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(RNS) — Tomorrow, on Halloween, magicians and ghost hunters around the world will mark Harry Houdini’s 100th yahrzeit.

Yes — yahrzeit.

Harry Houdini was Jewish.

Why should that matter?

Because his father was my colleague.

The story begins with Rabbi Mayer Samuel Weiss (or Weisz). In 1878, Rabbi Weiss arrived from Budapest and took a post as Appleton, Wisconsin’s first rabbi .

The rabbi helped plan the congregation’s new temple , but he never got to preach in it. Within a few years the congregation let him go. Houdini later explained that his father lost the pulpit because he spoke little English and never fit into American life . Others say that the German members wanted a German rabbi of their own , and to have a Hungarian rabbi was simply de classe.

It is a classic story — the rabbi who smells too much of the old country, too traditional, “too Jewish,” and the congregation shows him the door.…