How Etan met Marcel…
Published August 13, 2007
Being married to a star is not always a starring role, ” according to pop culture wisdom. “But usually it is, ” says Marcel Goldman, who loves her role as wife of Etan Goldman.
Etan Goldman, a star who goes by the name Etan G, The Jewish Rapper, appears before audiences in Canada, Mexico, Germany, England, Israel and the US in any given month. And that’s without working on Friday night.
As the son of an Orthodox family from Baltimore, he wanted to counter the negativity of many rappers and had the sense of humor to do it. “The Torah influences my rapping in that I don’t use swear words in my rap and don’t need to discuss things like ‘booty.’ I’ve got a universal message for the masses, both Jew and non-Jew. “
Etan met the woman he would marry, Marcel, via a blind date. Marcel recalls: “I had a friend who was a secretary at Etan’s recording studio, and she thought the two of us should get together because we were the only two Jewish people she knew. And, besides, she said we had a similar sense of humor.
“When I met Etan, I was ‘just Jewish, ” says Marcel, and I had never before gone out with an Orthodox guy. Actually I had never been inside of a synagogue.
“Etan called me, and our first date was at a kosher restaurant. Moving quickly, an Etan trademark, he took me to a friend’s house the next Shabbos. I started learning more, and slowly but surely I picked it up. Basically, I was becoming committed to Jewish living, and I fell in love with the Orthodox lifestyle.
“And I was beginning to fall in love Etan. He was crazy, but in a good way, ” says Marcel.
That crazy spark is what people notice about the rapper: “Etan Goldman is one of the craziest guys you’ll ever meet, ” writes noted music figure David Silberberg, and “that’s a compliment. ” As noted at his website (www.thejewishrapper.com), Etan G is comfortable in different worlds. Who else gets invited to be on the Howard Stern show and also to appear on the nationally televised Chabad telethon? This is a performer who thinks different and thinks cool and sometimes even a bit risqu é. But always with a good heart. As his friends say about Etan, ‘If you ever need a Jewish hook-up in L.A., he’s your go-to-guy.’ “
Marcel was wowed by this rapper’s outlook: “From the very beginning I was attracted to Etan because he was always so positive. He is a man of faith in a world where it is easy to be negative and faithless. “
Etan tested his faith when he proposed to Marcel in front of 400 people. Marcel didn’t let him down. Etan G was her man.
Hadassah Magazine highlighted the wedding of Etan and Marcel in a piece on destination weddings. The hot trend has seen hundreds of Jewish couples choose Israel for the happy event. The magazine noted that “Israel’s relaxed standards of formality were a perfect match for Goldman and his wife, Marcel. “
Etan planned the wedding entirely by himself and made all the arrangements in less than a month – “from the email invitations to the old-school pimp tux with bell-bottom shoes he wore. “
The rapper chose a spot on Jerusalem’s Haas Promenade, which offers a breath-taking view of the Old City. About 125 guests from very different worlds, some in hip dress and some black-hatted, attended the afternoon wedding, which did away with assigned seating. The groom called it perfect: “The band rocked. There was no nervousness, no pressure. Even my wife was laid back and happy. You come, you hang out, you dance, and you leave. “
Etan and Marcel were married on September 19, 2002. Mazal tov!
Read past installments of Leah Hakimian’s column, ‘Godsend’
