maariv service, some highlights of Mussaf, the Jonah story…
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Culture Retelling Jewish American Story Through History of Cinema
● The American Jewish Story Through Cinema By Eric A. Goldman University of Texas Press, 264 pages, $55. Eric A. Goldman’s look at about a dozen Hollywood movies released between 1927 and 2009 can be recommended especially to readers who don’t flinch when they ponder his book’s title. For me, the very notion of postulating…
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The Schmooze Alma Gluck: A Jew in Blackface
Paradoxically, the first recording by a classical artist to sell over one million copies was “Carry Me Back to Old Virginny,” the minstrel version of a folksong cut in 1916 by a Romanian Jewish soprano who knew bupkis about Old Virginny. As we learn from a cogent chapter in “The Arts of the Prima Donna…
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The Schmooze Eva Braun Blackface Photo Reveals Her Love of Jewish Film
Hitler’s girlfriend apparently loved a film focused on the struggle to maintain Jewish tradition. A recently released photo now making the rounds online shows Eva Braun in 1937, in an image the dictator’s mistress titled “Al Jolson and Me.” Internet chatter about the picture has focused on Braun’s use of blackface, citing it as further…
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Film & TV Yom Kippur on the Big Screen
Would you shut up? I’m trying to atone!” That line comes in the opening scene of “Kissing Jessica Stein” delivered by the titular character, as she sits in the pews on Yom Kippur and tries to fend off her relatives’ too-eager advice about snagging a man before next year’s Book of Life is shut. Jessica,…
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