Understanding the Jewish x Italian Handshake

Also known as the Pacino/Caan Rule

If you follow me on Instagram, you’ve maybe seen me make mention something called the Jewish x Italian Handshake. A few people have asked me if that’s really a thing, and all I can do is look at them and ask them if they think it’s really a thing.

Because, no, it’s not. There wasn’t a meeting hundreds of years ago where a few Jewish people and a couple of Italians got together and decided on this idea that Jews could play Italians and Italians could play Jews and we should all be OK with that. Instead, it’s just something that happened naturally over time. And it could all be summed up in one scene from The Sopranos.

One of the best things about The Sopranos that real heads truly get is that it’s one of the funniest shows ever. I could give a long list of reasons why, but to keep things tight, I’ll just mention the way the show utilizes silence is golden. The quiet second or two after a certain line on that show goes further than most dialogue on other shows does. And, to me, it’s best represented in a scene during the infamous “Columbus Day” episode. I won’t go into the whole synopsis, because either you’ve seen it or you haven’t. But basically, Tony’s gang is trying to shame the Native Americans by threatening to smear “The Crying Indian,” the actor known as Iron Eyes Cody, for actually being Italian. The Council Chairman balked at the idea, and as Tony’s middleman in the whole thing tells him, “most Native Americans don't give a flying fuck. It's like knowing James Caan isn't Italian.” When Tony hangs up, Silvio asks what was said on the phone call, and Tony repeats the Caan thing. There’s silence. I always love the silence because it looks like Silvio is taking in the fact that Jimmy Caan, Sonny Corleone himself, isn’t Italian.

Caan, may his very tough memory be a blessing, was Jewish. But he played an iconic Italian character, and as I’ve been told by more than a few of my Italian friends, that’s fine.

The Corleone siblings are the perfect way to look at the Jewish x Italian Handshake, because, on the other side, you’ve got Al Pacino. Al has played a blind guy, a Cuban, Jimmy Hoffa, a Gucci family member, a number of iconic cop roles and…Shylock.

Yeeesh. Shylock. Woof. What a tough one that is. Old hook nose, Pound of Flesh, convert from Judiasim to Christianity himself. That’s not just playing a Jew; Pacino played the most controversial Jewish character ever. Shakespeare’s moneylender who’d go on to influence nearly every anti-Semitic caricature and idea in the play’s wake is still a tough one to pull off. And yet, I’m totally fine that Pacino played him. First, because Al is the best. Second, I’d almost rather a Jew not play the all-time stereotypical greedy Jewish character of them all. Third, the Jewish x Italian handshake makes it OK.

So what is it? What is the Jewish x Italian Handshake? I guess you could start with the look. Take 2021’s House of Gucci. Hilarious movie. Jared Leto playing a character that I could only describe as a drunk Wario? Iconic. And, of course, there’s Lady Gaga, Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta herself, as the star of the movie. People didn’t love her performance, and they have that right. But the second she showed up on the screen, I gasped. I thought to myself, wow, she’s playing every Russian Jewish mother I knew in the 1980s. It’s an incredible performance if you look at it from that angle. Otherwise…maybe not so much.

Ultimately, the Jewish x Italian Handshake is just about good casting calls more than anything else. The 2020 movie Shiva Baby is a perfect example. The star, Rachel Sennott, isn’t Jewish, but I had to check. She looks like she could be, and her first name is Rachel, but she’s Italian. Lorraine Bracco in Goodfellas as Karen Hill née Friedman also OK. When I interviewed her a few years ago, Bracco and I discussed the role, and she told me that part of the reason she got the role in the first place was that she told Martin Scorsese that she grew up in a very Jewish part of Long Island, and she understood the role from that. Flip it around, and take a lesser-known actor like Louis Guss. I’m pretty, pretty, prettttty sure when you saw him in The Godfather or Moonstruck you didn’t have any doubts that he was for sure Italian, but I’d say guess again if the name doesn’t tip you off.

I mention Guss because he wasn’t anywhere as famous as Lady Gaga or James Caan, but I see him as the perfect example of why the Jewish x Italian Handshake isn’t a thing…but it also is. At least it was. Maybe it’s a little harder today, but the simple answer is that Jews and Italians were around each other a lot when both groups started coming to America in larger numbers. Do we sometimes look alike? I mean, I don’t want to bring up certain stereotypes, but in this case, it makes sense for casting. I’ve seen some great noses on Italian people and I wonder “Are we related?” Lady Gaga’s hair in House of Gucci, also, has the same color and texture as a lot of Jewish people I’ve known. And accents, also, play a part in it. The very blue-collar urban accent, especially from New York City, was one a number of immigrant groups picked up throughout the 20th century, so if you hear a Jew and Italian from Queens or Brooklyn talking, you might have a difficult time telling which one is which.

Closeness is a big part of it. These groups were close together in places like New York or Philadelphia. And in Chicago, my favorite example of the greatest of all handshakes, is the city’s famous hot dog. When you look at the construction of the Chicago Style Dog, you see a literal garden of ingredients. But take a step back, and you see the influences of several cultures that all lived right by each other near Maxwell Street on the Near West Side of the city. The hot dog is supposed to be all beef, not pork. The Jewish community of the area was in the frankfurter-making business, and the most famous of all companies from there, Vienna Beef, was founded by Jews. The mustard, it’s said, is from the German community, and because Little Italy was super close to Maxwell Street—which was basically the Lower East Side of Chicago until the ‘20s or ‘30s—suddenly people who maybe hadn’t tried tomatoes before could put them on their dog. So that got added.

What I’m trying to say is that there is a closeness here. These two cultures shared a lot of space. It’s no secret, either, that the whole idea of the modern American mob wasn’t just an Italian thing, but that Meyer Lansky and the Jewish gangsters also played a huge role in what became known as the National Crime Syndicate. Then, in some cases, when both groups started making their way out of the cities and into the suburbs, Jews and Italians ended up close together again. Just drive through Long Island and you’ll get what I’m talking about.

At the end of the day, as a Jew, I do find myself complaining (kvetching) about how so many movie roles these days are filled by non-Jewish actors and actresses. Like it would make a lot of sense to me to see a Jewish woman playing Carole King in a biopic, but instead we get Daisy Edgar Jones. And I’m sure she’s a really nice person whose work I’m not familiar with, but just a name like that alone makes me feel like I’m about to be kicked out of a country club. Sorry, that’s just the truth. It’s weird to me, and I know this has been a discussion with movies from people of all different backgrounds for basically as long as Hollywood has been around and I suppose it won’t end anytime soon. But the thing that I always go back to is the Handshake.

As a Jewish person, I can look past Daniel Craig playing a Jew because I really like Daniel Craig and he’s married to Rachel Weisz, which means if the former James Bond wants to join the Tribe, I feel like we should make it a little easier on him. There are no hard, fast rules when it comes to the Jewish x Italian Handshake. In my mind, if you do a good job playing a role, and you’re respectful and you own it, then great. I’ve just always thought there was something closer to authentic in this one case, that when you need a Jewish actor and can’t find one, you get an Italian and vice versa. It just usually works better that way.