Randy Savage, who was known as "The Macho Man," died in a car accident this morning in Florida. Randy's brother, Lanny Poffo (also a former pro wrestler) told TMZ that Randy had a heart attack while driving and lost control of the car.
Randy Savage was born as Randall Mario Poffo in Columbus, Ohio. His father Angelo Poffo was Italian, but his mother Judy was Jewish making Randy Savage Jewish according to Jewish law. So, was Randy Savage Jewish? Yes.
I remember thinking how cool it was that before Randy "Macho Man" Savage was a pro wrestler, he was a baseball player. Savage played minor league baseball as an outfielder for minor league teams of the St. Louis Cardinals, Cincinnati Reds and Chicago White Sox.
Savage, who remarried last year, was 58 when he died in the car accident this morning. Hulk Hogan said, "He had so much life in his eyes and in his spirit, I just pray that he's happy and in a better place and we miss him."
6 comments:
Rabbi,
With all due respect, your descriptive phraseology in reference to the ethnicity of the parents of Randy Savage puzzles me. You write that the father was Italian; does this mean the father was a citizen of Italy or that his ancestery may be linked to Italy? Was the father not an American? You make no reference to the religion of the father, but you do make reference to the religion of the mother. In regards to the mother, you state she was Jewish. How is that a reference to the nation in which she was born, her citizenship, or of her ancesters' country of origin? Was she not an American?
I do not understand why the parental references in regard to ethnicity are of two different catagories. I am cosistently and constantly amazed at the frequency in which this type of thing occurs in our society.
With response to Roland. Your blog profile indicates you like "50's and 60's" music. Do you mean the 1750's and 1760's , the 1850's and 1860's? Also you indicate that you like Psychology and Sociology textbooks. High school textbooks? College textbooks?
Roland,
You pose a good point here. I should have stated that Randy Savage's mother was born Jewish and his father was born Catholic.
I remembered hearing when I was a kid that Randy Savage was Jewish so when he died I verified the information at Wikipedia where it says that his father was an Italian-American and his mother was Jewish. I obviously should have been more clear. My intention was to show that Randy Savage was Jewish from a strictly halakhic (Jewish legal) definition (i.e., his mother was Jewish).
In the "Floridian," there's an article that tells how Randy Savage's parents met and includes the fact that his mother was Jewish:
Angelo, having returned home from the Navy, enrolled in DePaul University in Chicago. One day, he slipped on the parallel bars while working out, and his foot whacked the shoulder of an attractive co-ed walking by. "So that was it, I had to marry her," he says.
He was older, but due to the war, she was a year ahead, a sophomore, in college on a diving scholarship. They joked about the mishap, started dating, and were married after Judy's senior year in 1949. It was a hard sell to his deeply Catholic parents, because Judy is Jewish.
"At the reception," Judy says, "all the Jewish people were on one side of the room, and all the Catholics were on the other, and his mother said to him in Italian, 'What have you done?' "
Thank you very much, Rabbi. I sincerely appreciate your response. I am aware of several religious intermarriages, quite a few of which involve those of the Catholic religion and those of the Jewish religion.
I also understand that the reference of Randy Savage being Jewish through maternal lineage is derived strictly from halachic law. As you know, Reform Judaism, which is the branch of Judaism that I observe, has several differences from Orthodoxy and from the Conservative movement, one of which is that a child is considered Jewish if either parent, father or mother, is Jewish. I like what my friend, Lubavitcher Rabbi Yossi Shemtov of Toledo, says - "A Jew is a Jew."
Again, I thank you for your reply.
Thank you very much, Rabbi. I sincerely appreciate your response. I am aware of several religious intermarriages, quite a few of which involve those of the Catholic religion and those of the Jewish religion.
I also understand that the reference of Randy Savage being Jewish through maternal lineage is derived strictly from halachic law. As you know, Reform Judaism, which is the branch of Judaism that I observe, has several differences from Orthodoxy and from the Conservative movement, one of which is that a child is considered Jewish if either parent, father or mother, is Jewish. I like what my friend, Lubavitcher Rabbi Yossi Shemtov of Toledo, says - "A Jew is a Jew."
Again, I thank you for your reply.
"Eat my warm bagel!" Jews suck.
Post a Comment