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‘A Swinging Bunch of People’ No Longer

Summarizing Sapir · Published Wednesday, February 25, 2026
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JL;DR SUMMARY Sammy Davis Jr., a prominent entertainer and one of America's most famous converts to Judaism, exemplified a time when Jewish culture was seen as 'cool' in postwar America. A way out west there was a fella, fella I want to tell you about, fella by the name of Jeff Lebowski. At least, that was the handle his lovin' parents gave him, but he never had much use for it himself. This Lebowski, he called himself the Dude. Now, Dude, that's a name no one would self-apply where I come from. But then, there was a lot about the Dude that didn't make a whole lot of sense to me. And a lot about where he lived, likewise. But then again, maybe that's why I found the place s'durned innarestin'.

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Tags

Kanye West  Cultural Identity  American Culture  Sammy Davis Jr.  Jewish Contributions  Postwar America  Celebrity Conversions  Jewish American Success 

Places mentioned

Bronx, New York, United States
"It was a show about a Jewish family in the Bronx that ran daily for two decades and did as much to provide a positive image of the Jewish people for non-Jews in its time as The Cosby Show did in the 1980s in showing Americans what an upper-middle-class black family looked likethereby setting the stage a generation later for the rise of Barack Obama."
Brooklyn, New York, United States
"There is a continuity between Kanye Westthe billionaire son of a college professorand a teenage thug on the streets of Brooklyn who comes up behind a Haredi Jew and punches him in the head."
California, United States
"Subculture hatreds have a means of organizing themselves as they never have before. As Dara Horn and others have pointed out, Jews generate particular sympathy from non-Jews when they seem weak, or when theyre killed solely for the crime of being Jewish. There is a strange but alluring temptation, therefore, to lean into the victimization of Jews over the past few years as a means of producing a more favorable atmosphere, the sort that might cause a West to consider conversion rather than becoming a modern-day mouthpiece for the ideas in The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. But this would be exactly the wrong tack to take."
Pennsylvania, United States
"Subculture hatreds have a means of organizing themselves as they never have before. As Dara Horn and others have pointed out, Jews generate particular sympathy from non-Jews when they seem weak, or when theyre killed solely for the crime of being Jewish. There is a strange but alluring temptation, therefore, to lean into the victimization of Jews over the past few years as a means of producing a more favorable atmosphere, the sort that might cause a West to consider conversion rather than becoming a modern-day mouthpiece for the ideas in The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. But this would be exactly the wrong tack to take."
Texas, United States
"Subculture hatreds have a means of organizing themselves as they never have before. As Dara Horn and others have pointed out, Jews generate particular sympathy from non-Jews when they seem weak, or when theyre killed solely for the crime of being Jewish. There is a strange but alluring temptation, therefore, to lean into the victimization of Jews over the past few years as a means of producing a more favorable atmosphere, the sort that might cause a West to consider conversion rather than becoming a modern-day mouthpiece for the ideas in The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. But this would be exactly the wrong tack to take."

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Retrieved 2026-02-25 05:31:49 UTC
Curated 2026-02-25 08:30:49 UTC