RASHI, RAMBAM and RAMALAMADINGDONG
A Quizbook of Jewish Trivia Facts & Fun
A Quizbook of Jewish Trivia Facts & Fun
Singer Tony Bennett passed away just two weeks shy of his 97th birthday. In 2014, Bennett performed in Tel Aviv’s Mann Auditorium, one night after a surprise guest appearance at a Lady Gaga performance in Hayarkon Park. As a United States soldier in World War II, Bennett was among the troops who liberated the Dachau concentration camp. In his autobiography, Bennett wrote, “I’ll never forget the desperate faces and empty stares of the prisoners as they wandered aimlessly around the campgrounds.” He later wrote that this experience “turned me into a lifelong pacifist and it’s my hope that all wars and violence will become a thing of the past.” He remained politically active throughout his life, including walking alongside Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. during the 1965 Montgomery to Selma protest march. What is a Jewish connection in Tony Bennett’s life?
Tony Bennett in 2003 by Tom Beetz is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons
A. Sammy Davis, Jr. and Tony Bennett not only performed together on many occasions, but were also very close friends. When Davis’s son Sammy Davis III was born, Tony Bennett served as the godfather and held the child during the bris.
B. Bennett participated in Henry Louis Gates’s television program Finding Your Roots and learned that some of his ancestors were Sicilian Jews who converted to Christianity at the time of the Inquisition.
C. Tony Bennett participated in the first Chabad To Life! telethon in 1980, which was hosted by actor Carroll O’Connor and comedian Jan Murray. He sang I Left My Heart in San Francisco as well as Hava Nagilah.
D. Tony Bennett has a Jewish granddaughter named Maya because his daughter Antonia married an Israeli man and converted to Judaism.
E. Cy Coleman (whose real name was Seymour Kaufman) wrote the lyrics for a number of songs popularized by Tony Bennett, including The Best is Yet to Come and I’ve Got Your Number. Coleman also wrote Bennett’s most popular song, I Left My Heart in San Francisco. However, the song was originally written with a different title and lyrics reflecting Coleman’s Eastern European Jewish heritage and his parents’ journey from Slovakia to America. When Tony Bennett heard the song, I Left My Heart in Bratislava, he immediately begged Coleman to rewrite the lyrics to appeal to a broader American audience, and the rest is history.
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