Real Music & Real Estate . . .

Yiddishe Cup’s bandleader, Bert Stratton, is Klezmer Guy.
 

He knows about the band biz and – check this out – the real estate biz, too.
 

You may not care about the real estate biz. Hey, you may not care about the band biz. (See you.)
 

This is a blog with a gamy twist. It features tenants with snakes and skunks, and musicians with smoked fish in their pockets.
 

Stratton has written op-eds for the Wall Street Journal, New York Times and Washington Post.


 
 

AN ABOVE-AVERAGE JEW

Some Geauga County kids put on “I Never Saw Another Butterfly,” a play about the Theresienstadt concentration camp. I spoke to the actors at their theater in Chardon, Ohio. I figured they’d be obnoxious, but they weren’t. I explained what a Jew is. They sang a Theresienstadt-based song for me. I asked them who, in their world, was the most famous Jew. I thought they would say Jesus. They said Billy Crystal.

The kids wanted to know about “the beanie ” — the yarmulke. (Note: I don’t where a yarmulke.) I said it shows one’s humbleness, vis a vis God. Was I right? I gave the actors a couple Yiddishe Cup CDs and said, “The people at Terezin didn’t listen to klezmer music but enjoy these.” Was I Jewish enough? Was I above average?

On One Foot

On one foot


A version of this post appeared here 10/28/15.

shareEmail this to someoneShare on FacebookTweet about this on Twitter

4 comments

1 Bill Jones { 07.19.17 at 11:59 am }

Re kippah, “wear” and not where. Your friendly proof reader. How can your readers answer your question when you didn’t divulge what you said about Jews (rhetlorical question) or what their feedback was to you about their perceptions of you afterwards.

2 Ken Goldberg { 07.20.17 at 11:21 am }

Sounds pretty good, as far as what you shared here. But for shame on your advance stereotyping of kids in Geauga County. I take it this wasn’t Russell, South Russell, or Bainbridge.

3 Bert Stratton { 07.22.17 at 9:15 am }

To Ken Goldberg: Chardon

4 David Rowe { 07.24.17 at 8:11 am }

This post is both poignant and vocabulary-expanding.

Leave a Comment