GOODFELLAS

chef, and the other manages a jazz
club. Burstyn's fiancee, Cyona Warech,
who will accompany him to Detroit,
also is not involved with theater.
Burstyn's late wife, Idit, an Israeli,
passed away three years ago, after a
long battle with cancer.
"There will be 26 performers on
stage and an 18-piece orchestra in Jol-
son," Burstyn says. "This is the happi-
est show I've ever done."

11*Mo:ins
Chef Carl
from
PIZZA GOURMET
for your dining
pleasure

Jolson: The Musical will be
performed Tuesday-Sunday, Nov.
17-22, at Detroit's Fisher The-
atre. Show times are 8 p.m.
Tuesday-Saturday; 7:30 p.m.
Sunday; and 2 p.m. Saturday
and Sunday. Tickets are $36-
$60. For more information, call
the box office, (313) 872-1000.

ile Al Jolson will not be
portrayed in blackface
when the production
J olson: The Musical
opens at the Fisher Theatre next week,
it was common during the time he
was becoming a star for performers to
color their faces and imitate blacks in
their shows.
Just ask Michael Rogin, a political
science professor at University of Cali-
fornia-Berkeley. The scene in The Jazz
Singer in which the Jewish
main character played by Jol-
son, Jakie Rabinowitz, sings
"Mammy" in blackface to his
immigrant mother, intrigued
Rogin enough to write a book.
In Blackface, White Noise:

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Blackface is a metaphor for that."
In contrast to the rise in ethnic
pride that followed the civil rights
movement of the 1960s, early films
like The Jazz Singer put a positive spin
on assimilation.
"They want to somehow make you
feel that you could have your upward
mobility and your shiksa and not
betray your Jewish past," he says.
"What's not presented in the movie
is that there might be anti-Semitism
in the New World. The New World is
presented as this place of freedom
where you can become a star."

Jewish Immigrants in the Holly-
wood Melting Pot (University of
California Press, $17.95),
Rogin examines the sociological
implications of Jewish black-
face.
Al Jolson in "The Jazz Singer," 1927.
"Blackface was the dominant
form of popular culture from
Jews in Hollywood "were very
the 1830s until 1880. Then it became
ashamed of their Jewishness," says
part of vaudeville and part of motion
Rogin.
pictures," Rogin says. "Though it all
He calls the history of Jews and
played on stereotypes, some portrayals
blackface one of moral ambiguity.
were sympathetic, some hostile."
"Blackface itself is an unpleasant
Some of the biggest names behind
form that demeans African Ameri-
burnt cork were Jewish ones, accord-
cans. There's no way around that fact.
ing to Rogin. In addition to Jolson,
Jews were the predominant purveyors
they included Eddie Cantor, George
of it during the turn of the century.
Burns and Sophie Tucker. For Holly-
They didn't originate it, they inherited
wood Jews, blackface was a way of
it. A lot of great music came out of
masking their Jewishness, he says.
that," he says, "but it's based on an
"In this very Jewish industry, they
exploitive relationship."
thought that depicting Jews would
Rogin views the phenomenon as
promote anti-Semitism, so they hid it.
the result of Americanized immigrants
Sarah Horowitz writes for the Jewish
taking on the myths of the dominant
Bulletin of Northern California.
culture. Cl

gm

4

The sociological implications of
Jewish blackface.

SARAH HOROWITZ
Special to The Jewish News

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101

1998