Amsterdam, NY – Public officials and relatives of Kirk Douglas have unveiled a new historic marker in his upstate New York birthplace to honor the Hollywood legend on his birthday.
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The blue and yellow New York state historic marker was presented in Amsterdam on Sunday, the actor’s 102nd birthday. The sign will be erected near the home where he was born as Issur Danielovitch to Russian Jewish parents on Dec. 9, 1916.
The marker says Douglas “Rose From Poverty To Appear In Over 90 Films In Hollywood.”
Douglas was raised in Amsterdam, about 30 miles (48 kilometers) northwest of Albany.
He graduated from St. Lawrence University in northern New York and served in the U.S. Navy during World War II.
His lengthy film career included starring roles in “Lust for Life,” ”Spartacus” and “Seven Days In May.”
His parents were Jewish emigrants from Chavusy, Mogilev Region, in the Russian Empire and the family spoke Yiddish at home.
In February 1991, Douglas was injured in a collision between the helicopter he was in and a small plane above Santa Paula Airport. Two other people were also injured; two people in the plane were killed. This near-death experience sparked a search for meaning by Douglas, which led him, after much study, to embrace the Judaism in which he had been raised. He documented this spiritual journey in his book, Climbing the Mountain: My Search for Meaning (2001).
In his earlier autobiography, The Ragman’s Son (1988), he recalled, “years back, I tried to forget that I was a Jew,” but later in his career he began “coming to grips with what it means to be a Jew,” which became a theme in his life. In an interview in 2000, he explained this transition:
Judaism and I parted ways a long time ago, when I was a poor kid growing up in Amsterdam, N.Y. Back then, I was pretty good in cheder, so the Jews of our community thought they would do a wonderful thing and collect enough money to send me to a yeshiva to become a rabbi. Holy Moses! That scared the hell out of me. I didn’t want to be a rabbi. I wanted to be an actor. Believe me, the members of the Sons of Israel were persistent. I had nightmares – wearing long payos and a black hat. I had to work very hard to get out of it. But it took me a long time to learn that you don’t have to be a rabbi to be a Jew.
Although his children had non-Jewish mothers, Douglas states that they were “aware culturally” of his “deep convictions,” and he never tried to influence their own religious decisions. Douglas’s wife, Anne, converted to Judaism before they renewed their wedding vows in 2004. Douglas celebrated a second Bar-Mitzvah ceremony in 1999, aged 83.