Italians are happy Jews
Maurice Sendak is artist author and illustrator born in Brooklyn, New York, to Polish-Jewish immigrant parents. He said something interesting and amusing in an interview on Fresh Air:
"...Right across the hall from us was a man called Carmine, and his sisters and brothers and his huge mother and huge father. I used to run across the hall because they had unkosher food, which was much better that kosher food--it was pasta. It was great Italian cooking! They laughed and they drank wine...and had a hell of a good time. Then you go back to my house and they have this sober 'cuisine' and not so rambunctious family life. I really had [the revelation] that Italians were happy Jews, and that I would have a choice after my barmitzvah to go with the sober sect or the happy sect. They both wore the dull black dresses--you couldn't tell the difference."
"...Right across the hall from us was a man called Carmine, and his sisters and brothers and his huge mother and huge father. I used to run across the hall because they had unkosher food, which was much better that kosher food--it was pasta. It was great Italian cooking! They laughed and they drank wine...and had a hell of a good time. Then you go back to my house and they have this sober 'cuisine' and not so rambunctious family life. I really had [the revelation] that Italians were happy Jews, and that I would have a choice after my barmitzvah to go with the sober sect or the happy sect. They both wore the dull black dresses--you couldn't tell the difference."
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