About the Author

DAVID WEINSTEIN is a senior program officer at the National Endowment for the Humanities. He holds a PhD in American studies, has taught at the University of Maryland and George Mason University, and is the author of The Forgotten Network: DuMont and the Birth of American Television. He lives in Rockville, Maryland, with his wife and two daughters.

Reviews

"A carefully researched narrative that attempts to resituate understandings of Cantor's influence on contemporary American comedy... The Eddie Cantor Story positions Cantor as a Jewish comedian who refused to dampen his Jewishness for a mainstream American audience, rising to stardom not despite this identity, but because of his ability to make his otherness feel so familiar."-- "The American Jewish Archives Journal"

"A valuable addition to any performing arts library."
-- "Travalanche"

"According to the comedian Lenny Bruce, 'Eddie Cantor is goyish.' But why? Why was it funny to label goyish (non-Jewish) a celebrated performer, born Isidore Itskowitz, proud of his Jewish identity and unusually dedicated to Jewish causes? Among its many other virtues, David Weinstein's thorough, incisive biographical study of Cantor, focusing on his political activism and fund raising, implicitly explains why Cantor ended up as the butt of Bruce's joke. . . . I hope that Weinstein's painstaking biography will help bring more attention to this fascinating figure in American cultural history."
-- "Journal of American History"

"David Weinstein manages to make the story of Eddie Cantor's career timely, instructive, and really rather remarkable. . . . This reconsideration of the career of Eddie Cantor provides an unexpected look at a pioneer in the art of being publicly Jewish. As the old saying goes, 'Try it, you'll like it.'"
-- "Jewish Book World"