Speaking at an ADL conference earlier this month, actor David Schwimmer urged Jewish celebrities to stand up for their community more. “Just say anything in solidarity with the Jewish community,” he exhorted. “Post your bar mitzvah picture. We’ll start a trend of embarrassing haircuts and dental work.”
Well, seems like at least one Jewish celebrity heeded the call. “Clueless” and “Batman & Robin” star Alicia Silverstone posted an incredibly adorable picture from her Jewish coming-of-age celebration on her Instagram. “With my beloved Grandpa Sydney Silverstone at my Bat Mitzvah,” she wrote in the caption of a sweet image of her dancing with her very dapper grandfather. She wears a pale pink long-sleeved dress adorned with lace detailing and bright pink earrings as her grandfather stares at her adoringly.
“I was reared in a traditional Jewish household,” Silverstone, whose family was part of Congregation Beth Jacob in Redwood City, CA, once shared in an interview. “We lit candles Friday night and had seders. My brother David and I went to Hebrew school and had our bar mitzvahs. I have wonderful memories of my bat mitzvah… Judaism turned me into who I am today, and I definitely feel I live a very spiritual life. I got that from my parents.”
This isn’t the first time that Silverstone, raised by a Scottish Jewish mother, Didi, a Pan Am flight attendant who converted to Judaism before her wedding, and a Jewish British father, Monty, a real estate agent, shared a throwback photo from her Jewish childhood. Back in December of last year, she shared a photo of herself as a child in a kids’ play, wearing a dress with big pink puffy sleeves. On stage, there appears to be a child wearing a witch-like triangular hat. “Me as Queen Esther or Glinda the Good Witch?” she asked her followers.
Turns out that the triangular hat was not that of a witch or wizard, but instead of Purim villain Haman, who vied for the annihilation of the Jewish people in ancient Persia (Shushan) and whose defeat we are celebrating this week.
“If you guessed Queen Esther, you’re correct! Back when I was just a baby playing Queen Esther for a Hebrew school play,” Silverstone wrote in the comments of the post.
For those of you hoping to dress up like her “Clueless” character Cher Horowitz, as Kim Kardashian and Sabrina Carpenter did this past Halloween, I do have some excellent news. The movie’s writer, Amy Heckerling, who recently turned the hit movie into a musical, just confirmed that the ’90s style icon who winds up falling for her former step-brother (played by Jewish dreamboat Paul Rudd) is, indeed, Jewish.
