What do Benjamin Kubelsky, Israel Iskowitz and Nathan Birnbaum have in common? Ditto Julius Garfinkle, Issur Danielovich and Bernard Schwartz? Also Laszlo Lowenstein, Jill Oppenheim, Muni Weisenfreund and Betty Joan Perske?
There are at least three answers. They all are (or were) celebrated performers. All won fame using pseudonyms: namely, Jack Benny, Eddie Cantor and George Burns; John Garfield, Kirk Douglas and Tony Curtis; and Peter Lorre, Jill St. John, Paul Muni and Lauren Bacall. Most important, all are dramatic examples of the way many Jews have dissembled as a way of evading anti-Jewish sentiments while at large in gentile America.
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