A Word From the Weiss

         I wrote this entry a week ago, but didn’t quite manage to finish it before leaving to celebrate Chanukah with my kids, followed by my daughter’s birthday. Then Newtown happened.
        In view of this recent horrific event in my home state of Connecticut, I feel somewhat ashamed to post something so upbeat and frivolous. My heart and prayers go out to everyone irreparably touched by this monstrous tragedy.
        I can't help thinking that after all the lengths we go to in order to keep terrorists out, it turns out that the enemy is anyone, he is anywhere, and he is already here.
        But even as a mother -- and even though, to my shock, we turned out to know some of the families involved -- I feel presumptuous to comment further on the issue. We grieve as a state and as a nation for all the victims of this massacre, their families, and everyone who knew and loved them. But I believe the media has been too intrusive already and would prefer to let these people mourn privately without insinuating myself.
        So here instead is the post I already had written in those preceding days, before we even could imagine that something so catastrophic might ever occur in our midst.
       
        With all the time I’m spending buying last-minute Chanukah gifts and working off the latkes we've been eating (not to mention the liquefied lard they’re fried in and low-fat sour cream slathered on top), you wouldn’t think I’d have time to schlep into NYC to see a Broadway matinee.
        Either did I.
        But one recent Monday morning, I suddenly decided to drop everything that I hold sacred – yes, even this blog – and give myself a real gift: a full day of unadulterated fun.
        There I was, watching the fourth hour of NBC’s Today in the discomfort of my own messy living room, when Kathie Lee Gifford announced that anyone who bought a ticket to her Broadway musical Scandalous for that Wednesday afternoon's performance could attend a luncheon directly preceding it with her and her trusty co-host, Hoda Kotb.
        Now, with the abundance of current shows on and off Broadway offering decidedly Jewish content – from Fried Chicken and Latkes (sounds like a recipe for instant indigestion) to Old Jews Telling Jokes (sounds like a rare reprieve from old Jews kvetching) to something actually entitled Bad Jews (although it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that’s an oxymoron) – you might not expect NiceJewishMom.com to be rushing off to see a musical about a rather flamboyant, pill-popping, early 20th-century evangelist.
        The fact is, though, that I can see aging Jews pretty much anytime. (All I need to do is look across the dinner table. Or in the mirror, for that matter.) On the other hand, I’d been dying to see Kathie Lee’s show ever since it began previews in mid-October.
        Along with being a sucker for the theater, especially all things musical, I make it a policy to support my friends’ creative efforts. And although Kathie Lee and I may not quite be tight – in part because we’d never even met – I spend more time with her and Hoda than I do with almost anyone else these days, including my own children.
        In fact, after years of watching this genuinely dynamic duo bantering on camera (and getting mildly tipsy, never mind that their show airs weekdays from 10 to 11 a.m.), I feel as if I know them almost intimately, a feeling only enhanced by a convivial, “just us girls” atmosphere that is so engaging that I can almost taste the cabernet, chardonnay, or whatever else they’re imbibing, whether it be “Boozeday Tuesday,” as they call it, "Winesday Wednesday," or “Try-day Friday.”
        I find them both so likable, and find so much of what they say enlightening and/or amusing, that rarely does a day go by on which I don’t quote one of them to somebody.
        The prospect of actually meeting them was an opportunity I found hard to pass up. The problem was that this was not the sort of experience you could undertake alone. Although I assumed that like-minded women would flock to this irresistible event en masse, I didn’t want to sit in the restaurant or the theater solo. Like Kathie Lee, I needed my own trusty sidekick. And in an instant, I knew just the co-conspirator for the job.
        This instinct was instantly reinforced when I called the designated restaurant to make a reservation and had my worst fears confirmed. “How many guests can you accommodate?” I queried, proceeding to hazard a wild guess. “Fifty? A hundred?”
        Nice try. While there wouldn’t be a cast of thousands, there’d be more than enough competition for Kathie Lee and Hoda’s attention, not to mention any potential photo op. About 170 people had already signed up, I was told, and they could accept up to 220.
        Yes, my good friend Pat was definitely the woman for the job. Never mind that she isn’t a fellow devotee of Today. The fact is, she’s never been a big fan of TV of any kind. What she is a fan of is having fun.
        She also has more than her share of self-confidence and chutzpah, if you ask me. No matter how assertive I may sound in print, I’ve always been on the shy, reserved side, and I was born without a self-promotion gene. Faced with hordes of other fans, I might not be pushy enough to make sure I got to meet my idols. Pat, though? Not quite. No, not at all. The chances that she’d have a failure of nerve weren’t just slim to none. On a scale of 1 to 10, they were a negative 1.
        On top of that, she’s a veteran actress and stand-up comic who in earlier days opened for the likes of Jim Carrey and Howie Mandel. She once had her own children’s TV series, and has for years been entreating me to collaborate with her on a cable-access show on which we’d try to present ourselves as the local Kathie Lee and Hoda. (Which of us would be which? You get one guess.)
        So when I finally reached her later that morning, she didn’t even pause to ask the cost (which, at $73 per half-price ticket and 32 bucks for lunch, was not insubstantial).
        “I’m in!” she declared.
        I instantly hastened to buy our tickets, snagging fifth-row orchestra seats online.
        We took off from my house in Central Connecticut early on Wednesday morning, determined to arrive well before the 11:30 lunch and hopefully get our choice of seats. Rather than risking getting lost in the crowd, I’d dressed from neck to knee in hot pink.
        “Maybe they’ll pick you for a makeover,” my husband suggested enthusiastically as he snapped a “before” photo of us in the driveway. (Although he might not want this publicized, he often watches the show with me and is so enamored of the Thursday "ambush makeover" segments – in which two women from the crowd gathered outside the studio are given a total style overhaul – that when he isn’t home I have to record them for him.)
        “I don’t need a makeover,” I seethed through the camera-ready smile plastered on my perfectly glossed lips. “Besides, I hate to tell you, but this is as good as it gets.”
        While gabbing throughout the two-and-a-half-hour drive, I found myself beginning to fret inwardly. Even if we actually managed to meet these women, I’d probably get half a minute at most to introduce myself. How would I begin to sum up my site and myself?
        Would I get to explain that I envision myself as something of a Jewish I Love Lucy, always setting out to do something nice – usually for the benefit of one of my two grown children – but invariably managing to mess everything up and make a fool of myself?
        Should I note that despite the name (and many stories on my site, like the one in which I sign my son up for JDate without his permission), my blog is not really all that Jewish? In fact, it’s not really all that different from Today, being mostly about dealing with friends, family, and the various other issues women face while growing older and wider (though not necessarily wiser)?
        Or should I just mention the slogan I post on Twitter – “Looking for a fine whine?” Come to think of it, except for one letter, my web site was actually right up their alley.
        Yet in my heart, I’d realized from the start that the answer was none of the above. Even if I had only 10 seconds of their time, I wanted to use those moments not for my own benefit but my daughter’s. After all, I’m not just NiceJewishMom.com. I am a nice Jewish mom!
        Allegra, as my regular readers well know, is an up-and-coming young jazz singer. She’s preparing to record her first professional CD, featuring nine of her own original tunes, and I could hardly imagine anything more thrilling than her getting to perform live on their show or having one of her songs aired on “iHoda’s Playlist.” And although they typically feature pop singers rather than jazz artists – and more established, mainstream performers rather than newcomers, at that – Hoda and KLG are both avid music lovers.
        I figured it was worth a shot.
        In fact, my daughter had run into Hoda in the city twice now, once on the street and another time in a restaurant. Being a chip off this old block, Allegra had used these chance encounters to blabber about what a big fan I am, rather than talk about herself. Yet I still viewed these meetings as a matter of beshert (that’s Yiddish for “meant to be”). Couldn’t they mean that Allegra was destined to sing on Today someday?
        While I mulled this over, Pat had her own thoughts that she wished to keep private. She said that she’d come up with a crazy scheme to make sure we’d accomplish our mission. She didn’t want to tell me what it was, though, because she knew there was no way I would ever go for it, which was almost without doubt true.
        Were we an ersatz KLG and Hoda? Or were we just the Jewish Lucy and Ethel? Either way, her words filled me with anxiety, bordering on dread. But just as Pat had readily signed on to aid and abet me in this adventure without reservation, I deemed it only fair that I be a willing accomplice in her farkakte plan, whatever it might be.
        With luck, we reached the city without encountering even a trickle of traffic. It still took nearly another half-hour to navigate a mere four blocks across West 52nd Street. But even this had a hint of beshert, because after parking hurriedly, we arrived at Gallagher’s Steak House just in time to see Kathie Lee and Hoda exit from a car and rush right past us (I mean within two feet of us!) through an unmarked side door.
        This happened so quickly that by the time I’d managed to whip out my iPhone, they were practically gone. But I did manage to snap the back of KLG’s head and a rather blurry but nonetheless exciting closeup or two of Hoda.
        Then we took our places in the burgeoning line of fans that had already formed. While waiting for the doors to open, we made friends with the two women behind us.
        Norma Gorman and Sharon Duke had schlepped in by bus that morning all the way from Westchester, PA, with 42 members of their Newcomers’ Club (none of whom were actual newcomers, they hastened to admit. “We just like to have fun”). Like us, they’d learned about the event while watching the show on Monday morning. Unlike us, they’d waited to buy tickets in person at the box office and ended up in Siberia -- or somewhere in the mezzanine.
        But as devoted longtime fans of the show, they were thrilled to be there at all. “I’d visualized Hoda as being taller,” Norma noted, although she’d looked plenty tall to me.
        Finally, at 11:30 on the nose, the doors burst open and everyone began pouring in. To our surprise, there was a placard planted right inside the entrance bearing big news.
        “Please remain seated!!!” it read. “Kathie Lee and Hoda will be coming to every table.”
        Hmmm… Maybe this mission wasn’t going to be all that impossible, after all. Still, there was no guarantee that we would get much if any time alone with them. And so, while waiting in line to pay the prix fixe price in advance, Pat began to strategize.
        “Quick – take my coat and go grab us a table,” she ordered, insisting that I opt for a back room that wasn’t even visible from where we were standing. The seating areas in sight looked fine to me, but Pat insisted that the other room had to have better lighting.
        Actually, it didn’t, but it boasted something even better: Hoda and Kathie Lee!
        There they were, already beginning to make the rounds. Frantic that they might come over before Pat managed to rejoin me, I quickly snagged a corner table for two.
        Then I got myself ready just in case, pulling out the items I’d brought to show them, two NiceJewishMom.com business cards and a wallet-sized publicity shot of Allegra.
        To my relief, Pat soon appeared, but she instantly rejected my choice of table, insisting that we needed a bigger and better one that was more centrally situated. I felt a bit sheepish about taking up a table for four, but she said she knew what she was doing.
        Our waiter brought over the special, three-course menus printed just for the occasion, along with our allotted one glass of wine apiece. But I couldn’t begin to focus on the choices, because there THEY were. At the very next table!!!
        Then, as my heart began pounding so hard that it had to be audible over the dining room’s din, I saw Hoda heading right toward us, with Kathie Lee in close pursuit.
        Instantly, I leapt to my feet to greet them. Pat clambered up for other reasons.
        “We have Nice Jewish Mom over here!” she announced with commanding verve, gesturing toward me as if she were a circus ringmaster introducing the bearded lady (NiceHairyMom.com?).
        Mildly mortified, I flushed with an odd mixture of embarrassment and exhilaration.
        “Yes,” I acknowledged, hastening to proffer one of the two cards I had at the ready. “I have a weekly blog called NiceJewishMom.com, and I came here to write about this.” Then I handed Hoda the card, indicating the photo of matzah ball soup on the back.
        Hoda seized it with what appeared to be genuine interest. “Kathie Lee, look! I have a Jewish website for you!” Hearing this, her co-host reached deftly across the table to take my hand in hers.
        As a longtime journalist, I’ve met and interviewed many a celebrity. No matter. I nearly plotzed.
        Then, after pronouncing my card “so cool,” Hoda asked if she could keep it.
        “Of course!” I replied with delight, hurriedly handing her the second card, which she passed on to Kathie Lee. Then I rushed to segué into what I’d really wanted to say.
        “I mention you and Kathie Lee on my blog all the time because I watch you daily,” I said. “But mostly, I write about my assorted misadventures with my two grown children.
        “My daughter is a young jazz singer who’s begun performing all over the city and is going to be recording her first CD,” I continued. “In fact, she’s run into you twice now.”
        “Oh, really?” Hoda asked, flashing her inimitable radiant smile. “What’s her name?”
        “Allegra Levy!” I replied. But knowing my daughter to be no more of a self-promoter than I am, I doubted that she had bothered to introduce herself, so I quickly seized the snapshot I had carefully planted beside my plate and held it toward her. “Here she is.”
        “Oh, she’s beautiful!” she exclaimed, flashing that huge smile again and hurrying to hand it across the table to Kathie Lee.
        “She is gorgeous!” Kathie Lee concurred. I proceeded to reiterate what I’d told Hoda about the singing and the CD.
        “Mazel tov!” she exclaimed, having been born Kathryn Lee Epstein (although I don’t think her mother is Jewish and, having spent years pursuing a career as a Christian singer, she presumably was not raised that way).
        Then it was time to pose for the photo I so desperately wanted. Kathie Lee sidled up to Pat, while I took my place beside Hoda as their handlers expertly did the honors.
        Then Hoda turned back to me with the headshot still in her hand. “Can I keep this too?” she asked hopefully.
        Was she kidding? “Of course!” I replied, wishing that I had written my daughter’s name on the back, or better yet the address of her own website, www.AllegraLevy.com.
        She beamed. “But don’t you need it for your wallet?” she asked apologetically.
        “Don’t worry,” I assured her. “I think I know where I can get another one.”
        She grinned again. And before I could say another word, they were on to the next group.
        I gazed after them, still in shock. It had all happened so fast. I’d come in hopes that we would somehow manage to meet them and procure photographic proof for my readers. Both tasks had been accomplished. Just like that.
        Then again, we hadn’t even ordered yet and all the excitement was already over. Or was it?
        I immediately began kvelling about how fab they both looked. Pat was not so sure.
        “There’s something up with Kathie Lee,” she retorted. “She looked very unhappy.”
        “Huh? What are you talking about?” I replied. I looked across to the next table, where they were greeting two young brides-to-be who’d shown up in Mouseketeer ears. Hoda looked gorgeous in her black sweater, pencil-slim slacks, and low-heeled boots. Kathie Lee looked stunning and even trimmer in person in her black dress and shawl, worn deliberately off the shoulder to display a discreet yet decidedly sexy patch of skin.
        Granted, she had on matte-finish makeup that made her look a little pale in person (although flawless in our photos). But was she truly unhappy to be there? I thought not.
        For some reason, I felt obliged to defend her, as though saying she looked less than exuberant were an insult. But if I were to be perfectly honest with myself, she did not appear to be her usual vivacious and effervescent self, nor to be exuding the buoyant joie de vivre that had once made her famous for trilling the Carnival Cruise Lines jingle, “In the morning, in the evenin’, ain’t we got fun?”
        So maybe she didn’t appear to be having the time of her life. But would you if you faced three rooms full of wide-eyed tourists and had to make nice at every single table? Not to mention that this event had already been held once or twice before?
        Besides, to do a show at 10 a.m., they no doubt had to be up well before dawn. “Maybe she’s just tired,” I ventured.
        “No,” Pat maintained, with the absolute certitude about having a sixth sense that had so often been exhibited by my late mother, who’d always purported to be “psychic.” “She is definitely unhappy about something.”
        The same certainly couldn’t be said for us as we ordered at last, then proceeded to polish off an endive and beet salad followed by beef tenderloin with asparagus (Pat) and a spinach salad with goat cheese and pear, succeeded by luscious grilled salmon and roasted potatoes (me).
        Then, after sampling my slice of New York cheesecake and having the rest of it wrapped for my hubby (who'd nobly stayed home with the dog so I could undertake this quest), I decided to chat with some of my fellow guests who’d flocked there from near and far.
        Far indeed. Teona Wright and Kim Miller had come all the way from Indianapolis. Having heard the announcement just as I did, Teona had instantly arranged the trip as a holiday gift for Kim, her best friend for over 20 years, after booking the flight on mileage. Both were longtime “fourth hour” fans.
        “Their show is just a light,” said Teona. “It’s always fun, and it makes you laugh.”
        “They’re both so open, honest and full of love,” Kim concurred. “Love and grace.”
        Like us, they’d been ecstatic to get their photos snapped with their favorite girls. “Hoda literally said to her photographer, ‘Put their picture on the show,’” noted Teona. “We’ll see.”
        Bride-to-be Elise Rosemarin and her friend Elizabeth merely had journeyed from the Upper West Side, but this was still a show of true devotion, given their circumstances. Elizabeth was getting married that very weekend, Elise early next month.
        “We love them!” they cried in unison.
        Debra Walsh, a Realtor from Long Beach in a sky-blue sweatshirt, wandered over to see what we were blabbing about. Then, upon learning my identity, she volunteered to send me her grandmother’s mandelbreit recipe. “Everybody wants it!” she gushed. “My friends call it Jewish biscotti.’”
        As for what had lured her to the lunch, she said that she was a longtime fan. “Oh, my gosh, of course!” she cried. “I’ve been watching Kathie Lee forever – since she was with Regis!”
        Then Pat pulled me toward a table of women that she was convinced were Jewish. Whether or not she had that sixth sense about people, she knew her Yiddisheh mamas.
        They all hailed from Melville, on Long Island. “We live in a gated community!” said Carol.
        A fun gated community. “We play mah-jongg. We shop. We go to oldies shows!” said Joan.
        “We dance all the time!” added Susan, calling herself and her companions “three alter cockers.”
        For anyone out there who actually needs a translation, that's basically Yiddish for “old guys," which was about the last way they would describe the glamorous TV stars they had just gotten to brush elbows with up close and personal.
        “They look so much younger in person!” gushed Carol. “Kathie Lee? She looked so young! And Hoda! She’s beautiful!”
        What they wanted to know was what had made us so sure that they were Jewish. Pat simply laughed and declined to answer. I shrugged, but they wouldn’t let it go. So I gave the best response that I could muster on the spur of the moment.
         “You look like very nice people,” I replied.
        Then I realized that our new friends from Pennsylvania, Norma and Sharon, were at the next table and listening intently to this exchange.
        “You look like very nice people too,” I added, although they were quick to note that they were not members of the Tribe.
        But as nice as they all might be, it was time to bid our newfound friends goodbye. The show was about to begin!
        So we made our way out and a few doors down the street to the Neil Simon Theatre, where the giant marquee was ablaze.
        “SCANDALOUS The Musical,” it read.
        Inside, to our surprise, we discovered that Teona and Kim, our new pals from Indianapolis, were seated in the two seats directly in front of us. We snapped them. They snapped us. Could this be another matter of beshert?
        Then the curtain went up to reveal the spectacular set, featuring two towering circular staircases that evoked a small crystal cathedral, and the rousing first number began.
        I’d only bothered to read one review in advance, but I knew that the critics, for the most part, had not been kind. Then again, they’d come with a very different mindset. Critics, by definition, are geared to be critical, maybe even hyperbolically (diabolically?) so. They also see so many productions that they become jaded, naysaying sourpusses.
        By contrast, one goes to a friend’s show expecting to enjoy oneself and be ready to applaud like mad. That’s what we were there to do. And we did a whole lot of both.
        Scandalous, subtitled The Life and Trials of Aimee Semple McPherson, focuses on the life and often lurid antics of an early 20th-century faith healer who was the founder of the Foursquare Gospel Church and a forerunner of the modern evangelical movement. As one synopsis put it, “Holiness collides with 1920s Hollywood in one remarkable woman’s charismatic rise to fame amidst scandalous romances and controversy.”
        The show opens at a critical moment in Sister Aimee’s life, when she and her mother stand accused of obstruction of justice, related to her prolonged disappearance. Was she abducted from a Santa Monica beach and held captive in Mexico for a month, as she claims, or was she simply holed up in a hotel for weeks with her married lover?
        This was far from the only controversy in the life of this colorful, driven, pill-popping preacher who harnessed the glitz of show-biz, her assorted Hollywood connections, and the far-ranging reach of radio to attract followers in droves to her Angelus church in L.A.
        In the lead role, the vibrant and versatile Carolee Carmello was simply astonishing. The New York Times had pronounced her “a gloriously gifted singing actress,” while Backstage crowed that “The American Theater Wing might as well give Carolee Carmello her Tony right now.”
        Yet Roz Ryan, who played Emma Jo, a former brothel madam who becomes the faith healer’s faithful yet bluntly acerbic sidekick, still nearly managed to steal the show, firing off lines like, "Some of these Christians are just so pious, they pious me off!" 
        “A lot of energy!” Pat exclaimed after almost every number. And at intermission, our Indianapolis friends gave two unequivocal thumbs up after deftly pointing out Kathie Lee’s beaming mom, Joanie, whom I overheard professing to be there seeing it for the fourth time.
        Indeed, with one showstopping number after another, the whole production sizzled with verve and spirit. As for Kathie Lee’s book and lyrics, I found myself thoroughly engaged and entertained, although there was one song in Act 2, entitled “It’s Just You,” that struck me to be particularly poignant.
        It was about how, even if one manages to attain fame and fortune in life, we are all just people in the end, and we are basically all alone. As one typical line of the song essentially went, “Everyone wants to copy everything you do, but when you climb in bed at night, it’s just you.” And I thought to myself, “That isn’t only about Aimee Semple McPherson. That’s about Kathie Lee.” (Although in Kathie Lee’s case, it would be just her and Bambino, her little white dog.)
        Regardless of all her years of success and her innumerable fans, she must indeed feel all alone on some level. But I can assure you that I was not alone in my enthusiasm, because in the end the entire audience rose to its feet to give a resounding standing O.
        I almost couldn’t wait to get home and write this blog, giving my stamp of approval.
        I was similarly eager to tune into the show the next morning, expecting to hear ardent reminiscences about the luncheon and see photos of some of our new acquaintances (although I was almost certain that the handlers had only snapped us with our own cameras, not theirs).
        But after the show’s lead-in music had played, to my great disappointment the camera zeroed in on Today’s third-hour co-host Willie Geist, who was sitting in for KLG. Hoda quickly announced that Kathie Lee was going to Florida for some much-needed R&R.
        Going to Florida? Much-needed R&R? Was there something up with Kathie Lee?
        That’s when I went online and learned the truth.
        We had departed for NYC so early on Wednesday morning that I’d been unable to watch the show that day. So I had no way of knowing that Scandalous was scheduled to close that coming Sunday, after a month of previews and only 29 regular performances.
        Kathie Lee had made the public announcement on the show that morning, just before going to our lunch. After working for 12 years to bring her magnum opus to life, she was being forced to pull the plug… and then go yuck it up with 200 gawking fans?
        Under the circumstances, I’d say that she’d behaved like a class act. A real pro. Not to mention a mensch.
        In her announcement, she attributed the show's plight in part to unfortunate timing. "Hurricane Sandy was just devastating to everyone in the tri-state area,” she observed to Hoda on Today. “But Broadway was badly hit... nobody has really recovered. The new shows haven't."
        Indeed, there has been a recent spate of open-and-shut cases on the Great White Way, including David Mamet’s The Anarchist, which folded within two weeks, and The Performers, with Alicia Silverstone and Henry Winkler, which only survived six days.
        KLG also felt that her creation hadn’t had adequate time to attract a following. "It's taken awhile to find our audience because no one knows what our show was,” she said.
        Certainly, it couldn’t have helped that McPherson is not a household name – well, not in my Jewish household, anyway. I also can’t help noting that many Christian-themed productions have fizzled fast or faltered in recent years, including Leap of Faith, Sister Act, and revivals of Godspell and Jesus Christ Superstar. Meanwhile, Jewish plays like those mentioned earlier, plus My Name Is Asher Lev, The Last Seder, and Jackie Hoffman’s rant, A Chanukah Charol, seem to be thriving off-Broadway. Should Kathie Lee perhaps have done “The Life and Trials of Aimee Semple McPherstein" instead? Could it be that the audience she failed to find were... Jews?
        Who knew?
        In any case, my heart goes out to her. I know what it’s like to face tough odds and a totally blank page (or in my case, computer screen). I also know that as many readers as I may find, when I climb into bed at night it’s just me (and NiceJewishDad, of course).
        But I also hope she realizes that in her case it isn’t just her. Whatever that elitist chorus of critics may have said, and whatever may have happened with her show, there are so many of us in her corner, enough so that we’d drop everything and travel great distances just to be in the same room with her, shake her hand, and yes, land that fleeting photo op.
        In other words, when she climbs into bed each night, maybe it is just her. But when she wakes up, it’s all of us.
        It’s she and Hoda… and Pat and me… and Teona and Kim… and Norma and Sharon… and Elise and Elizabeth… and Carol, Susan, and Joan… and several million more where we came from.
        You know.
        Just us girls. And, yes, one nice Jewish dad.