Anthony Rapp (gay, but not Jewish to my knowledge) also became pretty famous as one of the stars in the original cast of "Rent" on Broadway -- where the character he played was supposed to be Jewish.
Interesting side note about "School Ties" that I thought quite interesting....the "quarterback" (i.e. Brendan Fraser character) was supposed to be from Scranton, PA....not a place devoid of Jews (former Labor Secy Robert Reich is from there, for example), but not noted for its big Jewish community either. Also, his father in the movie seemed pretty "blue collar", again, not a Jewish stereotype (outside of the garment industry).
Definitely, but I think they had to make him a blue-collar character for the movie to work better. And what says blue-collar better than Scranton, PA?
Interestingly, the movie is based on the experience of screenwriter Dick Wolf, who is not Jewish, but Catholic... and a high school classmate of George W. Bush (my wild guess is Affleck is the Bush character in the film).
This is a funny exchange to me since, for JONJ purposes, I'm "Joe from Scranton." (I work here and live 20 minutes away, but I do know the place well.)
For what it's worth we had a speaker a couple of years ago who came to talk about "Small Town Jewish Life." Several locals showed up hoping to hear him talk about Scranton and Wilkes-Barre but, as I suspected, each was too big to be part of his study. There are small-town Jewish communities -- I grew up in one in Ohio where our one 30-family synagogue serves the entire county -- but Scranton isn't one. We still have three synagogues, a federation, a JCC, a Jewish Home for the Aged, and a thriving Hasidic community. The same is true with a few different details in Wilkes-Barre (close enough to count as one demographic area for the census), and we have a combined Jewish population close to 6000 -- down from closer to a combined 30,000 two generations ago.
That's probably more than all of you wanted, but I think it is reasonable to imagine that we might produce a Jewish quarterback and that, against the stereotype of the Jewish New Jerseyan, he'd appear blue-collar and more able to "pass" in both of the ways that seem to matter.
Anthony Rapp (gay, but not Jewish to my knowledge) also became pretty famous as one of the stars in the original cast of "Rent" on Broadway -- where the character he played was supposed to be Jewish.
ReplyDeleteInteresting side note about "School Ties" that I thought quite interesting....the "quarterback" (i.e. Brendan Fraser character) was supposed to be from Scranton, PA....not a place devoid of Jews (former Labor Secy Robert Reich is from there, for example), but not noted for its big Jewish community either. Also, his father in the movie seemed pretty "blue collar", again, not a Jewish stereotype (outside of the garment industry).
ReplyDeleteDefinitely, but I think they had to make him a blue-collar character for the movie to work better. And what says blue-collar better than Scranton, PA?
ReplyDeleteInterestingly, the movie is based on the experience of screenwriter Dick Wolf, who is not Jewish, but Catholic... and a high school classmate of George W. Bush (my wild guess is Affleck is the Bush character in the film).
This is a funny exchange to me since, for JONJ purposes, I'm "Joe from Scranton." (I work here and live 20 minutes away, but I do know the place well.)
ReplyDeleteFor what it's worth we had a speaker a couple of years ago who came to talk about "Small Town Jewish Life." Several locals showed up hoping to hear him talk about Scranton and Wilkes-Barre but, as I suspected, each was too big to be part of his study. There are small-town Jewish communities -- I grew up in one in Ohio where our one 30-family synagogue serves the entire county -- but Scranton isn't one. We still have three synagogues, a federation, a JCC, a Jewish Home for the Aged, and a thriving Hasidic community. The same is true with a few different details in Wilkes-Barre (close enough to count as one demographic area for the census), and we have a combined Jewish population close to 6000 -- down from closer to a combined 30,000 two generations ago.
That's probably more than all of you wanted, but I think it is reasonable to imagine that we might produce a Jewish quarterback and that, against the stereotype of the Jewish New Jerseyan, he'd appear blue-collar and more able to "pass" in both of the ways that seem to matter.