Drew Barrymore’s eldest daughter, Olive, is preparing for her bat mitzvah this coming September and is studying for it in her New York Hebrew school. And last week on “The Drew Barrymore Show,” the mom of two asked someone whose life was changed by the Jewish coming of age ceremony for any advice ahead of it.
Seth Rogen is on a tour right now promoting “The Studio,” the excellent show he co-created with Evan Golberg for Apple TV+. Rogen met Goldberg as a child in Vancouver, Canada while the two were preparing for their bar mitzvahs. In the show, Rogen’s character Matt Remick — the newly appointed head of a fictional movie studio — is Jewish, as is Ike Barinholz’s Sal Saperstein and David Krumholz’s Mitch Weitz. The show features a lot of funny purposely Jewish banter in which Krumholz awkwardly calls out their joint Jewish heritage with random Hebrew and Yiddish words.
While Rogen, who grew up going to Jewish day school and Jewish summer camp, admittedly did not take much from the ceremony itself, that connection that he made with Judaism was invaluable, and that’s what the actor counseled young Olive to do. He also advised her against wearing a vest, “because 30 year later someone might show your picture,” he joked, as Barrymore shared with her audience a picture of young Seth on his special day wearing, yes, a large grey vest. It apparently was his childhood fashion obsession, and even inspired a “Superbad” joke about looking like Aladdin while wearing one. Though I can’t help but think wearing a vest to your b-mitzvah is still quite a power move.
Rogen and Barrymore also talked about the Jewish dad who shaped both of their lives when they were young: Steven Spielberg, who directed Barrymore in “E.T.” and whose DreamWorks Productions co-produced “Freaks and Geeks,” where Rogen played young Ken Miller, his breakthrough role. Spielberg was very involved in the production, and even personally approved Rogen’s casting. He later cast him in his excellent semi-autobiographical “The Fablemans,” where Rogen shone as Bennie Loewy, Sammy’s (Spielberg’s surrogate character in the film) father’s best friend with whom his mother, Mitzi (Michelle Williams) has an affair.
Despite Barrymore and Rogen’s joint Jewish “fairy-Hollywood-career-godfather,” Barrymore herself is not Jewish. But she committed to raise her two daughters, Olive and Frankie, Jewish when she married their father Will Kopelman in 2011. Kopelman is an art consultant, the son of former Chanel CEO, the late Arie Kopelman, and brother of Jewish comedian Jill Kragman. The ceremony, which took place in Barrymore’s home in California, was “very traditional… with Rabbi Rubenstein and I did the ketubah. We wore the yarmulkes and we did the chuppah,” she shared in a 2013 interview on The View. Spielberg was among the guests, as was Reese Witherspoon and Cameron Diaz. Arie was the one to walk Barrymore down the aisle.
“I’m a shiksa. I do the seders and we do Passover. I haven’t converted yet, [but] Olive will be raised traditionally,” she shared back in 2013, before Frankie was born. “It’s a beautiful faith and I’m so honored to be around it,” she continued. “It’s so family-oriented… The stories are so beautiful and it’s incredibly enlightening.”
Kopelman and Barrymore divorced in 2016 and he has since remarried Alexandra Michler and welcomed his first son, but the two still raise their two daughters together with Jewish faith and identity in New York City. Barrymore has spoken about her struggles following the divorce, but also speaks effusively about her daughter’s new stepmother and wants the two girls to have the stable, healthy childhood she never got to have. She’s been open about struggling with things like letting her daughters have their own phones and how her own chaotic childhood shaped her outlook on parenting.
Back in April, Barrymore talked about coming home to a surprise: Olive wearing her wedding dress. “I looked at her and I was like, ‘Oh my God, you look so beautiful… I go, ‘You know, that’s actually technically the second time you wore that dress because you were six months in my belly when I wore it. And I’m saving it for you and your sister.’”
While Olive won’t be wearing a wedding dress or a vest (maybe??) to her bat mitzvah, we’re sure her mother will have that same awe-filled reaction seeing her on the bimah. Best of luck to Olive on her bat mitzvah studies! You got this!
