She used to do this on her talk show claiming to be Puerto Rican. She’s Jewish. She does it again in this interview when asked about her birth name - she doesn’t know. She was born Sally Lowenthal. It’s weird.
Why does Sally Jessy Raphael lie about her ethnicity?
by Anonymous | reply 53 | August 3, 2024 11:50 PM |
That woman is a saint (to me).
by Anonymous | reply 1 | August 1, 2024 10:24 PM |
Who on earth watches Sally Jessy Raphael videos?
by Anonymous | reply 2 | August 1, 2024 10:28 PM |
I do r2. Next….
by Anonymous | reply 3 | August 1, 2024 10:29 PM |
Is that Bruce Vilanch?
by Anonymous | reply 4 | August 1, 2024 10:30 PM |
[quote] She used to do this on her talk show claiming to be Puerto Rican.
I recall there was an episode of her show which had a topic regarding the then new-found popularity of big butts. She said something like, when referring to Latin cultures, "I understand that is considered an erogenous part of the body in their culture", so she wasn't claiming to be Puerto Rican then.
by Anonymous | reply 6 | August 2, 2024 3:54 AM |
Send Sally to booty camp!
by Anonymous | reply 7 | August 2, 2024 3:56 AM |
Wow pushing 90 yrs old!
by Anonymous | reply 8 | August 2, 2024 4:01 AM |
Are she and Geraldo Rivera the same person?
by Anonymous | reply 9 | August 2, 2024 4:34 PM |
She also took a couple of years off her age. She's pushing 91.
by Anonymous | reply 10 | August 2, 2024 4:39 PM |
I know a Puerto Rican Jew, so it is possible.
by Anonymous | reply 11 | August 2, 2024 5:16 PM |
I did, too. She came from a whole enclave of Jews in PR.
by Anonymous | reply 12 | August 2, 2024 6:06 PM |
Where’s my damned furniture?!!
by Anonymous | reply 13 | August 2, 2024 6:24 PM |
Because she's Black!
by Anonymous | reply 14 | August 2, 2024 6:37 PM |
Yeah. Why can't she identify as Puerto Rican while Kamala can identify with whatever she wants?
by Anonymous | reply 15 | August 2, 2024 6:41 PM |
Rachel Ticotin once said "My mother's Puerto Rican and my father's Russian-Jewish so we consider ourselves to be Jewricans or Puertojews. I think Puertojew sounds like a kosher bathroom, so I prefer Jewrican."
Sally Jessy is not Puerto Rican, though, which is easy to establish via her public records and those of her parents.
by Anonymous | reply 17 | August 2, 2024 6:57 PM |
NPR had a series on people researching their genealogy in Mexico and finding out their extended family originated in Spain.
The. tombs with Stars of David were the first clue. Another clue: every house in the family had two refrigerators and two stoves.
by Anonymous | reply 18 | August 2, 2024 7:01 PM |
Sarah Lowenthal
by Anonymous | reply 19 | August 2, 2024 7:01 PM |
Sally is NOT Puerto Rican. There were multiple times on her show where she claimed to be Puerto Rican. One of them including a slur a girl used and she said, “You’re being derogatory to Puerto Ricans, what do you think I am?!” She’s basically Hilaria Baldwin. Completely full of shit and embarrassed about being a Jew.
[quote]Sally Jessy Raphael, (born Sally Lowenthal) was born on February 25, 1935 in Easton, Pennsylvania. Her grandparents were all Jewish emigrant: her paternal grandparents from Poland and Russia, and her maternal grandparents from Lithuania and Russia.
by Anonymous | reply 20 | August 3, 2024 2:34 AM |
Who cares about her ethnicity, that wig is atrocious!
by Anonymous | reply 21 | August 3, 2024 2:38 AM |
I’m gonna guess actually Samoan, considering the video evidence that she’s been giving in a lot to a predisposition for feasting on lots of taro root and roasted pork since her talkshow folded (?).
by Anonymous | reply 22 | August 3, 2024 2:48 AM |
Taco-flavored knishes
by Anonymous | reply 23 | August 3, 2024 2:54 AM |
Wow. That is strange. Her fame was always mystifying.
by Anonymous | reply 24 | August 3, 2024 3:03 AM |
I used to listen to her radio show every night when I was in high school (cue Matt Damon) and for the life of me I can’t tell you why. It was mind-numbingly dumb.
by Anonymous | reply 25 | August 3, 2024 3:07 AM |
When she sings “Oye Como Va” she sounds like my great aunt Rhoda on the Oye.
by Anonymous | reply 26 | August 3, 2024 3:11 AM |
[Quote] Her fame was always mystifying.
I KNOW RIGHT?
by Anonymous | reply 27 | August 3, 2024 3:15 AM |
She attended and graduated from Easton Area High School in Easton. She also spent time in San Juan, Puerto Rico, where her father, Jesse Lowenthal, was in the rum exporting business and her mother, Zelda Lowenthal (aka Dede Lowry), ran an art gallery. She has a younger brother, Steven Lowenthal.[3]
She spent some of her teenage years in Scarsdale, New York, where one of her first media jobs was at the local AM radio station, WFAS. The station had a program by and for junior high school students and Raphael read the news.
**She attended Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and the University of Puerto Rico in San Juan**
Raphael studied acting under the tutelage of Sanford Meisner at New York City’s Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre.[4]
She took her mother's maiden name of Raphael as her professional name and plucked the theatrical surname of Jessy from her father's family.[5]
by Anonymous | reply 28 | August 3, 2024 3:20 AM |
r23 you win this thread.
So, according to r28, she's Hilaria Baldwin before Hilaria was even born!
by Anonymous | reply 29 | August 3, 2024 3:35 AM |
And according to R20 as well.
by Anonymous | reply 30 | August 3, 2024 3:36 AM |
“I always knew her as white. Then one day she became Puerto Rican. As an old, white bigot I own your identity and this is an outrage!”
by Anonymous | reply 31 | August 3, 2024 3:41 AM |
How you say "judia que odia a si misma"?
by Anonymous | reply 32 | August 3, 2024 3:43 AM |
I deeply worry about Sally jesse Raphael's ethnicity. It matters so much to my daily life.
by Anonymous | reply 33 | August 3, 2024 3:49 AM |
Great. Then it’s good that you found this thread rather than the Marilyn Monroe statue one or the cruises—-trashy or classy? one.
by Anonymous | reply 34 | August 3, 2024 3:54 AM |
Maybe she was trying to compete with fellow talk show host Geraldo Rivera who is both Puerto Rican and Jewish and doesn’t know how to let it go.
by Anonymous | reply 35 | August 3, 2024 3:58 AM |
r25 Sally had a radio show? It must not have aired in the Seattle market or points north (I'm British Columbian) because this is the first time I've heard of it. Was it similar to her talk show?
by Anonymous | reply 36 | August 3, 2024 4:07 AM |
R36. Indeed there was. And believe me it was scintillating.
by Anonymous | reply 37 | August 3, 2024 4:08 AM |
R35 Sally Jessy didn’t have access to that safe tho!
by Anonymous | reply 38 | August 3, 2024 4:22 AM |
Puerto Rican isn’t an ethnicity dumbass.
by Anonymous | reply 39 | August 3, 2024 4:56 AM |
Tell that to JLo, r9
by Anonymous | reply 40 | August 3, 2024 5:00 AM |
I got goosebumps when she trilled the r in “Rafaela”.
by Anonymous | reply 41 | August 3, 2024 5:05 AM |
[quote] She took her mother's maiden name of Raphael as her professional name and plucked the theatrical surname of Jessy from her father's family.
But her mother’s maiden name wasn’t Raphael.
by Anonymous | reply 42 | August 3, 2024 5:07 AM |
There’s something off with her. The interview also has her saying that she would bring her kids to the radio station with bullet holes in it and have them sleep outside. They also lived in a house where they slept in sleeping bags.
by Anonymous | reply 43 | August 3, 2024 5:08 AM |
[quote] Puerto Rican isn’t an ethnicity dumbass.
“Puerto Ricans are an ethnic group and nation that are native to Puerto Rico and the Caribbean archipelago.”
by Anonymous | reply 44 | August 3, 2024 5:09 AM |
How strange. She looked like every Puerto Rican woman I grew up with!
by Anonymous | reply 45 | August 3, 2024 5:09 AM |
[quote] Sally had a radio show? It must not have aired in the Seattle market or points north (I'm British Columbian) because this is the first time I've heard of it. Was it similar to her talk show?
According to her, she played 110% of the US (she played simultaneously on two stations in the same area). Her show aired the entire US. She had her tv show before Oprah wasn’t ever a thing in 1983 too.
by Anonymous | reply 46 | August 3, 2024 5:10 AM |
Here’s the entire 3 hour interview. She has a quilt made by gays from the 19th century.
by Anonymous | reply 47 | August 3, 2024 5:12 AM |
[quote] According to her, she played 110% of the US (she played simultaneously on two stations in the same area).
And she bored 150% of the country out of their wits.
by Anonymous | reply 48 | August 3, 2024 5:14 AM |
[quote]But her mother’s maiden name wasn’t Raphael.
She had a maternal great-grandfather who went by Raphael Jaffe. He and his parents, Abraham and Etta, were not Puerto Rican, as R20 covered.
Sally's father was a rum importer and her family spent some time in PR when she was a kid. Her fondness for the region is genuine, unlike her ethnic reinvention. The Hilaria Baldwin comparisons are apt, though Sally knew not to push it that far.
by Anonymous | reply 49 | August 3, 2024 11:47 AM |
OP- She’s turned into Bruce Villanch’s sister .
by Anonymous | reply 50 | August 3, 2024 12:06 PM |
R39- True. I was on a gay cruise in South America only 700 people on the ship- small ship for a gay cruise. Anyway we were on an excursion one day and there was a gay couple from Puerto Rico on the tour. Basically they were white Puerto Ricans. They looked like they could be from Spain. One of them had dirty blond hair.
by Anonymous | reply 51 | August 3, 2024 12:11 PM |
R35- Juan Epstein was Puerto Rican and Jewish too.
by Anonymous | reply 52 | August 3, 2024 12:13 PM |
Probably because Jew is not an ethnicity.
by Anonymous | reply 53 | August 3, 2024 11:50 PM |