“...examines the complex relationship between the practical and the passionate self, the realist and the dreamer, and the importance of those moments in life that make you feel 'airborne.'”
—Erin Kodicek
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Category: Reviews & Praise
"Reading it may revitalize you, too. "
-JBOOKS.COM
“You may be tempted to race through these accounts, or, as Pogrebin anticipates, ‘to turn first to chapters about the people one already admires.’ Don’t. Read the book slowly and get to know some “prominent Jews” you may not have realized are prominent, or Jewish.
And get to know Pogrebin.
...Reading this book may very well lead you to Pogrebin’s own conclusion: ‘What I do know is that being Jewish is powerful and, in a sense, unavoidable—whether one embraces it or leaves it on the shelf, whether one lives a visible life or an anonymous one. And that, in the process of writing this book, it’s become more vital to me than I ever expected.’ Reading it may revitalize you, too.
"But Pogrebin, a former producer for Charlie Rose and “60 Minutes,” had the tools to push her interviewees beyond their comfort zone. "
-Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angleles
What’s fascinating about the 62 souls she interviews is that we know so much about them and so little about their beliefs. With notable evangelical exceptions, most Americans are more comfortable talking about their sex lives than their spirituality. But Pogrebin, a former producer for Charlie Rose and “60 Minutes,” had the tools to push her interviewees beyond their comfort zone.
18th
The Forward
"Perhaps it took someone coming from Pogrebin's starting point to conceptualize this project and lend an empathetic (and disarming) ear to her subjects. "
-The Forward
Pogrebin — the daughter of Ms. magazine co-founder Letty Cottin Pogrebin and sister of New York Times reporter Robin Pogrebin — not only succeeded in securing access to dozens of celebrities, but also managed the difficult task of getting them to open up about a facet of their very public lives that generally has remained private. A former “60 Minutes” producer, Pogrebin covers all the bases, not just the obvious question of who married in and who married out. Perhaps it took someone coming from Pogrebin’s starting point to conceptualize this project and lend an empathetic (and disarming) ear to her subjects.
The Jewish Bulletin, British Columbia, November 4, 2005
Though the resulting profiles vary in length, each certainly displays a level of candor not generally seen in celebrity write-ups.
27th
Stars of Book Party
"Stars of David is an endearing book done with skill and taste..."
-Liz Smith, New York Post
Stars of Book Party
When Candice Bergen, Mike Wallace, Ed Koch, Tina Brown, Gloria Steinem, Cynthia McFadden and Max Frankel show up at your kickoff book party, you probably have a good thing going. Author Abigail Pogrebin had a stellar guest list at the townhouse of HBO titan Richard Plepler the other night, and her “Stars of David” book is the talk of the town.
This work, where prominent Jews talk about being Jewish, simply can’t be put down after you start browsing. You can find out that Larry King “always liked shiksas,” and Jason Alexander claims “It specifically says in the Torah that you can eat shrimp and bacon in a Chinese restaurant.”
Mike Nichols opines that “Jewish introspection and Jewish humor are a way of surviving,” and Sarah Jessica Parker believes if she’d had “straight hair and a perfect nose, my whole career would be different.” I won’t list the 60 or more “stars” who speak here, but they are legion and they are fascinating.
In a time when the celebration of religion is on the rise in the world—for good or bad—it is fascinating to see what just a few of the famous from Ruth Reichl to Norman Lear to Ellen Goodman to Tony Kushner to Nora Ephron have to say about theirs. “Stars of David” is an endearing book done with skill and taste by the girl who was an ace producer for such as Charlie Rose, Bill Moyers, Mike Wallace and Ed Bradley. Don’t miss it!
Ms. Pogrebin appears at the 92nd Street Y on Nov. 16 with the aforesaid Jason Alexander, Kyra Sedgwick and Leonard Nimoy.
14th
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Portman’s a fast learner in power of atonement
Movie star Natalie Portman fasted yesterday for Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement.
“I really like eating,” the 24-year-old beauty tells author Abigail Pogrebin in “Stars of David: Prominent Jews Talk About Being Jewish,” her new book.
“But a couple years ago, one of my friends got really mad at me and it happened on Yom Kippur,” Portman confides. “It made me go through the actual atonement list on that day, and the hunger associated with it is really helpful. You think about how you’ve wronged your friends and how you should change in the future.”
The Israeli-born, Syosset-raised Portman also opines:
# “I know what a JAP [Jewish American Princess] is. I wouldn’t want to have stereotypes used in derogatory ways by people outside the Jewish community, but I think it is something from within the community that we need to examine and be self-critical about. Do [our young people] know or care about the outside world? Do they know or care about things other than having a nice car or a nice purse?”
# “I think the major problem today with American Jews is materialism.”
# “I don’t think that any one characteristic should be overemphasized in your real life when you’re an actor, because if I play a nun one day, I don’t want someone to be thinking when they see me, ‘Jew, Jew, Jew.’ “
# “I have a very close friend who lately has this European, anti-Israel way of thinking, and it’s very hard to have conversations with him. [Being Israeli has] become a much bigger part of my identity in recent years because it’s become an issue of survival.”
# “My dad always makes this stupid joke with my new boyfriend, who is not Jewish. He says, ‘It’s just a simple operation.’ “
14th
Cleveland Jewish News
Sixty-two Jewish stars in the fields of entertainment (the largest number), politics, fashion, media, sports and business are profiled in Stars of David. A task journalist Pogrebin, who is also a former “60 Minutes” producer, does with consummate skill.
Refreshingly, Pogrebin is not simply the anonymous journalist dutifully reporting and shaping answers to her questions. Rather, she is an active participant in each of the dialogues, often adding her own concerns, insights and, at times, insecurities to the conversation.
While most of the 62 stars profiled are hardly poster people for Judaism, their stories obviously helped Pogrebin strengthen her own Jewish commitment. Perhaps, in some counterintuitive way, Stars of David will work the same magic on many of its readers.
8th
The Charlotte Observer
A fascinating new book from Abigail Pogrebin: “Stars of David—Prominent Jews Talk About Being Jewish” (Broadway, $24.95) shares reflections from a diverse group that includes Dustin Hoffman, Steven Spielberg, Joan Rivers, Leonard Nimoy, Gloria Steinem, Neil Simon and William Shatner.
5th
St. Louis Post Dispatch
"Impressively, Pogrebin got below the surfaces... "
-St. Louis Post Dispatch
“Abigail Pogrebin - formerly a TV producer for “60 Minutes,” Charlie Rose and Bill Moyers, formerly a writer for Talk magazine, always the daughter of Ms. magazine co-founder Letty Cottin Pogrebin - must have one heck of a Rolodex.
All kinds of famous people agreed to talk to her about something most of them have rarely talked about at all, at least in public.
They talked about being Jewish.
Impressively, Pogrebin got below the surfaces…”
5th
POP MATTERS
POP MATTERS
by Steve Horowitz
What does it mean to be a Jew? Rabbis, scholars, anti-Semites, and ordinary people have struggled with this question for centuries. It’s still an important issue with political consequences in the state of Israel. The answer is complicated. Judaism can be defined as a religion, a culture, a nation, a race, etc. It depends on who provides the response. Journalist Abigail Pogrebin decided to find out the new, American way. She interviewed 60 Jewish celebrities and asked them about their Jewishness. Their replies varied in depth and quality, but there seemed to be general agreement about one thing: A Jew is anyone who calls him or herself a Jew.
Pogrebin’s respondents include prominent Jews from many walks of life, such as Hollywood (Dustin Hoffman, Steven Spielberg, Kyra Sedgwick), the Supreme Court (Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer), television (Norman Lear, Aaron Sorkin, Sarah Jessica Parker, William Shatner), journalism (Ellen Goodman, Mike Wallace), fashion (Diane Von Furstenberg, Kenneth Cole), Broadway (Tony Kushner, Neil Simon, Harold Prince), the left and right of politics (Al Franken, Dr. Laura Schlessinger), big business (Edgar Bronfman, Jr., Ronald O. Perelman), public law (Eliot Spitzer, Alan Dershowitz), athletics (Mark Spitz, Shawn Green), and elsewhere. The most glaring omissions are Jews who rock. There’s Beverly Sills, but no Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, Randy Newman or many of the dozens of famous Jews who have publicly sang and spoke at times about their views on Jewish self-identity. Who knows, maybe that will be her next book.
While Pogrebin’s choice of interviewees may seem odd, what seems more amazing is the fact that she had access to so many important people. She continually notes how busy many of her subjects are during her discussions. Their phones ring, palm pilots beep, secretaries buzz, and such while they chat away about their childhood memories or the taste of food from the past. Very few actively practice Judaism today, take spouses who share their religious beliefs, and/or raise there children as Jews. Yet they insist they are Jews. If pressed many take what can be called the Jean Paul Sartre defense: I am a Jew because anti-Semites won’t let me forget it. (In the French existentialist’s tome Anti-Semite and Jew, Sartre famously proclaimed Jewish identity was defined by those who hated Jews.) In a post-Holocaust America, no one wants to deny his or heritage because of pride in one’s heritage and it would be futile anyway.
Former New York Times critic and current Gourmet magazine editor states this idea most bluntly: “You know what makes Jews Jews anymore? The fact that the world won’t let us forget. You can say till the cows get home that you’re not a Jew, but the world keeps telling you that you are. And that’s what makes you a Jew. What makes a black person black? No matter how white your skin is, if you are a black person, the world keeps reminding me that you’re black. Ultimately it’s others’ definition of us that makes us Jews.” Reichl did not grow up in a traditional Jewish home, attended a French Catholic boarding school, and her son was not bar mitzvahed. Reichl also hates traditional Jewish cuisine, but she strongly proclaims a Jewish self-identity.
Not surprisingly, the most interesting responses come from those who still question their Jewish self-identity rather than see it as a given or as a part of how they were raised. For example, the young Israeli born, Long Island bred, actress Natalie Portman tries to find a distinctive Jewishness that transcends nationalism. Meanwhile, Portman’s role as a public Jew has been controversial. Writing in the New Yorker critic Cynthia Ozick lambasted Portman’s Broadway portrayal of Anne Frank as too sunny. Portman also was engaged in an Israeli-Palestinian controversy at Harvard University that drew the attention of The New York Times. Portman discusses these incidents with Pogrebin in an intelligent and informative manner. One may not necessarily agree with Portman’s viewpoints—i.e. the optimism of the Anne Frank play in light of the Dutch girl’s fate raises issues Portman avoids—but the actress has obviously given her role serious thought.
Pogrebin’s most enlightening interview was with Leon Wieseltier, the literary editor of The New Republic. Wieseltier grew up in an Orthodox household, attended Yeshiva in Flatbush, and then walked away from his Jewish religiosity to a more conventional American life of wine, women, and pork. Much later in life Wieseltier returned to the practice and study of Judaism. He’s openly critical of the Jews like the ones Pogrebin interviewed in this book for their laziness. “I can respect heresy, I can respect alienation, I can respect Karamazovian rebellion, even Oedipal rebellion. I don’t mind renegades or apostates… My point is that American Jews aren’t renegades; they are slackers.” Wieseltier condemns the a la carte Judaism of those who choose what aspect of the religion they like and leave the rest behind and considers those people incompetent because they don’t bother to learn what they don’t know.
One of these Jews was Pogrebin herself. She writes in an epilogue that her interview with Wieseltier had a deep impact on her. As a result, the author began to study Torah, became more involved in her children’s religious education, and engaged more actively in Jewish rituals that she had previously not practiced. Then, at the age of 40, Pogrebin became bat mitzvahed. Reading this book probably won’t have the same impression on consumers as writing it did for the journalist. But it might have the impact of one who sees a photograph of oneself and says, “So that’s how I look” and encourages that person to lose weight, get a haircut, or dress differently. A person should want his or her religion to be befitting and relevant.
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