Jews in Hollywood

During the OyHoo! Conference Judy Gold and Lewis Black sat on a stage together discussing what it means to be a Jewish comedian. Judy said something that I found really interesting, and that was "To the Jews I'm a Jewish comedian, to the non-Jews I'm just a comedian." This reminded me of the conversation that I have at least once a week:

Friend: Did you know that (name of celebrity) is Jewish?
Annie: No! Really?
Friend: Yeah! His/her (name of family member) is Jewish.
Annie: Huh. Who knew?

Why do we care about this? There are a number of reasons, none of which that I will explore now.I usually have pretty good Jew-dar, but I missed a few major celebrities. It is not a coincidence that most of these come from the September/October issue of AJL.

People that I didn't know:
Amanda Peet
Brad Garrett
Evan Rachel Wood
Victor Garber
Howie Mandel
Scarlett Johansson(I knew, but I keep forgetting because her sounds so Scandinavian)
Kate Hudson
Paul Rudd
and man of my dreams: Jake Gyllenhaal*


People that I did know:
Moses
Jon Stewart
Jeff Goldblum
Debra Messing
Jerry Seinfeld

*Can you blame me? NJB with nice blue eyes, played a marine, and not homophobic. Also, an ivy league grad. Seriously.