Yiddishe Mame ❤️
Gene Simmons, one of the founders of Kiss, was always strictly against alcohol and drugs — because of his mother, a Holocaust survivor. She lived through a concentration camp in which many of her relatives were killed. “I’m her only child,” the musician said. “I knew I had no right to cause her pain. Life had already been cruel enough to her.”
Simmons recalled a touching and sobering moment from his first major interview with Rolling Stone. His mother unexpectedly interrupted it.
“When I met the Rolling Stone journalist, I tried to wrap myself in the aura of a mysterious demon. I was wearing all my silver spider jewelry, leather pants, hair teased to the limit. I put on seven-inch platform shoes with dollar signs and painted my nails black — in short, I was sure I looked like a real rock ’n’ roller.
Suddenly the doorbell rang. I opened the door, and there stood my mom with enough food to feed the whole world: fresh soups, cutlets, pancakes, jam, pies…
She insisted that the journalist and I — she called us ‘hungry boys’ — sit down and eat right away. The whole time she called me by my Jewish name, Chaim, and kept saying what a good boy I was.”