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Nov. 4, 2005
Meaning of "Jewish"
N.Y. author gathers celebrity interviews.
KATHARINE HAMER EDITOR
Abigail Pogrebin has spent years in the company of famous Jews.
She worked as a producer for 60 Minutes alongside Mike Wallace
and Don Hewitt and her mother, Letty Cottin Pogrebin, was a co-founder,
with Gloria Steinem, of Ms. magazine.
Still, Pogrebin didn't really know what to expect when she set out
to chronicle the thoughts and experiences of dozens of high-profile
American Jews in Stars of David: Prominent Jews Talk About Being
Jewish.
"My husband said when I started this project, 'I think it's
a wonderful idea – [but] I don't know why anyone would talk
to you about something so personal,' " Pogrebin recalled in
an interview with the Independent. "I think a lot of
the people I spoke to are very private people. It's not like they
were just saying, 'Oh, this is another chance to talk about myself.'
They certainly don't need any more ink."
What surprised her was the depth of connection she experienced with
many of her interview subjects because of their shared background.
"I was pretty nervous meeting a lot of these people,"
she said, "but I felt like because we had this in common, there
was something that sort of entitled me to ask them [questions about
it]. It's that, 'We share this, and so we can have this conversation,
and you're not going to snow me, you're not just going to throw
platitudes at me.' "
Pogrebin interviewed 62 people, including judges, lawyers, actors,
directors, comedians and fellow writers, "who kind of embody
the American Dream. When you look at the Jewish immigrant ideal,
it was certainly to achieve at the highest levels."
As the mother of young children with mixed feelings about her own
level of observance, she wondered where her interview subjects "put
their Judaism once they're at that kind of level of success –
does it fall away? Does it become more profound? Does it keep them
connected to their past, to their childhood? What are they giving
their children? Have they intermarried? Is that complicated? All
those questions really interested me."
Though the resulting profiles vary in length, each certainly displays
a level of candor not generally seen in celebrity write-ups.
"They're not the stock answers about what it means to be Jewish,"
mused Pogrebin, "which I think up until now have been kind
of the norm."
What she discovered was that even the nonobservant Jews were worried
about such issues as assimilation.
"When I would ask people," she said, "it did become
a very clear pattern that there was a low level of observance and
I would ask – genuinely, not with judgment – how do Jews
sustain themselves if there is no ritual? What makes Jews Jews without
Judaism? I do think that there is a concern at the same time with
those people – that it's a little uncertain how the identity
continues without some grounding in the religion itself and that
without that grounding, how do people stay in the fold? Where are
we if suddenly it's really watered down? There was that concern
even among the people who were not observant themselves."
Some, like shoe designer Kenneth Cole, whose wife is Catholic, continue
to wrestle with the fact their children are not being raised Jewish.
A similar issue is faced by actress Sarah Jessica Parker, who has
a Jewish father but admits to knowing little about Judaism. (Her
husband, Matthew Broderick, has a Jewish mother. Both want to give
their young son some kind of Jewish education.)
Then there are wealthy businessmen like Ronald O. Perelman, who
is perhaps the most observant of all those Pogrebin interviewed
(Perelman davens with tefillin every morning and imports a minyan
when he's staying in the Caribbean) or Edgar Bronfman, who threw
off an early rejection of Judaism after a rift with his father,
and now boasts a Torah, an ornate shofar and a substantial Jewish
library in his office.
There are also disturbing tales of anti-Semitism in the book –
from actors like Leonard Nimoy and Gene Wilder – of an older
generation who suffered everything from schoolyard taunts to actual
physical abuse. This, too, is what it meant to be a Jew – and
is in itself, a source of Jewish pride. Seinfeld star Jason
Alexander recounts his parents' reasoning for sending him to Hebrew
school: "because people would kill you for what you are and
you have to know what you're dying for."
A strong sense of belonging runs through all of Pogrebin's interviews.
"Whether someone is going to synagogue or not, or even putting
a Christmas tree up in their home, there is a bedrock, an unshakeable
Jewish pride and a sense that they wouldn't want to be anything
else," she said. "They're not apologizing for it. I felt
even with Israel, that was something that very few people were disposed
to criticize."
When Pogrebin began the process of writing Stars of David,
she was grappling with her own issues around Judaism, having grown
up in a largely secular household (her mother, like United States
Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, turned away from Judaism
after being not being allowed to take part in a mourner's minyan
for a loved one). More than two years later, Pogrebin has increased
her level of involvement with the Jewish faith – and even had
a bat mitzvah last spring.
"It was something about hearing people's disaffection with
the tradition," she said, "and also realizing that I myself
had not explored what I was letting go. Just hearing all of these
people talk about how being in synagogue didn't mean very much and
that they really weren't sure about whether their kids were going
to be bat or bar mitzvahed and they would leave it up to their children
... it just had this reverse effect on me, which was to want to
explore it more. It's not like I've become a really observant Jew
all of a sudden, but something changed in me. And a lot of it is
how I want to communicate a sense of identity to my children.
"My mother used to say, 'You'll come back, you'll see, this
is going to matter to you.' It just was like a flea in your ear.
It was just such a motherly thing. But it turned out to be true.
I think as soon as you have these little babies in your arms and
you think about the line that continues with them, I think you're
hard-pressed not to at least feel some new alertness to what it
means to come from this history.
"I mean, forget about the religion, just the history of survival
is so intense, it's so strewn with horror and tragedy. It's just
very hard to shirk that, I think, once you're a parent."
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