Down Memory Lane

Stereotypical Jewish performers?

Sapoznik

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.

Back in Europe, Yiddish musicians who succumbed to Gentile demands that they act the part of stereotypical Jews were sometimes referred to as “Ma Yofusnikes” an allusion to the ubiquitous melody “Ma Yofus” (the Hava Negila of its day,) and the best known Jewish melody among Gentiles.

In America, there was a name given to performers who trod the vaudeville boards in grotesque depiction of Jews: they were called “Hebe” or “Jew” comics. Wearing clothing either too big or small and a derby hat mashed down over their ears, these characters held sway on mainstream stages from the 1890s until the Depression. Though a good number of the performers who depicted the hunched shouldered, hand wringing, cringing, whining abrasive conniving Yids on turn-of-the century vaudeville stages were Gentiles, a great number were Jews such as Fanny Brice, Eddie Cantor and George Jessel who, by being Jewish themselves, gave legitimacy to these demeaning characterizations.

Though Black performers such as pioneering comic Bert Williams unwillingly donned blackface to darken his lighter West Indian complexion to live up to the public’s conception of what a “coon” looked like, his Ziegfeld Follies co-star Fanny Brice (ne: Borach) happily smeared on blackface or, when doing her popular “Jew” roles, exaggerated her delivery to mock every kind of
Jewish woman. Though Jews portrayed Blacks in a myriad different comic venues, the converse does not seem to have happened in any meaningful way at the same time….

Even though many of the same type of character Jewish types were found in the Yiddish theater, there they were surrounded by a bevy of other characters thus eliminating the harshness and stereotypicality of the role. This would not occur on the legitimate stage for quite a time to come.

Sadly, this kind of depiction was common and in show business at the time, the only way to move up that ladder of success was to portray someone farther down that same ladder.

Original Birth Names of Jewish Performers:

Woody Allen — Alan Stewart Koenigsberg
June Allyson — Ella Geisman
Lauren Bacall — Betty Joan Perske
Jack Benny — Benjamin Kubelsky
Irving Berlin — Israel Baline
Milton Berle — Milton Berlinger
Joey Bishop —Joseph Gottlieb
Karen Black — Karen Blanche Ziegler
Victor Borge — Borge Rosenbaum
Fanny Brice — Fanny Borach
Mel Brooks — Melvin Kaminsky
George Burns — Nathan Birnbaum
Eddie Cantor — Edward Israel Iskowitz
Jeff Chandler — Ira Grossel

Lee J. Cobb — Amos Jacob
Tony Curtis — Bernard Schwartz
Rodney Dangerfield — Jacob Cohen
Kirk Douglas — Issue Danielovich Demsky
Melvyn Douglas — Melvyn Hesselberg
Bob Dylan — Bobby Zimmerman
Paulette Goddard — Marion Levy
Lee Grant — Lyova Geisman
Elliot G ould — Elliot Goldstein
Judy Holliday — Judith Tuvim
Al Jolson — Asa Yoelson
Danny Kaye — David Daniel Kaminsky
Michael Landon — Michael Orowitz
Steve Lawrence — Sidney Leibowitz
Jerry Lewis — Joseph Levitch
Peter Lorre — Lazlo Lowenstein
Elaine May — Elaine Berlin
Yves Montand — Ivo Levy
Mike Nichols — Michael Peschkowsky
Joan Rivers — Joan Molinsky
Edward G. Robinson — Emanuel Goldenberg
Jane Seymour — Joyce Penelope Frankenburg
Simone Signoret — Simone-Henriette Kaminker
Beverly Sills — Belle Silverman
Sophie Tucker — Sophia Kalish
Gene Wilder — Gerald Silberman