Henry S. Levy and Sons, popularly known as Levy's, was a bakery based in

Brooklyn Brooklyn is a Boroughs of New York City, borough of New York City located at the westernmost end of Long Island in the New York (state), State of New York. Formerly an independent city, the borough is coextensive with Kings County, one of twelv ...

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York New York may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * ...

, most famous for its

Jewish rye bread Jewish rye bread is a type of rye bread commonly made in Jewish communities. Due to the diaspora of the Jews, there are several geographical variations of the bread. The bread is sometimes called sissel bread or cissel bread, as ''sissel'' mean ...

. It is best known for its advertising campaign "You Don't Have to Be

Jewish Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...

to Love Levy's",

Jerry Della Femina Jerry Della Femina (born 1936) is an American advertising executive and restaurateur. Starting from a poor Italian background in Brooklyn, he eventually became chairman of Della Femina Travisano & Partners, an agency which he founded with Ron T ...

, (1971) ''From Those Wonderful Folks Who Gave You Pearl Harbor'', Pocket Books. Leroy Pope. "Frozen breads may soon outsell fresh", ''Simpson's Leader-Times'' (Kittaning, Pennsylvania), March 7, 1967, p. 7: The poster ads bearing this slogan have been so well done they have attracted the admiration of advertising men everywhere." which columnist

Walter Winchell Walter Winchell (April 7, 1897 – February 20, 1972) was a syndicated American newspaper gossip columnist and radio news commentator. Originally a vaudeville performer, Winchell began his newspaper career as a Broadway reporter, critic and c ...

referred to as "the commercial with a sensayuma" (sense of humor).Walter Winchell. "Walter Winchell of Broadway" (column), ''Daily News'' (Lebanon, Pa.), March 12, 1964, page 39.

History

Levy's was founded in 1888 by Henry S. Levy, a Russian Jewish immigrant. The Bakery began at the intersection of Moore Street and Graham Avenue in Brooklyn, NY. In time it relocated to Park Avenue, and later to 115 Thames Street, where it stayed for nearly sixty years. Levy's was known for its "cheese bread", but the bakery's real hallmark was its authentic seeded rye: thick crust and heavy texture. When Henry Levy died in 1943, the business was passed first to his son Abraham, and then to his grandson Nathan. Both were dead by 1979, when the bakery's president, Samuel Rubin, decided to sell Levy's to Arnold's Bakers of Greenwich, CT. The sale meant the relocation of Levy's from New York to Greenwich. Henry Levy's original "sour" starter, the yeast bacteria from which all Levy's rye came, made a move with the company. Arnold Bread, now a division of

Bimbo Bakeries USA Bimbo Bakeries USA, Inc. () is the American corporate arm of the Mexican multinational corporation, multinational bakery product manufacturing company Grupo Bimbo. It is the largest bakery company in the United States. The subsidiary, headquarte ...

, still owns Levy's Bakery today.

"You don't have to be Jewish"

Levy's is best known for the ad campaign "You Don't have to Be Jewish to Love Levy's Real Jewish Rye", which ran in New York in the 1960s. Large white posters hung in the city's subway system to broadcast the company's new slogan, each bearing a large, photographic portrait of a distinctly non-Jewish person eating a slice of rye bread. Early renditions featured a choirboy, a Catholic cop, and an American Indian. Levy's hired ad agency Doyle Dane Berbach for the campaign. Judy Petras, a Jewish copywriter at DDB, wrote the catchy and now timeless tagline herself. William Taubin, the male copywriter who received credit at the time for the posters, went on to be inducted into the Art Director's Hall of Fame. And the photographer, Howard Zieff, went on to direct many successful Hollywood films. The campaign transformed Levy's into New York's top seller of rye, and is often cited as one of the first sensitive and successful uses of cultural and racial identity in public advertising. One of the Levy's ad posters, featuring a

Native American Native Americans or Native American usually refers to Native Americans in the United States. Related terms and peoples include: Ethnic groups * Indigenous peoples of the Americas, the pre-Columbian peoples of North, South, and Central America ...

biting into a Levy's rye sandwich, was included in the

Oakland Museum of California Oakland is a city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area in the U.S. state of California. It is the county seat and most populous city in Alameda County, California, Alameda County, with a population of 440,646 in 2020. A major We ...

's 1999 exhibit "Posters American Style" (in 2022, a reporter identified the model as a Joseph S. Attean, a railroad engineer and an enrolled member of the Penobscot Nation of Maine). Others are a part of the permanent collection at the Smithsonian.

References

{{reflist

External links

Gallery of Levy's advertisements
Bakeries of New York (state) Companies based in New York City Ashkenazi Jewish restaurants Jewish delicatessens in New York City Rye breads Russian-Jewish culture in New York City

History

"You don't have to be Jewish"

See also

References

External links