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An 82-year-old Jewish recording legend on his film directing debut: ‘I could have been good at this’
Kenny Vance (born Kenneth Rosenberg), 82, was not quite ready to use my word “omen,” but he acknowledged that in some oblique way the destruction of his home in the Rockaways, compliments of superstorm Sandy, played a role in shaping his award-winning documentary, Heart & Soul: a Love Story.
The evocative and elegiac film pays homage to the groundbreaking and, in Vance’s view, unsung rock and doo-wop performers of the 50s. It interweaves archival footage with Vance interviewing some of its lead players, including Eugene Pitt (the Jive Five,) Arlene Smith (the Chantels) and Jimmy Merchant (Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers).
Vance is best known as the 1961 co-founder of the Billboard chart-topping group Jay and the Americans (whose signature songs included “Mia Cara,” “Come a Little Closer” and “This Magic Moment”) and, more recently, Kenny Vance and the Planotones, whose musical calling card is “Looking for an Echo.”
During his 60-plus year career, Vance has served as the musical director on Saturday Night Live (1980-’81), composed movie scores and appeared as an actor in Animal House, Eddie and the Cruisers and American Hot Wax as well as in a host of Woody Allen films, usually playing musicians or music producers.
Writing and directing a film seemed like the natural next adventure for Vance, particularly in the wake of the storm that devastated the home he had lived in for 40 years.
“The walls were all gone and most of the ceilings were gone, though the kitchen remained without a stove or fridge — looting,” he told me at the Upper East Side coffee shop where we met. “Still, I was able to climb up to my office above the kitchen to retrieve dozens and dozens of CDs wrapped in plastic bags that I had stored in my desk drawers. I took what was salvageable back to the FEMA hotel where I was staying in Staten Island and went through all of it.
“Making the film was meant to be. It was fated as if fueled by an omen,” Vance said, gently mocking my earlier word suggestion.
Tall, clad in black, and sporting sunglasses throughout our indoor meeting, he came across as very reserved, bordering on shy, yet also, paradoxically and by turns, talkative, free-wheeling and free-associative in his commentary.
Recalling his artistic mentors, many of whom appear in the film, he said, “They had a sensuality and spirituality that entered you. It’s not something you can easily describe. But as time went on, these great vocalists were seen as almost comic. They were the world of the TV show, Happy Days. But that was never what they were about.”
Their cultural significance cannot be overestimated either, Vance said. For the first time, Black and white teenagers were dancing in the same space.
“They created a youth culture that never existed before. They inspired the movies that were being made and the clothing that was worn and we’re still feeling their impact today,” he said.
Vance found that the artists he wanted to interview were eager to tell their stories, though some expressed disappointment and anger at the trajectory of their lives while others looked back nostalgically. Some voiced both sentiments.
It took close to ten years to get the film off the ground. The subject matter just didn’t resonate with investors or the festival circuit. But for Vance, it was a story that needed to be told and seen. The time was long overdue for these performers to be the stars of a film before it was too late. “They were always movie stars,” said Vance.
‘The writing was on the wall’
When I asked the Flatbush, Brooklyn native if singing had always been his career choice, he found the very concept of a “career choice” mildly amusing. His life evolved extemporaneously, at least that’s the way he made it sound.
While his mother sang on the radio and was at one time the girlfriend of Irving Fein, who would go on to manage both Jack Benny and George Burns, Vance did not grow up wanting to be a singer.
The seminal moment for him, and the scene that opens the film, happened in the 1950’s when he was a teenager attending a mega-show filled with screaming fans at the Brooklyn Paramount Theater, which was known for its legendary shows hosted and promoted by DJ Alan Freed.
“I knew I wanted to be part of that,” Vance said.
In short order, he became a member of a local band, singing in the school hallways, on neighborhood stoops and even in the subways.
“No, we were not buskers,” he said. “We just went down into the subways for their echo. But when we made eye contact with other riders, there was just a connection and we all felt it. There was a simplicity, an essence, and everyone wanted to be part of it. That was spiritual. There was a band on every street corner. That couldn’t happen today.”
At 15, he launched his first vocal group, and ultimately, after a number of band iterations, Vance forged Jay and the Americans, which enjoyed a string of hits. The band performed on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, opened for The Beatles and played the closing act following The Rolling Stones at Carnegie Hall.
“They wanted to move The Rolling Stones out of the theater unobserved, thinking if we were on stage that would keep the audience engaged, but it didn’t work that way,” said Vance. “The audience understood what was happening and when we started to sing they were running out of the theater screaming to catch up with the Rolling Stones. In the end, we were performing for an empty house.”
Vance knew this was the death knell for Jay and the Americans and groups of that ilk. They continued to perform and produce hits, but they couldn’t compete with the new breed that appeared on every major TV show and generated unprecedented press coverage. In 1974, Jay and The Americans dispersed.
“The writing was on the wall,” Vance said. “The Beatles wore Nehru suits,” We wore dickies and sweaters.”
Vance managed to thrive doing, among other things, TV jingles to earn extra money.
He produced the soundtrack for Animal House, which sold sold more than one million copies, and the one for Eddie and the Cruisers, which went triple platinum when the movie became a cult hit. In the film American Hot Wax, he played the role of “Professor La Plano” who led a fictional band, the Planotones, which inspired Vance in 1992 to create the very real Kenny Vance and the Planotones. His son, Ladd, is a band member. “We do duets and when we sing he shares a unique version of me. And to share that with him is a unique gift,” Vance told me.
‘How could these rock guys be Jews?’
I asked Vance if he were starting out today, whether he would have kept the name Rosenberg. He said that Vance has been his last name for so long he couldn’t imagine another. “Vance was cool,” he said. “We were all Jews in Jay and the Americans. But everyone assumed we were Italian. Congratulations!”
He told me he rarely discusses his connection to Jewishness — when he was growing up, his family was largely secular, though he did have a Bar Mitzvah.
For him, Jewishness is about “doing the ethical thing,” he said. “I love that. I get it. But I’m not observant. ‘I feel like a hypocrite,’ I told a friend who said, ‘if you get it, you’re not a hypocrite’”
From time to time, though, he does attend Chabad services for what he sees as their essence, purity and authenticity.
“The Lubavitch consider us orphans from the true information” he said. “Orthodox, Conservative and Reform are man-made concepts. Did Moses belong to one of those three denominations? He was an authentic Jewish person. It was his essence. I love the Talmud. When I attend services, I study the commentaries of that week’s Parsha.”
Though he never experienced heavy duty antisemitism, being Jewish on occasion made him feel like an outsider, most pointedly, he said, in the deep south during the Jim Crow days.
“After one show, a bunch of us had gathered in one of our hotel rooms, including several cops, all with guns and sitting there in their undershirts. They were playing cards with some of the guys from the band. We were in a relaxed situation and one of them said, ‘Hey, what are you?’ and one of the guys said, ‘We’re the Chosen.’ I thought I was going to die when he said that, but then the cops started laughing. I didn’t realize it at the time, but the fact that we would be Jews was so far off the radar, they thought it was a joke. How could these rock guys be Jews? It was absurd. I knew we had entered a different reality.”
‘I started to cry’
As we left the restaurant and walked down the street, Vance told me that he’d never imagined that he’d ever be a filmmaker, but now he thinks that his debut documentary may just be his most potent legacy.
“When they showed it on PBS, I started to cry in the middle of it,” he said. “I was so happy to see Eugene Pitt, Wally Roker and Arlene Smith starring in a movie that was on TV. They are stars on screen.”
“I could have been good at this,” he said wistfully, then added, “I’ve been told I belong in The Guinness World Records as the oldest director making a debut.”
Heart & Soul is available on DVD and on various streaming platforms including Fandango and Plex.
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Mamdani orders review of whether New York can arrest Netanyahu when he visits this fall
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has revived one of his most controversial election promises, raising once again the prospect of arresting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when he comes to New York in September for the United Nations General Assembly. It’s a move that legal experts say Mamdani is unlikely to be able to carry out.
In a video interview with The New York Times published Saturday, Mamdani said he ordered a review by the city’s Law Department to consider his options to comply with an International Criminal Court arrest warrant. “Whatever the law allows me to do in New York City, that’s what we will do. But we won’t be writing our own laws to that end,” Mamdani said, remarks that drew a strong online reaction.
In a post to social media on Sunday, Netanyahu’s office dismissed concerns of a possible arrest, calling the ICC a “kangaroo court” and saying that “Mamdani should focus on fixing the damage his policies have caused New York.” In an interview last week, Netanyahu said Mamdani “hates America.”
The United States does not recognize the court’s authority over American citizens or foreign nationals on U.S. soil, and the federal government could likely challenge the legitimacy of such an order.
Mamdani’s statement reflects the tension that has defined his first months in office: balancing the activist politics that propelled him to City Hall with the legal constraints and governing responsibilities of the mayor of the city with the largest Jewish population outside of Israel.
A political gift to Netanyahu
Mamdani’s actions could have unintended consequences abroad.
Former U.S. ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro, who has frequently criticized Netanyahu, warned that even a failed attempt to arrest the prime minister would likely strengthen Netanyahu politically in a tough reelection bid, set for Oct. 27.
“Many Israelis are sick of him and hope to vote him out,” Shapiro wrote on X. “The only possible outcome of a fruitless attempt to arrest him in NYC would be to give him a political boost at home. That would be an own goal.”
Recent polls show that Netanyahu, seeking a seventh term in office, is trailing an opposition bloc led by two contenders — former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and former IDF chief Gadi Eisenkot.
A confrontation with New York’s outspoken anti-Zionist mayor could allow Netanyahu to cast himself once again as Israel’s defender against international efforts to isolate and punish the country. Netanyahu already labeled Mamdani as someone who “champions” Hamas and “apologizes” for Iran.
That message could resonate even with Israelis who oppose him. American Jewish opinion illustrates the same complexity. While recent polling shows many American Jews view Netanyahu unfavorably, and that Mamdani is more popular with that group, that has not translated into support for an attempt to arrest Israel’s elected leader.
A Honan Strategy Group poll in December found that although 40% of New York City voters believed Mamdani had a moral obligation to uphold international human rights standards by ordering Netanyahu’s arrest, seven in 10 of the 131 Jewish respondents said doing so would damage New York’s global standing.
In the end, Mamdani may be able to avoid acting at all by pointing to the legal opinion that New York City lacks the authority to arrest Netanyahu.
The law is not on Mamdani’s side
The ICC, based in The Hague, issued arrest warrants in Nov. 2024 for Netanyahu, former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and Hamas military commander Mohammed Deif, accusing them of war crimes and crimes against humanity related to the Israel-Hamas war. Hamas confirmed in Jan. 2025 that Deif was assassinated in July 2024 by an Israeli strike on Gaza.
But even if Mamdani wanted to enforce the warrant, New York City has little authority to do so.
Because the United States is not a member of the International Criminal Court, the NYPD has no legal authority to arrest Netanyahu based on an ICC warrant. Last week, Secretary of State Marco Rubio launched a sweeping campaign of sanctions, visa bans and diplomatic pressure to “systematically disable” the ICC “brick by brick.”
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz, in a post on X, also pointed to the 1947 U.N. Headquarters Agreement, which requires the United States to allow accredited foreign representatives to attend U.N. meetings, as well as the customary international law doctrine that grants immunity to sitting heads of government traveling on official business. Netanyahu would also arrive in New York under Secret Service protection afforded to foreign leaders.
Even carrying out such an order would appear unlikely.
Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch, who is Jewish, has repeatedly kept a distance from the mayor on Israel-related issues. Her public statements on Israel have been unequivocal. In June, Tisch served as grand marshal of the annual Celebrate Israel Parade, which Mamdani skipped. “I understand that for many of you, having a Jewish police commissioner is deeply comforting,” she told Jewish leaders in May.
Mamdani’s foreign policy reach has already been limited. Last month, the U.S. State Department blocked a planned meeting between Mamdani and Colombian President Gustavo Petro in New York, a fierce Israel critic, who had his visa revoked last fall after he appeared at a pro-Palestinian rally in Manhattan and was attending a UN Security Council session under strict terms. Earlier this month, the Trump administration stopped a meeting between Ana María Archila, Mamdani’s commissioner for international affairs, and Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations.
Why does Mamdani keep talking about it?
While the legal answer is largely settled, the political one is not.
By keeping the question open, Mamdani signals support to the pro-Palestinian movement that fueled his rise, while acknowledging the institutional limits of his office.
Targeting Netanyahu was central to Mamdani’s mayoral campaign. After leading chants of “Netanyahu, you can’t hide, we charge you with genocide,” during a protest in Oct. 2023, Mamdani first pledged to arrest Netanyahu shortly after he declared his candidacy. He later repeated the pledge, including in front of Jewish audiences, arguing that he did not want New York to be a place where leaders accused of war crimes felt welcome.
The approach follows a similar pattern Mamdani confronted with a politically charged issue earlier this year. As anti-Jewish incidents continue to make up a majority of reported hate crimes, the city considered placing buffer zones around houses of worship, spurred in part by a November protest outside the Park East Synagogue that included antisemitic slogans.
After expressing reservations about the legislation, Mamdani referred the bill to the city’s Law Department before ultimately allowing it to become law without his signature, only after the City Council passed it with a veto-proof majority.
Mamdani vetoed a companion bill that would potentially limit pro-Palestinian demonstrations, particularly on campuses. (The council later passed a modified version, and the state passed a 50-foot buffer zone bill that equally applies to all community centers and schools being used for services, education and religious observance across the state.)
Mamdani’s real test
Whether Mamdani’s careful balancing act satisfies either side may become clear when Netanyahu arrives in New York this September.
While the mayor cannot dictate U.S. foreign policy or enforce ICC warrants, City Hall still plays an important role in coordinating logistics, demonstrations and municipal services during the annual gathering of world leaders.
Mamdani can influence how unwelcoming New York feels to the Israeli leader.
The Israeli prime minister’s appearance at the United Nations is expected to draw massive demonstrations, putting City Hall’s handling of protests and policing under intense scrutiny.
History suggests that symbolism matters.
In 1995, Mayor Rudy Giuliani triggered a diplomatic dispute after ejecting Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat from a United Nations anniversary concert at Lincoln Center. President Bill Clinton, protesting the move, invited the Palestinian leader to a White House reception.
For all the attention given to Netanyahu’s return to New York, he may not arrive alone. During a White House meeting last year, Netanyahu laughed off the threat as “silly” and quipped that he might travel to New York “with President Trump.” Trump responded: “I’ll get him out.”
Now, that exchange may prove to have been less a joke than a preview of where the real power lies.
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A Jewish couple fell in love with rural Oklahoma. Then they built a cemetery there.
Linda Fitzerman did not want her children making burial decisions through tears.
For years, she and her husband, Todd Boone Fitzerman, told each other they needed to settle the question. They were not interested in cremation. They wanted a traditional Jewish burial. And they did not want their children, someday, to face the cost and pressure of deciding where that burial should take place.
“They just need to show up and cry,” Linda said. “They don’t need the additional pain of having to make financial decisions.”
The answer, when it came, was not one they had expected. They created a small Jewish burial ground in Sulphur, Oklahoma, a city of about 5,000 people in the Bible Belt, near the ranch the Fitzermans bought during the pandemic and had come to love.
At Oak Lawn Cemetery, a city-owned burial ground with green grass, rolling terrain and ponds, the Fitzermans purchased a group of plots to create a circular family burial section. Four corner pillars crowned with Stars of David mark the site. Beneath the grass, the pillars are connected by buried rebar, creating a distinct boundary around the section. Linda designed the stainless steel Stars of David, which a friend welded into place.
Nearby, five young trees are taking root: two Chinese pistache trees and three Autumn Blaze maples. The Fitzermans planted them with the city’s permission and have been carefully tending them for the past year, using large water barrels to help them through the early seasons.
“We are babysitting them for at least two years,” Linda said.
The burial section was dedicated in 2025. Todd’s brother, Rabbi Marc Boone Fitzerman of Tulsa, advised them on how to create a designated Jewish space within a public cemetery. Psalms and other prayers were recited at the site. There was no minyan, Todd said, but “spiritually we are there.”
To the Fitzermans’ knowledge, no other Jew is buried in Oak Lawn Cemetery.
A pandemic, and a plan
The cemetery project grew out of a life they did not plan to build in Oklahoma. Todd, 67, and Linda, 65, are both from the Detroit area and were raised in Conservative families. They met in Dallas when their children were young and have been married for 24 years. Dallas remains home. The couple still runs a business there, Local Oven, a gluten-free baking company.
But during the long uncertainty of the COVID pandemic, they began thinking about land.
“We felt so bottled up, and we wanted to get out,” Linda said.
They first responded to an advertisement for 10 acres near water in Texas. The search widened. Todd’s son suggested that 50 acres would be enough room to shoot on the property. Eventually, Todd found 158 acres outside Davis, Oklahoma, about two hours north of Dallas. They began building a working ranch. Todd’s son keeps cattle there. The Fitzermans now divide their time between Dallas and Oklahoma, spending roughly half the week in each place.
“It is a beautiful ranch,” Linda said. “It’s very calming to be out here, really beautiful, nothing like the city.”
Todd described hearing coyotes at night, watching the cattle roam, and the pleasure of “playing cowboy” for part of the week. Linda said she had not known, when they bought the land in 2021, “how important Oklahoma was going to be.”
“It was never a plan,” she said. “It just sort of evolved.”
Their relationship with the area deepened through the people they met there. Todd and Linda said one local friend, who lives across from Oak Lawn Cemetery and owns a large construction company, helped introduce them around Sulphur when they were new. He had also acquired plots in the cemetery through a trade arrangement for excavation work. Seeing what he had done opened a possibility they had not considered.
For years, Linda said, they had found “nothing intriguing” in Dallas cemeteries. Many Jewish plots cost $7,000 or $8,000. One cemetery with a Jewish section had plots priced around $36,000.
“Why would I spend money like that?” Linda said.
In Sulphur, plots were $300 each. For $4,500 total, they could create a family burial place tailored to them.
“We finally had an opportunity that just presented itself,” Linda said.
The circle layout itself came from her memory. In Michigan, she said, part of her family is buried in an older Jewish cemetery arranged not in straight rows, but in a circular shape.
“I thought that was really nice,” she said. “I liked it.”
So Linda and Todd approached the city and asked whether they could create a Jewish cemetery section in Oak Lawn. The response, they said, was strikingly easy.
“We shared that with the city and they said, ‘Yeah, sure,’” Linda said. “I’ve never seen any place give me the green light on every question.”
The city’s one practical concern was that everything remain level enough for its crews to mow. It allowed the Fitzermans to select the location, a corner where two cemetery roads meet. It also permitted them to plant the trees on easement land beside the plots.
“The city is 100% accepting,” Linda said.
Todd put it similarly. “The city could not have been more accommodating,” he said.
The Fitzermans say their religion has never been a problem. “It is the Baptist Bible Belt,” Linda said. “Everyone here has been so willing to accept us. They are inquisitive and curious. Our religion has not been an issue for anyone.”
Todd said that not everyone in Sulphur knows they are Jewish, “but lots of people know we are Jews.” When Todd’s son held his Jewish wedding on the ranch, he said, many non-Jewish guests had never attended one before. Friends asked questions. Guests wore kippot or cowboy hats. Tallitot belonging to Todd, his father and his son’s other grandfather formed the wedding canopy.
“There were more Jews in Sulphur for my son’s wedding than ever before,” Todd said.
Peace of mind
For Linda, the cemetery’s Jewish symbols were important. She wanted the pillars to be easy to find. More than that, she wanted them to say plainly what the site was.
“When we see the pillars, they reflect what we are doing, which is our religion,” she said. “Nothing is more stately than the Jewish star.”
“Our little decor, to me, sends a really beautiful statement,” she added. “I’ve always been proud to be Jewish. I wouldn’t want to be buried any other way.”
The Fitzermans have tried to spare their children as much uncertainty as possible. They have assigned the burial titles to their children and their children’s partners, while making clear that use of the plots will remain their choice. They have also documented the practical steps to follow when the time comes, including where a body could be prepared for Jewish burial in Dallas or Oklahoma City.
“You don’t think about it until a family member is going through it,” Linda said.
She views the cemetery as a natural extension of family care. “You are always, always part of your family,” she said. “If you want these, they are there for you.”
Todd described the burial ground in similar terms. It offers “peace of mind,” he said: a final resting place in a community they love and want to be part of.
The trees, Linda noted, will eventually grow large. The Chinese pistache trees can grow to over 25 feet with age. The maples, she said, will be especially beautiful in the fall.
They hope it will be many years before the cemetery is needed.
But the question that had lingered for so long has now been answered. Their children will not have to find a plot, compare prices, choose a cemetery, or wonder whether their parents’ burial wishes were honored.
They will only have to come.
And cry.
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Why Orthodox Jews are pushing back against permanent daylight saving time
(JTA) — For many Orthodox Jews, a typical winter weekday begins early: head to synagogue, gather in a minyan for morning prayers, then rush off to work.
Orthodox Jewish groups say a bill that would make daylight saving time permanent could upend that routine by pushing winter sunrises — and the earliest permissible time for some prayers — an hour later.
Agudath Israel of America is among the groups urging the Senate to reject legislation that would make daylight saving time permanent nationwide, arguing that the change would create both public safety risks and significant challenges for Orthodox Jewish religious life.
The House passed the Sunshine Protection Act on Tuesday by a wide bipartisan margin. In a statement issued after the vote, Agudath Israel said it understood the appeal of ending the twice-yearly clock changes but opposed making daylight saving time permanent.
The Orthodox advocacy organization warned that permanent daylight saving time would push winter sunrises past 9 a.m. in some parts of the country, forcing many children to travel to school before dawn. It also said the later sunrise would make it difficult for observant Jews to attend morning synagogue services and still arrive at work or school on time, because Jewish law prohibits reciting key morning prayers before prescribed times tied to sunrise.
“The extension of DST will create an extreme hardship on observant Jews,” the organization said. “It would be extraordinarily difficult — if not impossible — to arrive on time for a job and will affect the start time of our schools.”
The Orthodox Union and the Coalition for Jewish Values have also come out against the measure.
In a column for Chabad.org that didn’t take a position on the bill, Menachem Posner also wrote that the change would present a challenge in parts of the country for morning minyan, the 10-person prayer quorum. But he also noted an upside to the extension of daylight saving: a later start time for Shabbat on short winter Fridays.
Shabbat begins at sundown, which during the winter can fall before 4:00 p.m. in parts of the country. “With DST, however, this will be shifted one hour later, so that even on the darkest day of winter, Jews will have one more hour to prepare for Shabbat,” Posner wrote.
Orthodox parties in Israel have also made an issue of changes to the daylight saving calendar. In 2011, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet unanimously approved extending daylight saving time until the first Sunday after Oct. 1, despite objections from haredi parties. The change brought Israel’s clock closer to European practice while still acknowledging Orthodox concerns about morning prayer and a later start time to Yom Kippur that they argued would make the fast more difficult.
This week Agudath Israel also pointed to the brief U.S. experiment with year-round daylight saving time during the 1970s energy crisis, when Congress repealed the policy after widespread public dissatisfaction over dark winter mornings.
The organization said it hoped the Senate would weigh the broader consequences of permanent daylight saving time, including alternatives such as permanent standard time or retaining the current system of seasonal clock changes.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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