I beg your pardon if it wasn't this obvious

[sovay]

I have been enjoying David Cairns' film criticism for at least a decade, but I was catching up on his latest installment on Chaplin's A King in New York (1957) and the record scratch of his sign-off stopped me cold:

Also, it never occurred to me before, but looking at Sid's frizzy hair, I wonder if he was mixed race. Though his broad nose is probably the result of his failed boxing career rather than genetics.

My dude, Sid James was born Solomon Joel Cohen. Have you never seen a Jewfro in your life? I'm not saying there's not precedent for confusion—Mezz Mezzrow in Really the Blues (1946) credited his own "nappy" Ashkenazi hair for getting him successfully transferred to the Black side of Riker's after his arrest for possession of a stupendous number of joints at the 1940 New York World's Fair—I am most definitely not saying that Black and mixed-race Jews don't exist, but I am saying that in this case no passing narrative is needed to explain the frizz unless you count the name change, which I doubt anybody does. (Please hold for my household's inevitable quotation of Sesame Street: "I am the Count. They call me the Count because I love to count things!" – "Wonderful! I'm Guy Smiley. They call me Guy Smiley because I changed my name from Bernie Liederkrantz!") It's just such a weird thing to speculate on when the information is out there. I don't have that hair, but I sure know people who do.

Comments

[gwynnega]

My first thought was, Is Cairns British? (And checked to confirm this.) When I lived in Bath, I had enough odd interactions with well-meaning folks ("Are you ACTUALLY Jewish?," etc.), that this weirdness doesn't surprise me in the least. (ETA: I know there are loads of British people who know better than this!)

[sovay]

When I lived in Bath, I had enough odd interactions with well-meaning folks ("Are you ACTUALLY Jewish?," etc.), that this weirdness doesn't surprise me in the least.

So you're telling me he may never have seen a Jewfro in his life?

[gwynnega]

He probably has seen a Jewfro but misinterpreted it.

[davidgillon]

So you're telling me he may never have seen a Jewfro in his life?

I had to do a quick google to know what you meant, and my reaction before doing that would probably have been to call it extremely curly hair without knowing to link it to Ashkenazi heritage. And I'd probably be far from alone among Brits in that.

[sovay]

extremely curly hair without knowing to link it to Ashkenazi heritage. And I'd probably be far from alone among Brits in that.

That is really interesting to me. I am used to a lot of aspects of Jewishness being out-group opaque, but frankly for reasons of antisemitism alone I would have expected hair textures to be more widely tagged.

(I don't think it's a specifically Ashkenazi as opposed to generally Jewish thing, Mezz Mezzrow was just Ashkenazi.)

[davidgillon]

I think it's unfamiliarity, Jewish Brits are only 0.46% of the population and they're geographically concentrated, with more than half living in London. I'm not aware of meeting anyone Jewish until I had a Jewish colleague at work, and I'd have been c30 by the time I met him. Of course I may have met Jewish people where religion simply didn't come up, but I'm struggling to think of anyone Jewish I'd met outside of him and getting to know a bunch of people via my DW circle. One encounter on a train is about it.

It's entirely likely that the various forms of anti-semite out there are more aware of things like this, but British anti-semitism has always puzzled me because a huge chunk have probably had little or no contact with actual Jews. (Of course trying to apply logic to antisemitism is probably stupid).

[sovay]

I think it's unfamiliarity, Jewish Brits are only 0.46% of the population and they're geographically concentrated, with more than half living in London.

I knew we were a tiny fraction of the global population, but I actually hadn't realized we were so scarce in the UK. I suppose my perceptions were skewed by familiarity with British Jewish writers, artists etc.

but British anti-semitism has always puzzled me because a huge chunk have probably had little or no contact with actual Jews. (Of course trying to apply logic to antisemitism is probably stupid).

I am sure it's easier if you have no inconvenient realities to disrupt your image of The Jew, anyway.

[rmc28]

I didn't realise one of my friends from uni was Jewish for 10-15 years, it just literally did not come up in conversation for that length of time.

[sovay]

(ETA: I know there are loads of British people who know better than this!)

I believe you!

Although this conversation is now reminding me of the time my mother was successfully passed off as (South Asian) Indian at a party in 1968 London so long as she kept her mouth shut and wore her sari.

[gwynnega]

I'm remembering the time in Auckland when a legendary New Zealand punk rocker was shocked to learn I was Jewish (because I didn't resemble a character from Philip Roth).

[sovay]

I'm remembering the time in Auckland when a legendary New Zealand punk rocker was shocked to learn I was Jewish (because I didn't resemble a character from Philip Roth).

Most people, thank God, do not resemble characters from Philip Roth!

I just got a consistent stream of "where are you [really] from" as far back as I can remember in childhood and as late as, I had been going to say 2019, but then I remembered that it has occasionally cropped up with medical personnel since. In college and grad school, people used to ask about specific countries, but now it's just a free-floating sense of not from around here.

[gwynnega]

I just got a consistent stream of "where are you [really] from" as far back as I can remember in childhood

Growing up in Los Angeles, this literally never happened to me until I left the country!

[sovay]

Growing up in Los Angeles, this literally never happened to me until I left the country!

Oh, New England!

[kore]

Loll yup I also got the awkwardly said "So are your parents....from here? Or...."

[rydra_wong]

My (olive-skinned and very frizzy-haired) dad is fond of telling the story of someone who came up to him in an airport to say "Excuse me, but you're Lebanese, aren't you?"

[sovay]

My (olive-skinned and very frizzy-haired) dad is fond of telling the story of someone who came up to him in an airport to say "Excuse me, but you're Lebanese, aren't you?"

The specificity absolutely makes that story.

[nineweaving]

Although this conversation is now reminding me of the time my mother was successfully passed off as (South Asian) Indian at a party in 1968 London so long as she kept her mouth shut and wore her sari.

My dear Madam Buttery used to act as hostess to her then father-in-law, a Pakistani legate to the UN. Again, the sari and the silence. She learned to cook magnificent Indian food.

Nine

[nineweaving]

Clearly Carins has never seen a yarmulke bobby-pinned to the topiary.

The OED has traced "Jewfro" back to 1976, at its peak.

Nine

[nineweaving]

They were out there.



Nine

[sovay]

They were out there.

I don't know where this photoset came from, but I am extremely impressed by the kid on the lower left-hand side.

[nineweaving]

I don't know where this photoset came from

From Moment magazine's “Frizziest of the Fro” contest. Top of the Google pile, and a lulu.

Nine

[minoanmiss]

My friends!

[movingfinger]

Gods! Literally, deities. Except that kid on the lower left, he's the one going after the gods.

[nineweaving]

Except that kid on the lower left, he's the one going after the gods.

It's a Lokifro.

Nine

[sovay]

Clearly Carins has never seen a yarmulke bobby-pinned to the topiary.

According to davidgillon, he may never have had the opportunity in the wild!

The OED has traced "Jewfro" back to 1976, at its peak.

I bet I learned it at Brandeis. It doesn't feel like the sort of word Leo Rosten would have included in The Joys of Yinglish.

[ethelmay]

Pretty sure I heard it before that, in reference to my older sister's friend Harry, whose name I only remember because ten-year-old me thought it was HILARIOUS to say over and over, "Boy, Harry sure is hairy, isn't he." I apologize for Former Me.

[alexxkay]

Huh. So the term postdates Elliott Gould in The Long Goodbye (1973). I'm pretty sure I first saw the term in *reference* to that film, though it's a fairly mild example of the form.

[nineweaving]

So the term postdates Elliott Gould in The Long Goodbye (1973).

It may have been in the spoken language. The OED can only record what reaches print.

Nine

[mrissa]

I learned the word by, uh. Dating a guy who used to have one and self-described that way to me in conversation: "that was back when I was rocking a Jewfro." I had not been around for the height of that particular choice in personal styling, and it was quite a startling difference.

But the concept of that particular hair texture as ethnic signifier was not new, not at all new. Just the word.

[sovay]

But the concept of that particular hair texture as ethnic signifier was not new, not at all new. Just the word.

I expected Cairns to know the signifier if not the word and have now been multiply informed that culturally-demographically it's not unusual that he didn't. I am now having a secondary reation of "but you watch movies for a living, I've seen kinds of people in movies I've never met in my own life," but that's probably just picking on the guy.

[mrissa]

I think one of the weird things about how Hollywood has worked is that it's actually done kind of a lot to break down ethnic signifiers that are there in reality. And...I don't want to say "only people of Norwegian or at least Scandinavian ethnicity to play in movies made out of Ibsen plays" or anything like that, that would be horrible, I would much rather have a world where we can have Lauren Bacall playing a great many things and nobody saying, "only Jewish roles for you, madam." But at the same time I do feel like it has played a large role in people having no idea that I, for example, look suuuuuper ethnic, oh my goodness do I have a strong ethnic look. My fellow Americans in particular are surprised that people try to speak Swedish or Norwegian to me in Sweden and Norway but almost no one speaks Danish to me in Denmark, because the idea that there could not only be a strongly ethnic appearance but a distinction among those ethnicities is just...boggling to a lot of people, it's just not on their radar. But in Hollywood if you want to make someone "look Swedish" you plunk a blonde wig down on her head and Bob's your uncle, and I am not a blonde. (Neither is my auntie Ulla, who is Swedish-born of two Swedish-ethnic parents and has lived in Stockholm her whole life. But this is apparently beside the point.)

As I say above, I don't want Hollywood to make a particular effort toward general ethnotype casting. I don't even want them to make a particular effort to cast families from the same ethnotype. But I do think that "I watch a lot of movies" and "I don't correlate this thing with the ethnicity it's actually associated with" might actually go together more rather than less strongly.

[troisoiseaux]

I'm not saying there's not precedent for confusion

Apparently when my dad was growing up, he was mistaken for both (albeit not at the same time) despite being neither— just Sicilian with very curly hair.

[sovay]

Apparently when my dad was growing up, he was mistaken for both (albeit not at the same time) despite being neither— just Sicilian with very curly hair.

Also a classic.

(My grandparents were both first-generation Brooklyn-born Jews. My grandmother who acted professionally had a talent for accents and languages. My grandfather who crashed through his bar mitzvah on sheer memorization did not. The family story about the two of them visiting Italy is the waiter who asked her earnestly, "Just tell me what a nice Italian girl like you sees in an American like him?")

[rmc28]

I love the story about your grandparents!

[troisoiseaux]

The family story about the two of them visiting Italy is the waiter who asked her earnestly, "Just tell me what a nice Italian girl like you sees in an American like him?"

Ha!

[moon_custafer]

I think the same sometimes happened to my dad, and I’m not even sure where he got the hair from (my best guess is the Geneva Huguenots from way back?)

[sovay]

I think the same sometimes happened to my dad, and I’m not even sure where he got the hair from (my best guess is the Geneva Huguenots from way back?)

I mean, some people just have crinkly hair. More power to them.

[chanter1944]

Sovay, I apologize. I tried to donate to the fundraiser yesterday, but hit a GoFundMe glitch that I suspect is screenreader+browser based, as it's not the first time it's tangled me in a digital snarl. :( Bleh. May I still chip in, somehow?

On the subject of Jewish people and hair variations, I admit to having had no clue whatsoever, but I... er, rather have an excuse of the sight variety there.

[sovay]

May I still chip in, somehow?

Thank you so much for asking. Is spatch's PayPal something you can interact with? I don't know the limitations of screenreaders.

On the subject of Jewish people and hair variations, I admit to having had no clue whatsoever, but I... er, rather have an excuse of the sight variety there.

It's not universal in the population, it's just not uncommon. I know people everywhere on the continuum from wavy to curly to tiny little spring-coils. My grandfather had much more of the close-cropped wave.

[chanter1944]

PayPal is indeed something I can interact with successfully, and will do, once I'm no longer on the work-related clock. Thank you!

I admit to being nearly entirely clueless on the appearance of hair variation by ethnicity in general, again for sight-related reasons. For example, I'm aware of the concept of a fro, but couldn't tell you specifics other than thoroughly broadly curly. I prefer not to go around touching people's hair - it's a me thing - and there is absolutely the 'people are not poodles to be pet' aspect in play as well.

[vass]

Obligatory family story: for reasons not relevant at this juncture, my father (whose hair went white in his 30s) was in a car with my brother (who told me this story) and a Samoyed named Omo (after the laundry powder. I don't know whose dog Omo was.)

A stoner walked past and observed Omo and my father (who would never have called it a Jewfro, but yes, that is how he wore his hair at that time and where he got that texture of hair.)
"Are you guys brothers?" asked the stoner.

[sovay]

"Are you guys brothers?" asked the stoner.

I feel I should share this story with my uncle who in his long-haired blond rock days had an Afghan named Cotton.

[minoanmiss]

BWEE I have bonded with Jewish people over our 'fros . I want to be shocked that Mr. Cairns never saw a Jewfro in his life but people often have amazingly small reference pools. As an example, there are a fair number of Black people in the US but we are not evenly distributed, so in high school and again in college I met quite a few White people who earnestly told me I was the first Black person they'd ever met (... oy, as it were). I can but imagine how many non-Jewish people may have, or may think they have, Not Met Their First Jew[tm] until well into adulthood.

[sovay]

BWEE I have bonded with Jewish people over our 'fros

This form of solidarity makes me really happy.

As an example, there are a fair number of Black people in the US but we are not evenly distributed, so in high school and again in college I met quite a few White people who earnestly told me I was the first Black person they'd ever met (... oy, as it were).

Definitely oy. I have been the only Jew in a group, but I don't think I've ever been anyone's first, or at least if so they didn't tell me.

I can but imagine how many non-Jewish people may have, or may think they have, Not Met Their First Jew[tm] until well into adulthood.

Data points in comments suggest many more than I thought. I wonder if it's a weird thought to me because I've just never had the option of not meeting non-Jews.

[liv]

I have been lots and lots of people's First! Ever! Jewish person!, and that's just the ones who make a point to tell me so. The first time I remember was my kindergarten teacher, and my memories are pretty fuzzy before that.

It's a pretty normal part of the Jewish experience in the UK outside London and a couple of other urban centres – last year I had a whole bar mitzvah class who all reported being the first real live Jewish person their various teachers had met (they all go to different schools), and being put on the spot to explain stuff.

FWIW I am pretty Ashkenazi in appearance but not in a way that's obvious to people who hold vague ethnic stereotypes, since I have slightly wavy light brown hair and that's what people tend to notice.

[sovay]

It's a pretty normal part of the Jewish experience in the UK outside London and a couple of other urban centres – last year I had a whole bar mitzvah class who all reported being the first real live Jewish person their various teachers had met (they all go to different schools), and being put on the spot to explain stuff.

Check. I am learning that I have overestimated British Jewish visibility. I have certainly had the experience of being put on the spot to explain stuff, including the all-time hits of "rituals which are not part of my observance" and "politics of a country I don't live in." (I have not had my grandfather's experience of students dropping by my office hours to check on my horns.)

Thank you for your data.

[minoanmiss]

"I wonder if it's a weird thought to me because I've just never had the option of not meeting non-Jews."

This was definitely my reaction in high school when I got "I've never met a Negro before" AND watching my roommate get "I've never met a Jew before". By col;ege I was resigned to it.

[davidgillon]

My secondary school - 1,000 pupils - had precisely two Black pupils in the seven years I was there. And as we were a Catholic school, and given African Catholicism, we probably had a higher Black population than was locally typical. The significant local minorities were Italian and Gypsy/Traveller. But that was a small market town up in the hills, and in the late 70s/early 80s. Percentages are higher when I go back, but still not high.

There must have been someone who was my identifiable first Black person to hold a conversation with that wasn't more than in passing, and my best guess would be a guy on my course at Uni - nice bloke, hadn't thought about him in ages.