I guess today’s theme is bigotry. I had no idea that Frank Sinatra was an outspoken opponent of bigotry, particularly anti-Semitism. In fact, there’s a Wikipedia article called “Frank Sinatra and Jewish activism“. Here’s an excerpt:
Frank Sinatra was a strong supporter and activist for Jewish causes in the United States and Israel. According to Santopietro, Sinatra was a “lifelong sympathizer with Jewish causes”. Sinatra participated in Hollywood protests and productions supporting Jews during the Holocaust and the formation of the State of Israel. He actively fund-raised for Israel Bonds, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and the Simon Wiesenthal Center, and helped establish two intercultural centers in Israel which bear his name. Due to his support of Israel, his recordings and films were banned by the Arab League and by Lebanon.
Personal relationships with Jews
Sinatra became friendly with Jewish individuals in his youth. His Jewish neighbor, Mrs. Golden, often babysat him while his mother was out working. She spoke to him in Yiddish and served him coffee cake and apples. For many years Sinatra wore a mezuzah charm that Golden had given him. In 1944 Sinatra insisted on a Jewish friend, Manie Sacks, serving as godfather at his son‘s baptism over the vociferous protests of the priest.
According to Swan, Sinatra despised racial prejudice and was quick to put a stop to it. Sinatra said: “When I was a kid and someone called me a ‘dirty little Guinea’, there was only one thing to do – break his head…Let anyone yell wop or Jew or nigger around us, we taught him not to do it again”.[4] Once he heard a reporter call someone a “Jew bastard” at a party and punched out the speaker.[4] When Sinatra heard that some golf clubs restricted Jews from membership, he became the second non-Jew to join a club with a majority Jewish membership.
For more information, see the Forward article “The secret Jewish history of Frank Sinatra.”
And he is in the 11-minute 1945 film below, called”The House I Live In“. Although it seems a bit schmalzy now, remember that the U.S. was rife with anti-Semitism then and largely ignored the Holocaust. The film won an Honorary Oscar and a special Golden Globe awared.
The YouTube notes:
This short film, which earned an honorary Academy Award for director Mervyn LeRoy in 1946, exhorts the message of religious tolerance and post-war hopefulness. Frank Sinatra, then the idol of teenage bobby-soxers, takes a break from a recording session and finds a group of children bullying one boy because he’s Jewish. Sinatra reminds them that Americans may worship in many different ways but they still remain Americans. The film ends with Sinatra performing the title song, penned by Abel Meeropol, best known for the song “Strange Fruit” which denounced the horror of lynchings. Named to the National Film Registry in 2007.
Well, he does use the word “Japs,” twice, which was standard during the war but is not regarded as a slur. So be it. But one thing’s for sure: Old Blue Eyes sure could sing!
Great to see
I continue to find gems in Sinatra’s recordings – The Song Is You with a great band and arranger/conductor is one – I’ll find it… : https://youtu.be/IJ6UQ_qxS5E?si=C2-X9jRLGKIx-6Iu
… less that 3 minutes but such a high level of musicianship overall, so much controlled, lively energy, covers so much ground…
But anyway…
I’m familiar with the song from renditions by the great Paul Robeson. Here’s one: https://youtu.be/U3syulBjkng?si=V9vlYkmgiiH_eAH8
The songwriting credit goes to both Abel Meeropol (under a pseudonym) as you mentioned, for the lyrics, and Earl Robinson for the music.
A fragment from the article about Sinatra from The Tablet, 2015 (https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/arts-letters/articles/sinatra-israel):
The following year, at the request of Zionist leaders, Sinatra smuggled a large amount of money to operatives buying arms for the Haganah. He had been asked smuggle the money by Teddy Kollek, then the Haganah representative in the United States. Kollek had purchased a large arms shipment in New York and had to pay the ship’s captain to take it to Palestine. He knew that he was being followed by Federal agents. To evade them, Kollek asked Sinatra, who was performing at the Copacabana nightclub, to help him evade their surveillance. In Kollek’s words, “In the early hours of the following morning I walked out the front door of the building with a satchel, and the Feds followed me. Out the back door went Frank Sinatra, carrying a paper bag filled with cash. He went down to the pier, handed it over, and watched the ship sail.”
I’ve read that Sinatra also refused to play at venues or stay in hotels that denied entry to black people.
In mid December I got a timely Netflix notification about a movie depicting quite the favorable political view of the 1948 Israeli war and courage of Jews. It was called “Cast a Giant Shadow” and was released in 1966. The stars include Kirk Douglas, John Wayne, Yul Brynner, Angie Dickinson and Frank Sinatra, along with a cast of familiar faces who appeared in WWII movie rolls in the 50’s, 60’s etc. I had seen the movie “Exodus” which appeared around the same time. I watched the movie, and I got a sense that it was put together quickly and the acting was not that great. In researching the movie it became obvious that Kirk Douglas, a Jew, had helped gathered a cast that included many close friends. There are some scenes where the dialog showcased antisemitism. One where Kirk D. calls John Wayne an antisemite. Frank Sinatra jumps in to assist Kirk D. in fighting the Arab troops and dies heroically and with classic enthusiasm in a battle that was a prelude to the taking of Jerusalem.
The Freedom From Religion Foundation has an entry for Sinatra in its “Freethought of the Day” calendar:
• • •
https://ffrf.org/news/day/12/12/freethought/#frank-sinatra-quotes
“There are things about organized religion which I resent. Christ is revered as the Prince of Peace, but more blood has been shed in His name than any other figure in history. You show me one step forward in the name of religion and I’ll show you a hundred retrogressions. Remember, they were men of God who destroyed the educational treasures at Alexandria, who perpetrated the Inquisition in Spain, who burned the witches at Salem. Over 25,000 organized religions flourish on this planet, but the followers of each think all the others are miserably misguided and probably evil as well. In India they worship white cows, monkeys and a dip in the Ganges. The Moslems accept slavery and prepare for Allah, who promises wine and revirginated women. And witch doctors aren’t just in Africa. If you look in the L.A. papers of a Sunday morning, you’ll see the local variety advertising their wares like suits with two pairs of pants.”
“As I see it, man is a product of his conditioning, and the social forces which mold his morality and conduct — including racial prejudice — are influenced more by material things like food and economic necessities than by the fear and awe and bigotry generated by the high priests of commercialized superstition. Now don’t get me wrong. I’m for decency — period. I’m for anything and everything that bodes love and consideration for my fellow man. But when lip service to some mysterious deity permits bestiality on Wednesday and absolution on Sunday — cash me out.”
—Sinatra, born on this date [December 12] in 1915. (Interview, Playboy magazine, February 1963)
*EDITOR’S NOTE: There is no evidence that alleged witches were burned in North America. That did happen in Europe, however. Sinatra’s claims about more people being killed in Jesus’ name is also unsubstantiated, although certainly millions have been. Likewise, it’s not been demonstrated that Muslims supported slavery more than Christians or some other religions.
Compiled by Bill Dunn
© Freedom From Religion Foundation. All rights reserved.
I’ve had very mixed feelings about Sinatra and the “Rat Pack.” But I still fondly remember Sinatra’s syrupy song, “It Was A Very Good Year,” which resonated with me during my teenage years — 1965/66 — when I was beginning to comprehend the possibility of my own mortality.
Here’s the remastered song on YouTube. It might just be appropriate for a New Year’s Eve — at least to me as I near three-quarters of a century:
You haven’t lived until you’ve heard the version by William Shatner and, indeed, his entire album The Transformed Man, which is one of the most bizarre things I’ve ever heard.
Small world: Baez and Dylan have strong connections, and here’s Bill Shatner’s take on a Dylan classic.
Shatner is so very often unintentionally funny.
Are you saying that Shatner is singing on this album, as opposed to giving dramatic readings with background instrumental music? IF he is singing, then what would his (and anyone else’s) dramatic readings sound like?
Not a few of Shatner’s detractors focus on (if not obsess over) “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” and “Mr. Tambourine Man,” and can’t be bothered to credit him on his readings from Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet,” “Henry the Fifth,” and “Hamlet,” and other selections on that album. (I contemplate how rappers’ renditions of these works might sound.)
If memory serves me, Sinatra was driving to or from Palm Springs when he heard on the radio Bob Shane of The Kingston Trio singing “It Was a Very Good Year” and was inspired to record it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjW9WVfkVfU
From what I’ve read, the last nation to abolish slavery was the Islamic Republic of Mauritania — in 1981! Saudi Arabia didn’t abolish slavery until 1962 — the year I was born. So when Sinatra was speaking, clearly many Muslim-dominated and ruled nations had been very slow about doing away with it. Of course, much of the U.S. South was still practicing forms of forced servitude akin to slavery and apartheid.
I’m always in the mood to listen to Sinatra in January. After a month of nostalgia- and sentiment-laden Christmas music, tunes like I’ve Got You Under My Skin and Fly Me to the Moon feel refreshing and energetic. Now I have another reason to enjoy Sinatra month.
Abel Meeropol adopted the two children of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, Robert and Michael Meeropol. Robert Meeropol started the Rosenberg Fund for Children.
Abel Meeropol also wrote the song Strange Fruit” for Billie Holliday.
Given your recent post about animation, I though you would enjoy this Porky Pig cartoon. Porky Pig is a chicken farmer, and all of the hens go AWOL to watch a rooster named Frankie sing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAEUWL76ww0
Of course, Sammy Davis Jr. was Jewish and well known for working with Frank.
Sammy once quipped: “Being Jewish AND Black AND Peurto Rican, when I move somewhere, the neighborhood is GONE.”
Check out the episode of All in the Family where he plays himself.
Sammy was also reported to have said (though I think the story is likely apocryphal) on a golf course when asked what his handicap is, “I’m black, Jewish, and blind in one eye, how much more of a handicap do I need?”
Wow. I had no idea.
Thanks so much for that.
Sinatra sings Old Man River on Sinatra Live in Paris (it is on YouTube, link hangs in the system so I omit it).
He introduces the next number thusly:
“That was a song about Sammy Davis’ people — this is a song about my people”
The song is The Lady is a Tramp.
I’m pretty sure Sammy was nowhere near Paris at that time.
The recording has excellent musicianship all ’round – check it out.