Forgive my ignorance, but I am not Jewish and I don;t know very much about this religion. Why can't there be Italian Jews? Does it go against the Jewish religion to be Italian? I'm sure there are Jewish people in almost every country. My point being: why is it so hard to grasp that George is Jewish and has an Italian sounding surname?
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[email] wrote:
Chris - It's not that Jews *can't* be Italian for religious or other reasons, it's just that there aren't that many of them especially in the U.S. There is a small Jewish-Italian population here, but the % of Jews who are Italian is extremely small (maybe less than a percent). Most Italians are, as you probably know, Roman-Catholic. THe Vatican has had a bad history with the Jews and Israel, so Jews probably don't feel very comfortable there. Most Italian-Jews are half each. This might be the case with George, although both of his parents seem particularly Jewish to me (stereotypically so); in fact, his father is played by Jerry Stiller, who is certainly Jewish, but used to be played by another actor (something Rudolph?) who was not, I don't think. Hope that helps. - Dan
[email] writes:
It's not that such people do not exist, it's just unlikely that the creator of a sitcom would go out of his or her way to make a major character an Italian Jew (unless that fact was important to the show).
Perhaps that's why he (George) is so messed up.
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[email] writes:
I happen to be an Italian Jew and can honestly say it is not at all common. There were never a large number of Jews living in Italy due to the pressure applied by the Catholic church. Most Italian Jews (myself included) have one parent that was raised in a Catholic household. The other family was not originally from Italy. The families got together at some point and, voila, Italian Jews are born.