Remembering Singer Tony Bennett and His Jewish Connections

When legendary singer Tony Bennett died Friday at the age of 96, it didn't take long for The Forward and The Algemeiner newspapers to come up with his connections to Jewish life.

As Dan Epstein wrote in The Forward,

Throughout his eight-decade post-war career as a singer, performer and recording artist, Bennett regularly employed his melodic gifts and mellifluous phrasing in service of songs composed by many of the 20th century’s great Jewish songwriters. In fact, quite a few of the Jewish-penned numbers in Bennett’s discography were particularly significant for him — not just as chart hits, but as key career turning points and cornerstones of his lasting musical legacy.

These songs include Rags to Riches by Richard Adler and Jerry Ross, The Best is Yet to Come by Cy Coleman and Carolyn Leigh, Chicago by Fred Fisher, Our Love is Here to Stay by George and Ira Gershwin, and White Christmas by Irving Berlin.

In The Algemeiner, Shiryn Ghermezian wrote:

The I Got Rhythm singer was not Jewish but his daughter, vocalist Antonia Bennett, converted to Judaism in 2013. She married Ronen Helmann, a native Israeli, and together they gave the late singer a Jewish granddaughter named Maya in May 2016.

Bennett was drafted in the US Army at the age of 18 in 1944, and was part of the 255th Regiment that during World War II liberated the Kaufering concentration camp in Landsberg, which was 30 miles south of the Dachau concentration camp in Germany.

In September 2014 Bennett visited Israel and performed for 90 minutes in Tel Aviv's Mann Auditorium. Here's Tony singing The Way You Look Tonight by Jerome Kern and Dorothy Fields from that show.

Enjoy!

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