My Inspiration

In 1954, entertainer Sammy Davis, Jr. almost died in a car accident where he lost his left eye. While in the hospital, his friend Eddie Cantor enlightened him on the similarities between the Jewish and black cultures. While he convalesced, Davis had time to reflect and to engage in long conversations with a rabbi at the hospital. Davis later said that he found many parallels between the challenges Jews and black Americans faced, both historically and contemporarily. This deep reflection led Davis to convert to Judaism, a calling he embraced throughout his life--and characteristically worked in as fodder for his act, joking that he was entertainment's only one-eyed Jewish black man.

It was not long after his conversion, and he refused to work on Yom Kippur. The director of the movie “Porgy and Bess” got angry and called the legendary producer Samuel Goldwyn. Goldwyn immediately called Sammy and wanted to know if it was true about his refusing to work. Sammy said that, as a Jew he could not work on the Day of Atonement. There was silence for a moment, with Goldwyn no doubt noting that stopping production would cost $30,000, a large sum then. Finally, Goldwyn (who was also Jewish) said, "Bless you." Production on the film was stopped for Yom Kippur.