Song-and-Dance-Man Sammy Davis Jr. was teeing off on the golf course one day when his opponent asked him what his handicap was. "Handicap?" wisecracked Davis. "Talk about handicap—I'm a one-eyed Negro Jew."
Talented Performer Davis, son of a Negro vaudeville headliner of the '20s, is one-eyed as the result of an auto accident in 1954. And in the February issue of the Negro picture magazine Ebony, he tells how he became a Jew.
Raised as a Roman Catholic, Davis first became seriously interested in Judaism while he was convalescing from his accident, and was much impressed by the Jewish chaplain at San Bernardino's Community Hospital. Several years later, at a charity party for children in San Francisco, he found himself kidding with a young man whom he assumed to be a fellow entertainer. When he turned out to be a Reform rabbi, Davis was delighted. "Everything he said had meaning . . . Our casual conversation began to develop into a deep, soul-searching experience. Once more, my curiosity about Judaism was set aflame." The rabbi recommended several books. "At first, reading those books confused me. I would read a few pages, close the book, and try to figure out what the writer was saying. Little by little I began to understand."
Another rabbi in Hollywood continued his education in Judaism, and eventually Sammy decided that he wanted to become a Jew. The rabbi told him to wait for a year, and some of his Jewish friends told him he was crazy to consider it. "You have two strikes against you now," said one. "We Jews have been oppressed for more than 5,000 years, and all of a sudden why do you want to get into the act? Quit while you're ahead."
But Davis studied the Talmud and came back a year later. He sums it up: "I wanted to become part of a 5,000-year history and hold onto something not just material, which would give me that inner strength to turn the other cheek. Jews have become strong over their thousands of years of oppression, and I wanted to become part of that strength. As a Negro, I felt emotionally tied to Judaism. Certainly the background of my people and their history cannot be compared to that of Judaism, but the same oppression and obstacles thrown in our way were overcome by a greater force than mere tenacity ... I wanted to become a Jew because Judaism held an honesty and spiritual peace that was lacking in my personal makeup . . . "I became a Jew because I was ready and willing to understand the plight of a people who fought for thousands of years for a homeland, giving their lives and bodies, and finally gaining that homeland."