"I

 was a little pisherkeh from Brighton Beach and Connie Francis gave me my start," songwriter Neil Sedaka said.

He told how Connie recorded one of his early songs, Stupid Cupid, and turned it into a monster hit of the late ‘50s. "It was my ultimate kvell."

Sedaka took to the piano and serenaded Connie with a medley of his signature songs, including Breaking Up Is Hard To Do.

That got hearty applause from young and old alike among the 700 guests at the New York Friars Foundation Applause Awards Gala in June at the Waldorf-Astoria. The foundation is the charitable arm of the Friars Club, aiding performing arts groups and assisting needy artists with a college education.

Jay Black, who fronted the popular Jay and the Americans, said he always enjoyed listening to Connie Francis. He said his favorite was a Jewish song, "Where the Goys Are." (Cue laughs.)

Friars Club president Freddie Roman presented Connie with an Applause Award. Everyone dutifully rose to applaud. Except two actors — a senior Italian and an elderly Jew — who portrayed Mafia types in their career: Dominic Chianese, 80, who was Junior on The Sopranos, and Abe Vigoda, 90, who was Sal Tessio in The Godfather.

Vigoda looked like he died years ago and doesn’t know it. In fact comedian Stewie Stone, the Friars vice president, gently nudged him: "Abe, was the ground cold when you got up this morning?"

Freddie, who marveled that "the biggest stars come for our events and nobody gets paid," presented an Applause Award also to Leonard A. Wilf for his far-reaching philanthropy. He was a founder of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial in Washington DC and the Jewish Heritage Museum in New York. In honor of his father Harry, Leonard built Wilf Park in Jerusalem as well as the Children’s Hospital at the Shaare Zedek Medical Center.

"Leonard owns the Minnesota Vikings football club," Stewie noted. "He doesn’t want a plaque — he wants a quarterback!"

At 72, Connie Francis proved she can still hold an audience in thrall. She sang This Land Is Your Land as well as Hava Negila to much acclaim.

She has recorded many Jewish songs in her life, including such favorites as Oh Mein Papa, Mein Shtetele Belz and My Yiddishe Momme.

How did she learn Yiddish?

"I was brought up in Newark," she told me. "If you weren’t Jewish you needed a password to get in. Also I read Leo Rosten’s book, The Joys of Yiddish."