J-Quiz

Published: Sunday, March 18, 2007

by Jewlarious.com Staff

ANSWER: Muppets creator Jim Henson was raised a Christian Scientist and is not Jewish. The dead giveaway is that one of his most vocal Muppets, Miss Piggy, is treife. The confusion arose when people started to question the religious background of Kermit the Frog. He's cerebral, not that good at sports and surprisingly spiritual for a frog. Adding to the confusion, a rumor had it that he was born in a small Russian shtetl. As for Henson, although not a Jew, he had vowed never to eat Miss Piggy, but only for "health reasons."

ANSWER: Born in Encino, California to Lee Kudrow and Nedra Stern, Lisa is of course a Hebrew, and is married to advertising executive Michel Stern. Kudrow received her B.A. from Vassar College in Biology, and like any good Jewish child was planning on following in her father's footsteps by becoming a medical researcher. But as fate would have it, her comedic talents were discovered and she soon found herself playing Phoebe Buffay on NBC's hit sit-com Friends. Phoebe herself was not Jewish, but Kudrow's faith may have rubbed off on her on screen persona. Fans of the show have theorized that the cause of Phoebe's famous "smelly cat" was the food she was feeding it -- shmaltz herring and gefilte fish.

ANSWER: Born David Seth Kotkin, illusionist David Copperfield cannot make his Jewishness disappear. He began practicing magic at the age of 12, and by age 16, he was teaching a course in magic at New York University (according to his parents he was "very advanced"). Recently, Copperfield claimed to have found the "Fountain of Youth" amidst a tiny cluster of islands that he recently purchased in the southern Bahamas. The price tag was reportedly in the tens of millions of dollars, but if he had simply asked his fellow members of the tribe we could have saved him a lot of money and just told him where the fountain of youth is: it's in Miami. At the early bird buffet.

ANSWER: The former host of Weekend Update on Saturday Night Live is smart, funny, and a defender of Israel. But is he Jewish? Absolutely not. The confusion may have arisen a few years back when an extremely pro-Israel column circulated around the internet in Miller's name. Turns out that Miller did write it, but not Dennis. It was penned by Jewish comedian and staunch supporter of Israel himself comedian Larry Miller. The column was well received by many Jews, but got some negative attention as well. As for Dennis Miller, he was upset. Not because he disagreed with the contents of the column, but because he wanted to ensure that any negative press he got, came solely from things that he actually did say. Oy Dennis -- always being such a nudnick.

ANSWER:Believe it or not, former host of NBC's Today show and now anchor at CBS Evening News is Jewish. Couric's father was Episcopalian but her mother was Jewish and her maternal grandparents, Berthold B. Hene and Clara L. Froshin, were the children of Jewish immigrants from Germany. Time Magazine has named Couric as one of the top fivw most powerful women in the world, but we at Jewlarious can think of many women more powerful than Couric, namely, our mothers. Hi Moms!

ANSWER: Sure there are hundreds of people involved in the development of the world's number one search engine, but its two co-founders, Sergey Brin and Larry Page, are both Jewish. Brin was born in Russia to Jewish parents and moved to America as a child, while Page's mother Gloria is Jewish, and his grandfather was one of the early pioneers of Israel, settling in the desert town of Arad. According to Forbes magazine, Brin and Page are worth a combined 30 billion dollars, earning both of them spots amongst the top 50 wealthiest people in the world. Rumor has it that the High Holiday speech given on behalf of Israel Bonds at Brin and Page's synagogue last year was a little bit awkward. Apparently the representative said, "Fellow Jews, please pick up your donation card, and fold down the tab corresponding to your donation amount - $18, $26, $180, or $18 billion."

ANSWER:Not everyone with the suffix "steen" at the end of his or her name is Jewish. Bruce Springsteen is a case in point. His father, Douglas, was a bus driver of Dutch and Irish ancestry and his mother, Adele Zirilli Springsteen, a legal secretary, is of Italian descent. The Boss does have a Jewish connection however -- well known drummer of his E Street Band and band leader on Late Night with Conan O'Brien, Max Weinberg. Weinberg is not only MOT, but even briefly attended Yeshiva University's Cardozo School of Law after taking a short hiatus from music. He dropped out during his first year, and said that the only reason he enrolled was because Bruce had been "dreying" him to make something of himself, saying things like, "What, you think you can feed your family on a drummer's salary? Why not be a lawyer? It's a very nice profession."

ANSWER: Cardinal Lustiger was born Aaron Lustiger to Polish Jewish parents, but during the war, he was sent to live with a Christian family who promptly converted him to Catholicism. This raises an interesting question: are there some things you can do during your lifetime which invalidate your Jewishness, like lets say...being ordained a Cardinal in the Catholic church and being one of the major contenders to be the next Pope in Rome? Well according to Jewish law, once a Jew, always a Jew. No matter what you do, we can't let go. We are like that gym membership that is impossible to cancel. If our little Aaron from Poland did happen to become Pope, Jewlarious would be the first ones to call him up before Rosh Hashana and say, "Good Yontif, Pontif."

ANSWER: The actor who was nominated for best actor in his performance as Johnny Cash in Walk the Line in 2306 is in fact Jewish. Phoenix's father, John Lee Bottom, came from a Catholic family in California, but his mother, Arlyn Sharon Dunetz, was born in the Bronx to Margaret and Meyer Dunetz, Orthodox Jewish emigrants from Hungary and Russia. Joaquin is the third of five children; the others are River, Rain or "Rainbow Joan of Arc," Liberty Butterfly, and Summer or "Summer Joy". Apparently, Joaquin got the normal name. He also got the only "Jewish" name as Joaquin is the anglicized version of Jehoiakim who was one of the ancient Kings of Judah infamous for having burned the manuscript of one of the prophecies of Jeremiah. Rumor has it that Joaquin burned the first copy of the manuscript for Gladiator, initially titled "Wrestlemania I: At the Roman Coliseum." Good instincts on Joaquin's part. Jehoiakim on the other hand -- not so much.

ANSWER: She's loud, she's angry, she's "miss understood" and believe it or not -- she's Jewish. Pink, was born Alecia Beth Moore to James Moore and Judy Kugel. Interestingly, she developed her voice early on in her life. An asthmatic, she learned to breathe from her lower abdomen instead of her chest on doctor's advice, and started singing lessons to learn this technique. According to music insiders, this ironically may be responsible for her unique "angry" sound. That or, perhaps she developed it yelling at kids who made fun of her mother's maiden name "kugel."

SUBMIT YOUR COMMENT:

VISITORS COMMENTS: 20

(1) Scott Elam 5/25/2008 6:22:00 PM
I don''t consider the names .......
I don''t consider names so much with a quiz like this. I look at the face and the eyes....if they have that "under the surface look"...like everyone in my family....as if they can''t wait to be sarcastic & funny....then I know they''re Jewish! By the way....I only missed one..."Jim Henson".

(2) abe grow 1/19/2008 3:09:00 PM
fun
it`s hard to tell. People change their name all the time. If you don`t knowthe person, you can only guess. So if I didn`t do well, i`m a bad guesser. bye, bye

(3) Anonymous 12/31/2007 7:53:00 AM
Did you know that---
Cindy Lauper is Jewish. when I read about pink here this fact came to my mind, so I wanted to share it with yoyu folks here. Happy New Year all the best.

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