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.


 
 

POLES, ITALIANS, GREEKS, SLOVENIANS AND JEWS

by Bert Stratton

 
I went to about three bar mitzvahs. Just three. That’s nothing. My family lived on the wrong side of the tracks, with a bunch of Italeyners (Yiddish for “Italians”). The tracks were a South Euclid public park — Bexley Park. The Yidn lived on the south side and the ‘Taleyners — plus my family and assorted other ethnics — lived on the north side. “Assorted other ethnics” meant PIGS: Polish-Italian Greek Slovenians. This was during the dying days of white ethnicity.

The fact my parents lived with ‘Taleyners is an accident of history. My parents were shopping for their first house, in 1951, and the realtor told them the house was in the Jewish elementary school district, but it was actually in the ‘Taleyner district.

It was like I grew up on Kinsman or in Lower Manhattan. Italians everywhere. I got in a couple fist fights. “Kike” and stuff like that. The trouble with “kike” was I couldn’t figure out what to yell back. My nadir was when I called a kid a “Big L,” for Lutheran. He wasn’t offended.

Genug with the Italians. Move on . . .

We had a Slovenian king, Yonkee, in our neighborhood.

“My father is the poker king,” Yonkee’s son told me.

“What’s that?”

I had misheard him. “My father is the polka king.”

Frankie Yankovic was the king of Slovenian-style polka. Yonkee  lived on the-somewhat-grand Belvoir Boulevard. He had a pool in his back yard. Yonkee was Hollywood. He had played a club in Los Angeles where Sinatra and Doris Day had hung out.

I rarely saw Yonkee. He was on the road more than B.B. King . . . Wausau, Wisconsin; Edna, Minnesota; Muskegon, Michigan. I read his bio. In 1983 Yonkee was arrested for stealing a pound of bacon from a grocery store. He settled out of court. Who stole the kishke?

I’m settling this; I was part of the last generation that featured white ethnic rivalry.

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4 comments

1 Ken Goldberg { 12.20.23 at 9:50 am }

I imagine “three Bar Mitzvahs” is a slight exaggeration – what with relatives, etc. Sunday School, at least? Didn’t you have one? Meanwhile, interesting you mention Italians around Kinsman ROAD [East 116th to Shaker Hts. border]. That doesn’t seem to be well known today. There were a lot of Italians but I imagine the Jews were the majority. I used to hear “Italieners,” with the “e” vowel in the middle. Whatever.

2 Marc { 12.20.23 at 1:57 pm }

My grandmother called them talyanickers.
Lots of them where I grew up.
Some were good friends some were bullies.

3 Gerald Ross { 12.20.23 at 2:49 pm }

Frankie Yankovic! I’m impressed.

4 Bert Stratton { 12.20.23 at 5:11 pm }

“Three bar mitzvahs” was the total from my school friends. Specifically, Markowitz, Rosenberg and Husock. At least, I think that’s the number. One party was at the Stardust Ballroom, Cedar Lee. Another was at the Somerset Inn, Northfield Rd. Btw, I changed “Kinsman Avenue,” to “Kinsman Road,” just for you, Kenny G.

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