It’s a query most Jews can relate to: Is that athlete/actor/rock star Jewish? If the reply is sure, it’s arduous to suppress somewhat satisfaction.
In 1988, again when he was a author for Saturday Night time Dwell, which is celebrating its fiftieth anniversary this 12 months, Al Franken turned this near-obsession right into a hilarious sketch—a recreation present known as Jew, Not a Jew—however with a twist that turned out to be essential for a lot of Jewish viewers: the present’s non-Jewish host asks gentile contestants to establish whether or not a well-known individual is Jewish or not.
NBC censors initially scratched the bit. “Among the censorship that we’ve had this 12 months and within the final couple of years has actually been foolish,” Franken told NPR’s Terry Gross in 1988. On the time of the interview, the Jew, Not a Jew sketch nonetheless hadn’t aired. “Our censors stated, ‘No, you may’t do that as a result of some individuals will take it the improper approach,’” he advised Gross, noting it wasn’t supposed to be antisemitic. “I wrote it. I’m Jewish. That is what we used to do at house,” Franken stated, calling the choice to not do it “silly.”
The censors later relented, and the sketch ran in October 1988, that includes a 32-year-old Tom Hanks as recreation present host Bob Tompkins who poses the titular query to dueling {couples}. In a latest interview with Second, Franken says he advised Hanks and the SNL forged members to “be very gentile.”
“Our first well-known persona is Penny Marshall, the star of tv’s Laverne & Shirley,” Hanks says, earlier than asking: “Jew or not a Jew?”
A contestant performed by Victoria Jackson will get it improper by answering sure; Marshall is Catholic. However when New York Metropolis Mayor Ed Koch’s picture flashes on the display screen, her companion, performed by Kevin Nealon, doesn’t even await Hanks to offer his identify. “He’s a Jew, Bob!” Nealon says, somewhat too excitedly.
The sketch additionally contains a faux TV business for “Feldman’s Kosher Pickles,” narrated by Franken, who asks viewers to “make the decision” in figuring out whether or not Los Angeles Dodgers Corridor of Fame pitcher Sandy Koufax is Jewish or not. The advert ends with Franken declaring, in an old school dramatic sportscaster tone: “Sandy Koufax: Baseball Nice. Jew.”
Franken says he can’t bear in mind what induced the censors to vary their minds. Nevertheless it turned on the market have been individuals who took it the improper approach.
“We did get some blowback from the ADL,” he says, recalling that when he and his writing companion, Tom Davis, obtained into the workplace after the sketch aired, there was a message to name a prime official from the Anti-Defamation League. They spoke by cellphone, and the official advised Franken they’d gotten numerous complaints.
“Have you ever seen it?” Franken requested him. The person stated no. So Franken described the sketch.
“He stated, ‘We used to play that at house.’ I stated we nonetheless did at my home. He laughed. He understood the comedy.”
However later that week, Franken provides, “We obtained a scathing letter from him that lots of people have been offended, asking, ‘How dare we do that?’’’
“I known as him again, and he stated, ‘I’m sorry, we had to try this, as a result of individuals complained. By the best way, my brother-in-law is coming in from Pittsburgh this weekend, can we get two tickets?” Franken says he left tickets for the ADL man.
In his 2003 ebook, The Jews of Prime Time, David Zurawik described how the late president of NBC Leisure, Brandon Tartikoff, acquired a bunch of calls the morning after the present from colleagues—together with many who have been Jewish. He additionally obtained an indignant name from his mom, who advised him: “I’m embarrassed to name you my son. This ‘Jew / Not-a-Jew’ sketch was essentially the most antisemitic factor I’ve ever seen.”
Then, in line with the ebook, which the Baltimore Solar excerpted, there was silence on the road.
“Apart from,” she lastly stated, “I all the time thought Penny Marshall was Jewish.”
Tartikoff writes about his determination to offer the sketch the inexperienced mild, noting that whereas he thought the sketch was humorous, he did marvel:
…was it antisemitic? All week lengthy, I agonized over that query. Since I’m Jewish, I puzzled if I used to be being too delicate—or possibly I wasn’t being delicate sufficient. If this was about Italians, would I feel it ought to be saved off the air? Lastly, a number of hours earlier than airtime, I took a deep breath, conferred with the (community censors), and we determined to air the sketch.
Might it run in at the moment’s extra delicate period?
Franken, who went on to turn out to be a Democratic United States senator from Minnesota, is assured it might.
“I don’t suppose there’d be an issue at the moment,” he says. “Any Jew is aware of that’s the sport you performed at house. My mother and father would all the time level out who’s a Jew: ‘Danny Kaye—he’s a Jew!’” And but, the 1988 SNL skit featured non-Jews taking part in the sport, which could possibly be what some Jewish viewers took situation with.
Contemplate Adam Sandler’s well-known “Hanukkah Song,” carried out on SNL within the Nineties. Within the beloved bit, Sandler offers shout-outs to fellow well-known Jews, together with these strains:
David Lee Roth lights the menorah
So do Kirk Douglas, James Caan and the late Dinah Shore-ah
Guess who eats collectively on the Carnegie Deli?
Bowzer from Sha Na Na and Arthur Fonzarelli.
Extra not too long ago, Jewish publications have gotten into the act on-line. For instance, since 2018, the popular culture website Hey Alma has supplied a “Jew, not a Jew” recreation on Instagram, and earlier this 12 months Second launched its “Celebrities: Jewish or Not?” web page. Nevertheless, in 2011, a gaggle in France that fights racism, SOS Racisme, threatened to sue Apple over the iPhone app obtainable on the Apple French Retailer known as “A Jew or Not a Jew?” Anybody who downloaded the app might attempt to decide whether or not celebrities and different figures have been Jewish.
This all begs the query of whether or not the urge for food for “Jew, not a Jew” has much less to do with the sport than its gamers. When Jewish id basically goes from an inside joke to honest recreation, is it now not humorous?
Frederic J. Frommer is a author and historian, whose books embody You Gotta Have Heart: Washington Baseball from Walter Johnson to the 2019 World Series Champion Nationals. Observe him on X and Bluesky.
Prime picture: Saturday Night time Dwell skit Jew, Not a Jew.
Your e-mail deal with is not going to be revealed.
Second’s impartial
journalism runs in your
tax deductible items!
DONATE
