I (in good faith) started the Is Elaine Jewish thread last year. I prefaced my remarks with a disclaimer IE there was less evidence for her being Jewish than there was for George. BTW I know that The show's writers have backed away from the possibility of George being Jewish but let me remind the sceptics that on 2 episodes The Marlene episode & the Nazi Limo episode we see george humming "If I were a rich man" from "Fiddler on the roof."
This is a non-cosmic question but it is wrong to dump on a minority position. Nosenivel is not guilty of this but others were. I think Seinfeld fans are mature enough without imputing bad faith to fans who hold (rightly or wrongly) and unpopular viewpoint. Let's diccuss our not so cosmic theroies without indulging in character assaanation.
Jews & Gentiles have supported both sides of this thread so it's childish to raise eyebrows or hurl invectives on those who beleive one way or the other. I grew up listening to the Jewish comics in the Ed SULLIVAN SHOW. That is why this particular non-cosmic thread interest me.
Mr. Tharp, if person acts like an idiot, he should be treated like one. Let me detail why (some of) your remarks cause so much acrimony. This is a copy of an e-mail I sent to someone who asked why I got on your case so much (by request, I have not posted the name of that individual who originally e-mailed me).
Start of my e-mail: ========================================= I'm not sure how long you've been on this newsgroup, but I came onto it about March of last year. One of the first things I noticed was people talking about "George's best lines" or "Best Kramer moment". That was cool and excellent, and was exactly what I had been looking for. Lots of fun.
One of the STRANGEST things I noticed though was a persistent thread "Elaine is Jewish (New Evidence)." I initially passed over these messages because I wasn't interested in the topic, but eventually I was curious enough to start reading. The long and short of it was I learned there were one to two people constantly insisting certain characters on the show were Jewish. Now I don't care one way or another what religion or race a show's character belongs to. Really I don't. As far as I know, all the main actors and writers on Seinfeld are Jewish, and I love them all. It was something I had never even thought about before this thread. After all, who in HIS OR HER RIGHT MIND would even think about "Who's Jewish" (or who's Catholic, or who's Chinese, or who's Black, or who's Italian, etc) while watching a TV show, unless they were doing some sort of TV census or study.
(BTW, it's my all-time favorite TV show, and is the only one I berate myself for if I forgot to set the timer on the VCR to record it)
At any rate, being a huge Seinfeld fan, I knew enough about the characters to know that these claims of "Elaine is Jewish!" were false. Now whether Elaine is Jewish or not, I don't care. But since the evidence was so overwhelming on the side that she was not, I thought to myself.."Are these people IDIOTS, desperate losers...or could they simply by TROLLING?"(ie. making statements and arguments they KNEW were false just to be shitdistubers.)
For example..what if you saw some fellow writing CONSTANT messages saying "JERRY IS GAY(NEW EVIDENCE)". At first, you would probably laugh it off, because the evidence is SO overwhelming that it's not. In fact, Jerry even says he's not gay - NOT that's there anything wrong with it. <G> Now let's say you see more messages like this coming from the same person after 1 week, then 2, then 3, etc. After about 2 months, you'd probably go, "What...is this person an IDIOT? WHY does he insist Jerry is gay when the evidence is SO overwhelming that he's not".
It would be the same thing to see someone say "ELAINE IS AGAINST ABORTION (NEW EVIDENCE)". Now again, I don't really care one way or another if Elaine is pro-life. But the fact is, I KNOW she's NOT. And if I see people for months insisting otherwise, it indicates:
1)some deep need to see her in that light (desperation), 2)a genuine mental deficiency/handicap, or 3)big-time trolling.
The same thing would exist if I saw 3-month-long threads from people insisting "JERRY ONLY DATES BLONDES (NEW EVIDENCE)" or "George is only 110 pounds (New Evidence)" or "Kramer is bald (New Evidence)".
So let's make it clear. I have NOTHING against Elaine being Jewish. But we KNOW she's NOT. She DOESN'T know what a kosher meal is, she DIDN'T know where to find a Moyle (however you spell it), she TOLD a rabbi she was not of his faith, and she herself has said ON THE SHOW, "I'm not Jewish"!!! So to hear an individual for months insist on something totally false was so irritating, I started writing replies. My first questions were "Why do you care?" or "Why are you so obsessed?". The answer I get back "I don't care. I'm not obsessed." Yeah, right! Well, this ticked me off so much I started writing posts showing the enormous evidence on the side she wasn't Jewish.
The replies I got never addressed the proof Elaine wasn't Jewish. Instead, we got replies like "Well, Elaine is Jewish in spirit because anyone who acts like Elaine does has GOT to be Jewish. How can you tell me that Elaine doesn't act Jewish?!? If she acts Jewish, then she is Jewish". I replied, "My sister in law acts EXACTLY like Elaine and her parents do a good imitation of Frank and Estelle Costanza, but they're Asian. Are they Jewish too?" Never got a response.
There were other weird posts as well, saying that all the female descendants of Jewish girl (even if she and all her descendants practice another religion and ALL marry Gentiles)...they will be considered Jewish. You've read that one, I'm sure. I'm not Jewish, so I don't know the rules and conventions. But to me, that's crazy because as I said, all your descedants could be practising Muslims and marrying Gentiles in Ethiopa for the next 10,000 years, yet if you're a Jewish woman who converts to Islam, your great grandaughter in the year 12,000 ACE will still be considered Jewish? I found that incredulous, and wanted to confirm with people knowledgable out there. That's why I wrote the header "No point in being Jewish without the religion." But that was an off-topic argument. :)
At any rate, I soon came to the realization that these people were simply either desperate, obnoxious LOSERS who HAD to have Elaine be Jewish because it fulfilled some sort of stange need in their lives (which is pathetic) OR they were TROLLS. Trolls, IMO, deserve to be flamed once in a while. And the desperate losers need to have their pathetic desperation pointed out once in a while. ========================================= end of e-mail
Flames? Acid insults? Mr. Tharp, these are ugly aspects of Net communication. Extremely unpleasant to receive, and can be quite hurtful if unprepared. But there ARE instances in which they'll happen, and IMO, even cases where they're deserved.
A person who ignores evidence that is SO obvious is either mentally ill/handicapped, is desperate, or is a troll. Which of the three are you?
You are completely correct about Elaine not being Jewish (I would also add that she signed the Catholic Cross over her chest before entering Jerry's exterminating apartment), but you must think of jews as a blood race, not a religion. People of Jewish blood (those with Jewish mothers are considered Jewish since the actual father cannot be verified) are still considered to be Jewish even if they are non-practising or convert to another religion. It doesn't matter who they marry. So you see the person was quite correct in saying all female descendants of a Jewish girl will also be Jewish regardless of who they marry or who their fathers are.
As far as you comment, "No point in being Jewish without the religion", that sounds like a racist statement if I ever heard one. Its like saying "No point in being black if you can't make it in the NBA."
I could definitely see this if the case of a Jewish girl marrying a Gentile. Her kids (just a generation away) will be considered Jewish. But again, young Sarah convert to Islam. She marries an Ethiopian Muslim in 1987. All her kids and grand kids, and great-grand kids marry Ethiopian Muslims. This goes on to the year 11,000. The ONLY connection they have to the Jewish race is an ancestor 9,000 years ago was a convert to Islam. Please answer my question because people have avoided it directly. Are these descendants 9,000 years later (who have no knowledge of this tenuous Jewish link) still Jewish? How about in the year 100,000?
Racist? Non-sense. It's no more racist than saying, "No point in being Catholic without the religion" or "No point in being Buddhist without the religion". It is IGNORANT in the sense that it doesn't recognize the existence of a non-religious Jewish people. I actually DO recognize that and understand it. So if that offended people, I'm sorry and do apologize. I titled it that way because it fit in with the overall theme of the post, which is "Okay, if the Jewish people can exist without the religion, what are the criteria?" I just can't accept that ANY girl's descendants automatically become Jewish FOREVER!!! I think this particular "rule" is "flawed" (e.g.my "Ethiopian Muslims in the year 10,000" example).
If I had said something like "No point in being Jewish without being a banker", that would indeed be racist. I did not say that. Instead, I am questioning the "automatic" Jewish status given to all your descendants FOR ALL TIME even if they don't practise the religion, and EVEN if NONE of their descendants ever marry (or even talk to) another Jew again. As stated earlier, the header title does rather ignorantly not acknowledge non-religious Jews...and i apologize for that mistake...but I'm really trying to get to question is "How valid are the current conventions for calling someone Jewish". IMO, the current automatic conferral to female descendants FOR ALL TIME (even if they don't know about it) is crazy...at least it sounded crazy. If this is universally accepted however, I'll accept it too (no matter how nuts and illogical it sounds). :)
There is a brilliant legacy of Jewish humor that dates back to the beginning of this century, but although many of the actors on Seinfeld are of the Jewish faith, they are essentially essaying characters that do not necessarily use that background as part of their humor.
I don't know that we can stereotype Jews into the category of being funny, but I do know my own Jewish relatives were always most amusing when they were not trying to be.
If this is a joke, then it's kinda lame. Anyway, Elaine is a *character*, not a real person. American Journal did a bio on a TV show character? If you are referring to the actress who plays Elaine, then that is also not conclusive of anything. In my city (Madison, WI), one of the Catholic high schools is considered a very good school and many people send their kids there even though neither they nor their child is Catholic. I did not go to this school, but what I said is true nevertheless.
In article , [email] says... ->[email] (Huckleberry) wrote: ->>In article , [email] ->>says... ->>>She went to catholic school. I saw that on a bio that America Journal did ->>>last week. ->> ->>If this is a joke, then it's kinda lame. Anyway, Elaine is a *character*, -not -> ->>a real person. American Journal did a bio on a TV show character? If you -are ->>referring to the actress who plays Elaine, then that is also not -conclusive ->>of anything. In my city (Madison, WI), one of the Catholic high schools is ->>considered a very good school and many people send their kids there even ->>though neither they nor their child is Catholic. I did not go to this -school, -> ->>but what I said is true nevertheless.
Did I say anything about Jewish people? No. I said that if someone goes to a Catholic school, it doesn't automatically mean they are Catholic. Additionally, it would not surprise me if there are Jewish students at Edgewood (the high school I mentioned). Not Orthodox ones, but ones whose parents feel that Edgewood is the best high school in the area. I am adding this because *you* felt the need to bring up Jewishness.
In tonight's episode, in the scene where the four of them crowded into the janitor's closet, Elaine was wearing a crucifix in plain sight!!!! I can't believe no one else here noticed it -- I usually don't spot "gotchas" at all, I don't watch Seinfeld religiously (pun not originally intended) and this is my first time in this newsgroup!
Then again, with me being a not-so-dedicated fan, I probably missed the episode where she converts so she doesn't have to feel guilty about eating bacon anymore.
On 21 Feb 1997 20:29:56 GMT, [email] (Greenspan2) wrote:
Jason Alexander's real name is Jay Greenspan, btw. I heard him say that his father used to say, "Jay, my son", which he used to change his name to Jason (Alexander his 2nd name?) for Hollywood purposes.
Her family is extremely wealthy, too. They had something to do with Saatchi and Saatchi the British advertising firm. In fact, some magazine did a story about her family. They are all investment bankers.
One thing though. I seem to remember that Julia Louis Dreyfuss went to a Catholic school. That would not mean she was not Jewish but I do not know how she was raised. Her origins are at least partly Jewish but that is all I know.
It is time to open your mind. Catholic schools are not solely inhabited with Catholics. Sometimes, parents want their children to go to the BEST school in their area, and are willing to overlook the religious affiliation of the school. In fact, as a result of this discussion, I have had someone privately email me asking advice on her daughter going to a Catholic school. She and her daughter are Jewish.