Billy Joel - Q&A: Your German Jewish Origins? (Nuremberg 1995)
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 4 ต.ค. 2024
- Throughout the years, Billy Joel has become known for his willingness to hold Q&A sessions with fans in settings across the globe. Here Billy answers a question about his German-Jewish family origins in Nuremberg, Germany in 1995.
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Billy Joel's official TH-cam channel features music videos, live performances, interviews, TV appearances and more. Best known for his first hit song, 'Piano Man', in 1973, Billy has written and recorded thirty-three Top 40 hits in the United States. He is a six-time Grammy Award winner, a 23-time Grammy nominee and one of the world's best-selling artists of all time, having sold over 150 million records worldwide. Billy Joel is the sixth-best-selling recording artist and the third-best-selling solo artist in the United States.
He's a great storyteller
Billy has talked about going with his Catholic friends as a boy to confession. He learned the routine and would make up sins to confess, just for fun. He said as he got older his made-up sins got more outrageous until the priests caught on.
Billy Joel interrupting his story routine to bitch about being circumsized makes me like him even more
He has previously described it as they snip the tip.
"I got the snip"
🤣
Was he talking about circumcision? Just asking. 😂😂😂
3:06
Liam Gallagher And he couldn’t play the piano for a year afterwards!
@@lucyfoster4082 When after being eight days old?
Billy Joel is one of the greatest Jewish songwriters of all time along with Bob Dylan and Paul Simon.
+Ben Simon Burt Bacharach/Carole King/Neil Diamond/Leiber-Stoller/Mann-Weil....the list goes on and on. May God Bless all these writers who really have influenced my whole life. My bucket list includes an ancestry search and hopefully finding out I have a drop or two as well;-)
Ben Simon I totally agree with you
I should have included Leonard Cohen too.
Ben Simon another amazing Jewish singer( who started out In a Bais yaacov) is Barbara Streisand
Uh, what about Joey Ramone and Bruce Springstein?
Can't believe no-one's talking about him growing up in Levittown of all places
This is one of me and my friend’s favorite bits because I’m Irish/Italian American and he’s Jewish-Italian American both with Families from New York, and for him especially, this hits way too close to home.XD It’s also really nice to be reminded of our roots since we live in Oklahoma of all places
This was the roots for most of us of that age era that grew up on Long Island...I believe that is why we are all such a close knit Island of people, we all shared this commonality in the days of simpler times. We all boast about what a great time & place to grow up !!
There are a lot of us out here who are of Jewish ethnicity (myself included), but whose ancestors either “passed” as something else to avoid persecution (such as during the years leading up to the Holocaust), married outside of the faith, or became secular. Many people often tie Jewishness and Judaism together, but there are a lot of us who are non-practicing, or weren’t brought up directly in the diaspora/culture, so we don’t exactly fit the stereotype. It’s a little like being on the outside looking in, but sticking one foot just inside the door, if you get what I’m saying. Definitely a different perspective to have.
I never liked his music very much but he sounds like a nice guy and I hope he's doing alright these days. Who am I kidding, he was huge and he probably still is to his fans.
I always though Billy was Italian.
"We all ended up as hippies" 😂 brilliant 👍🏻👍🏻 🥰
Love this - but question- How are they understanding him? Is their English good enough or do they have someone writing his responses in German?
+Janine Humphries Never been to Germany, but from what I read, most folks in ALL European countries, speak 2 languages, if not more! It's a shame our arrogance here in the states, doesn't make it mandatory for us to do likewise.
I'm originally from NJ and been to this music hall before but not to Billy Joel speak/answers thing here. I saw Billy Joel on a different occasion, USO Army show for the Troops 94' at Soldiers Field in Nuremberg. A lot Germans understand English because they have to take it in school!
ALL of the audience ppl. had a few years of English at school. While many of them ppl. reacted like Billy Joel in school, many if not most at least understand English well enough to follow his story, as you can hear from the timing of the laughs.
Well, I can say I had no problem to understand him without ever living in an English speaking country and I guess most younger people have better English skills than I do. However, for some older it might be difficult as English was less common at school in the early years of German federal republic and also in the GDR. It seems they have some interpreters there.
Fun fact: The lady asking had a very heavy local accent and manner of asking (little bit rude and rather straight/direct) which is a strong contrast to his story of international New York suburbia.
Polish German ..:)
שלום שלום עם ישראל חי
👍✌
shalom shalom am Israel Chai
As Jewish, I will never step in Germany. I’ve had enough; Antisemitism is rising there. They didn’t learn their lesson.
Joel, like Dilan, can clasify himself as a cosmopolitan as much as he wants, but their roots are stronger than them. I knew that he is a Jew much before I saw this video, for the simple fact that his whole composition is Jewish, whether he admits it or not.
Dylan
It's not to be in the dock, maybe he does not know about it exactly himself, maybe Iam underestimating him here and why not let him be Jewish New York cosmopolitan and whatever musician he wants to be? If you reclaim the music as Jewish, who should complain about? It remains just good music and it would be unlikely if there would be no influence from his background at all. So who should disagree? It seems to me in his answer he just tries to avoid to be put in a single and simple category and I think he is doing well especially in Nuremberg. It is a very gentle and sophisticated answer to an offensive question and he does not reject his background at all when telling his early experiences of stupid prejudice.
@@florianmeier3186 Agree.
What does "whether he admits it or not" mean, did you not watch the video to hear his explanation?
I am of Irish descent on my father's side and English on my mother's and both are/were Roman Catholics and I was christened without any say in the matter, but like Billy I have a mind of my own and am now an atheist.
@@seanscanlon9067 Judaism is different
richard joel's cousin... of course he's a jew.
@Voracious Reader I think I know who she is referring to. Only a few people would know who Richard is.
Leave it to the Germans to ask about his “jewish identity”....still....they must be watched..still after all these years!
You lost me here! You see Billy Joel talking about his jewish indentity in the NY/NYC Q and A videos! Weird dude und Prost...
Just like Americans have to be watched for not starting to lynch blacks again?
Yes, this question was a bit rude, but it is a general part of German culture to get to the point sometimes a bit inpolite and disrespectful. On the other hand, the question was handled very well by Mr Joel and we got an interesting story.
btw, Billy Joels dad moved back to Germany since he couldn't stand living in "uncultured" America. Nowadays, Billy Joels brother is a famous conductor in Germany. So all in all, the Joels certainly seem to feel safe in Germany.
Leave it to a German to be interested about Billy’s Jewish lineage 😂
Too deep for anyone non Jewish to understand
the point is -- billy -your mother lied.
He never embraced his Jewish heritage.
His father left the family. Things like that can screw you up. Plus his parents never raised him with a Jewish identity.
that’s not true.
Isnt his father austrian?
Kangoroos you know.
The Joel family ran a textile trade business in Nürnberg and Berlin. But they were forced to sell it to Josef Neckermann, a NSDAP party member, as Jews were not allowed to run trade businesses anymore. They managed to flee from Switzerland to the Caribbean to New York, losing all of their money. Billy Joel's father then became a soldier in the USA, and briefly returned to Germany, before Billy was born. Later Billy's father migrated "back" to Europe, hence the song Vienna waits for you. He remarried and had children, one of them now the chief conductor of of the Vienna Orchestra.
If you want to know more look for "The Joel Files", a documentary about his family being forced to sell their business to Neckermann, and how they met with the Neckermann family.
@@schusterlehrling It is the Neckermann brand, that is still quiet big in business? That catalogue?
@@Martina-Kosicanka yes, Neckermann acquired his business by virtue of taking over companies that their Jewish owners were forced to sell. His good relations to the Nazi movement paid off and he thus grew to become a big name. He did not even bother to pay the low compensations the Nazi laws left to the Jews.
@@schusterlehrling Thanks for your answer. World is full of injustice :/ I guess, that it is too late to punish a brand for its past, since nowadays owners are probably next generation.
Aragorn Ellessar *sobs in geography and wipes tears away in I’m part Austrian*