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You Don't Have to Be Jewish

You Don't Have to be Jewish is a 1965 comedy album written by Bob Booker and George Foster, the team behind the 1962 comedy album The First Family.[2]

You Don't Have to Be Jewish

1964 (1964)

14 June 1964

Bob Booker
George Foster

Production[edit]

The album features Lou Jacobi, Betty Walker, Jack Gilford, Joe Silver, Jackie Kannon, Bob McFadden, Frank Gallop, and Arlene Golonka,[3] in a variety of roles, mostly Jewish, performing a mixture of jokes and comedy sketches. The album was recorded with a live audience, as the cast performed a script, like a radio play.[4]

Reception[edit]

The album was highly successful, with syndicated columnist Walter Winchell calling the album "the No. 1 seller in Suburbia" and noting that as a popular gift "it has replaced the fountain pen at Bar Mitzvahs."[5]

Sequel[edit]

A sequel, When You're in Love, the Whole World is Jewish, largely reunited the original cast but replaced the unavailable Golonka with her roommate,[6] Valerie Harper.[7]

Name[edit]

"You Don't Have to be Jewish to love Levy's" was an advertising campaign for Levy's rye bread that began in 1961 and ran through the 1970s.[8]