Yo! Frankie! Where\'s your shtreimel?Ol’ Blue Eyes. The best schnitzel on Scopus*. A completely overplayed song about the best city west of Jerusalem. That’s right…we’re Frank Sinatra, baby.

Have you heard the one about Frank’s necklace? Let’s just say this guy takes the Shma real serious-like…dude sported a mezuzah round the collar. According to the Forward:

For years, the Hollywood icon wore a small mezuzah — the encased prayer scroll traditionally hung on the doorposts of Jewish homes — around his neck. The pendant was a gift from Mrs. Golden, an elderly Jewish neighbor who cared for him during his boyhood in Hoboken, N.J., according to a new biography of the American icon.

According to this new biography, Frankie “sang at an “Action for Palestine” rally as early as 1947, sat on the board of trustees of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, and donated money to Jerusalem’s Hebrew University, which honored him by dedicating the Frank Sinatra International Student Center.”

Want more? He was also positioned to help smuggle over $1 million for the Haganah and “once responded to an antisemitic remark at a party by simply punching the offender.” (Who did he think he was, a rabbi confronting a skinhead in an airport?)

*Disclaimer: No independent schnitzel tests were conducted. This fact has NOT been checked.

About the author

Esther Kustanowitz

For more posts by Esther, see EstherK.com, MyUrbanKvetch.com and JDatersAnonymous.com.

32 Comments

  • makes sense. “the girl from ipanema” is just about a jewish boy frustrated with jdate who deep down wants his asian neighbor.

    (the yeled is back from europe)

  • Barukh ha-ba, yeled.

    Mack the Knife, of course, is about how bad Franky will hurt you if you use the fleishig knife to cut that cheese. Ring-a-ding-ding!

  • my current state of student poverty has forced me to use the same knife for years-meat or milk. plus there’s the italian salami from napoli which I dabbled in more than once while I was away. it’s part of the culture-like going to israel and eating falafels. i guess frank’s ghost is coming for me…gota find the horse’s head..be back soon.

  • Yeled “The girl from ipanema” is not one of franks songs its a Brazilain song by Antonio Carlos Jobim and Vinisius De Moraes its about a beautiful girl who walks on Ipanema beach everyday
    if u ever go there u will understand why they wrote it

  • And was catapulted to fame by the collaborative “Getz/Gilberto” album, which featured nice Jewish boy Stan Getz on sax, Joao Gilberto on guitar and vocals and Jobim on the piano. I recommend it!

  • gilbertz, joam, job, stangeltz…sounds like a bunch of yiddin. maybe he didn’t write it, fine. have you ever heard the portugese version? you’ll die it’s THAT good. you’ll really die.

  • That’s the one I’m talkin’ ’bout, chief. And I agree. It’s murderously good. As is that whole album. Mmmm, bossa.

  • I saw this and finally had to make my first Jewlicious post- my gosh who here else lived on shnitzel from Sinatra while at Hebrew U? When I wanted to save money I went for a veggie shnitzel sandwhich but the real stuff in a pita, chips, and salat always hit the spot. Yum!

  • Good for Frankie…

    A new Jew if ever there was one… thank G-d for secular Jews and the Haganah… with out them there’d be no Israel. (But that might just be my Hashomer tendancies coming through).

  • I love Frank! Even though I grew up in the 60s listening to the Beatles, Rolling Stones, etc., I also dug Sinatra and the whole Rat Pack. Now I have one more reason to love Frankie: punching out an anti-Semite! Bada-bing, bada-boom!

  • Re that Getz/Gilberto album, ol’ Stan got rich on it, building a mansion on Long Island with the proceeds, but got Joao to agree to something like $100 as his sole cut in royalties (per NYT’s Ben Ratliff).

    Ah, but you can make it up to Joao by buying one of his more recent albums, like the excellent “In Tokyo,” froma live performance in Japan in late 2003 (Verve).

    I suppose you could make him happy by buying one of daughter Bebel’s cds, but that goddess doesn’t need any help.

    For Vinicius de Moraes, check out Paula Morelenbaum’s tribute album “Berimbaum,” a great collection of his songs.

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