NEVER AGAIN IS NOW!
Forever in blue jeans
Perusing through the New York Times archives dating back to 1851 reveals that the phrase, “As American as Apple Pie” appears over 1,500 times. In 1924 an advertisement in the Gettysburg Times used the phrase to market American made suits, and during World War II, soldiers told journalists that they were fighting for “mom and apple pie”.
There is only one problem: Neither Apple pie nor apples themselves are indigenous to America.
Recipes for Apple Pie can be found in British cookbooks as early as 1381.
Apple trees had not graced our shores until over two centuries later, with seedlings brought by French Jesuits and British Pilgrims. Half a millennium later, iconic American orchardist John Chapman, aka Johnny Appleseed, began his apple tree planting obsession.
On the other hand, blue jeans are indigenous to America, from sea to shining sea.
Neither Christopher Columbus, Amerigo Vespucci, nor our Founding Fathers ever wore them, saw them, or heard of them. The blue jean was invented, promoted, commercialized, and disseminated by Americans.
PROUD JEWISH AMERICANS!
The most recent popularization of the iconic American blue jean and subsequent media meltdown was cleverly taken advantage of by American Eagle.
Is it possible that the marketing geniuses at America Eagle knew exactly what they were doing? Did they predict that the backlash from pseudo-sophisticated socialist elites would provide free marketing, skyrocketing sales, and a 23% stock surge?
MUCH ADU ABOUT NOTHING.
Purple-haired tattooed TikTok trendsetters, unemployed late-night TV talk show hosts, and a slew of progressive politicians are losing their minds over American Eagle’s Sydney Sweeny ad.
This reaction epitomizes Shakespeare’s “Much Ado About Nothing,” which is exactly what the left-wing response represents.
In Shakespeare’s play, Benedict misogynistically refers to women as having, “sharp tongues and proneness to sexual lightness”, and Shakespeare’s Beatrice is a sexy, feisty, sharp-witted protofeminist.
Let’s face it, Sex sells. Always has. Always will.
The progressives praised Target’s Trans crusade, and the LGBGTQ+ marketing campaigns by Budweiser and Jaguar. Following these controversial maneuvers, Target’s sales fell for the first time in six years; Bud Light’s stock plummeted and lost its position as the top-selling beer in the US, and Jaguar’s wokeness resulted in plunging sales.
Could it be true that Conservatism is cool, and Woke is broke?
At the center of all the furor were references to “Der Führer.”
Allegations of fascism, white supremacy, Nazis, and eugenics tsunamied their way into the left-leaning legacy media and cyberspace psychos.
Really? Hitler?
American Eagle was founded in 1977 by (Jewish) JERRY & MARK SILVERMAN.
They later partnered with the Orthodox Jewish SHOTTENSTEIN FAMILY. Sound familiar? They financed the best-selling Shottenstein Edition of the Babylonian Talmud.
Borrowing the America Eagle homonyms, Jews have good genes and good jeans.
LEVI STRAUSS introduced “Levi’s” in 1853, the same year he became a proud American citizen. Levi’s partner, Jewish tailor JACOB DAVIS invented and patented the process of using rivets to reinforce work pants.
LEVI helped establish Congregation Emanu-El, the first synagogue in San Francisco. Before and after Levi’s death, his philanthropic efforts included special funds for orphans and 28 college scholarships. Today his descendants are the largest shareholders of Levi Strauss Co. and Levi’s remain the number one selling blue jean in America.
In 1899, Kansas City Jew DANIEL COWDEN partnered with Henry David Lee to establish the Lee Mercantile Company, and “Lee Jeans” were born. Cowden retired as vice-president and general manager of Lee enterprises in 1919.
James Dean propelled sales of Lee Jeans by sporting them in both Giant, and Rebel Without a Cause.
In 1923, German Jew HENRY I. SIEGEL founded the Honesdale Manufacturing Company in New York. The company mainly produced durable clothing for plantation workers. After his death in 1949, his 19-year-old son JESSE SIEGEL began producing fashionable jeans. Using his father’s initials, HIS Jeans was born and became the third-largest manufacturer of women’s jeans in America.
Around the same time, “Wrangler Authentic Western Jeans” were designed by the first celebrity Western-wear designer, BERNARD “Rodeo Ben” LICHTENSTEIN, a Jewish tailor from Lodz. He collaborated with cowboys to design jeans suitable for rodeo use. His customers were broncobusters, barrel-racers, calf-ropers, and bull-riders. Assisted by his son, Gerson—nicknamed “Rodeo Ben Jr.”—he was soon designing finely tailored outfits for rodeo performers such as trick-shot artist Mamie Francis, and silver-screen cowboys Tom Mix, Gene Autry, and Roy Rogers. Under Lichtenstein’s guidance, the Wrangler classic “Original Cowboy Cut” jean was born.
A problem arose: most American body-types were struggling to fit into these new, more stylish jeans and the introduction of IRV ROBBINS & BERT BASKIN’S Baskin and Robbins and REUBEN MATTUS’S creation of Häagen-Dazs didn’t help!
The solution: FELICE LIPPERT, an obese kosher New Yorker with a degree in home economics had heard that JEAN NIDETECH (pictured), a Jewish mother, and housewife was working on an affordable diet program. In 1963, they together founded Weight Watchers. The first Weight Watchers class charged participants $2.00 per meeting. By the 1970’s annual revenues had grown to $50 million.
Meanwhile across the Atlantic, an Italian Jew named ADRIANO GOLDSCHMIED transformed common man’s trousers into a garment of the affluent, ushering in Euro-flashy “designer” jeans in 1970.
In 1974, Gap owners DONALD & DORIS FISHER transitioned from selling only Levi’s to introducing their own private-label GAP Jeans.
The Fishers were major contributors to a national network of low-income, high-achieving college preparatory public charter schools.
Fisher also served on the California State Board of Education and contributed to many Bay Area Jewish causes, including the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco and the S.F.-based Jewish Community Federation and Endowment Fund.
DON SHAPIRO now 93, introduced his high-end “Action West Jeans” in El Paso, Texas, popular from 1977 until 1991. The company, once employing thousands, has since faded like jeans do, but they can be found on Poshmark, ETSY, and other fine on-line and vintage clothing stores near you.
In 1978, CALVIN KLEIN, the son of immigrants from Austria-Hungary (now Ukraine), jumped aboard the blue-jean bandwagon, recruiting a young Brooke Shields as his Sydney Sweeny of the day.
The same year, JORDACHE (owned by the Sephardic Nakash family from Tel Aviv), followed suit. Both Klein and Jordache used sexy marketing techniques to focus sales on non-cowboys including Brooke Shields.
Just as we were enjoying our sexy slim-fit jeans, BEN COHEN & JERRY GREENFIELD introduced Ben and Jerry’s, once again tainting the sexy slim fit jean market.
The solution: S. DANIEL ABRAHAM, raised in an Orthodox Zionist Jewish home, introduced, “a fat-free, carbohydrate-free, animal-based fortified cherry-flavored protein supplement formula” and called it Slim Fast.
In 1981, Guess jeans were introduced in Los Angeles by the MARCIANO BROTHERS—Maurice, Paul, Armand, and Georges of Moroccan Jewish Ancestry.
They were raised in an observant Jewish household in Marseilles, France and lived in an apartment housed within a synagogue complex. Their father, grandfather, and great-grandfather were all rabbis.
Paul is a major benefactor of the largest Sephardic Synagogue in Los Angeles, Em Habanim.
To appeal to young, sexy clientele Guess used supermodels, frequently introduced by Guess before experiencing fame, fortune, and international acclaim.
These included Anna Nicole Smith (pictured), Claudia Schiffer, Naomi Campbell, Eva Herzigova, Laetitia Casta, Carré Otis, Paris Hilton, Carla Bruni,
and in 2021, you guessed it, Sydney Sweeny. Today, Guess jeans are available in over 100 countries.
And the Jewish Jean Competition continues…
DONNA KARAN, whose father was a Jewish tailor, introduced DKNY Jeans in 1990. A few years later, RALPH LAUREN, the son of Jewish immigrants from Belarus introduced Polo Jeans.
More recently, weight loss gurus have discovered the “Magic Fit-Back-Into-My-Blue Jeans Pill,” making DANIEL J. DRUCKER renowned and revered.
His discovery of the biological actions of GLP-1 paved the way for the development of weight loss drugs. Drucker is the son of Holocaust survivors and identifies himself as a “proud Jewish scientist.”
Before any attempts are made to medicate ourselves into our jeans, exercise is paramount, as epitomized by pioneering Jewish bodybuilding legends DAN LAURIE and JOE WEIDER. Weider, known as the “Father of Bodybuilding,” launched the career of Arnold Schwarzenegger.
So now that you know the history of Jewish genes in the jean industry,
get motivated, get in shape, take those vintage jeans out of storage, and pull out your 1980’s “Body by Jake” workout videos produced by JAKE STEINFELD.
Steinfeld, referred to as, “the more muscular Jewish guy from New York” by the Los Angeles Times, served as Chairman of the California Governor’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports under Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.
If you can’t find those videos, or no longer have a machine to play them on, put on your ankle weights and jog on over to one of the 700 Gold’s Gym locations in 27 countries, founded in 1965 by
JOE GOLD, the child of Jewish Belarus immigrants.
Joe is credited with building his own training equipment and establishing a gym culture that attracted legendary figures including Arnold Schwarzenegger, Lou Ferrigno, and Dave Draper.
A decade later Gold founded World Gym, which today has 250 locations spanning six continents. Joe passed away in 2004, and in his honor, the Joe Gold Lifetime Achievement Award is an annual recognition to individuals who have made significant contributions to the fitness industry.
Among the many Jewish contributions to (literally) the fabric of American culture, the blue Jean serves as a timeless reminder that happiness can often be found in seemingly simple things. Cotton Incorporated’s Lifestyle Monitor™ research finds that women, on average own 7.2 pairs of blue jeans, 68% of women prefer to go places where they can wear them and 50% of women think a good-looking guy looks sexiest in denim jeans and a casual shirt.
Neil Diamond, the son of poor Jewish polish and Russian immigrants declared that “the simple things are really the important things”,
and Diamond said it in poetry and song:
“And honey’s sweet
But it ain’t nothin’ next to baby’s treat.
And if you’ll pardon me, I’d like to say.
We’d do okay, forever in blue jeans.”
From, “Forever in Blue Jeans” by Neil Diamond. 1979
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