-4111111.1111.
FINAL WEEKS IN DETROIT!
Playin • throw • h Ma 18 at the Gem Theatre.
But gradually over the course of the
hour, Taub begins to admire Roz, her
new husband and their faith. "They
have something we don't have he says
at the end of the show.
Ironically, although the situation
is not completely analogous, it is
similar to the journey taken by Peter
Jacobson, 43, the actor who portrays
Taub. He grew up in Chicago. His
mother taught art at the University of
Chicago; his dad was a local TV jour-
nalist who achieved local notoriety
when he went after the elder Mayor
Richard Daley.
Judaism was "non-existent" in the
Jacobson household. "Neither of my
parents was a practicing Jew. I grew
up in a very non-religious household:'
says Taub, who did not have a bar
mitzvah but was confirmed, "which in
a very Reform temple is what they do
for kids who did not get a bar mitz-
vah."
There were a lot of Jewish children
in the private school he attended and
certainly a large number of Jewish
students at Brown University, where
he graduated with a degree in political
science. But "I didn't know what being
Jewish meant, not even what it meant
to be a cultural Jew."
That changed when he first moved
to New York in the 1980s. "That
opened my eyes to things I wasn't
exposed to." He also met and married
Whitney Scott (originally Sakovit),
and though she too came from a
largely secular family, the Scotts, living
in New York, were deeply imbued with
Jewish culture. What little Yiddish he
knows, Jacobson says, he learned from
his wife and mother-in-law.
"Interestingly, though we both
came from that kind of background,
we want our son to be a bar mitzvah
and grow up in a Jewish city;' says
Jacobson.
The couple settled on the Upper
West Side, and Jacobson laughs at the
figurative distance he's traveled. "I
never saw a Chasid before I came here.
Now I pass a Mitzvah Tank and they
zero in on me."
That, of course, raises another issue.
The reason the Chasidim zero in on
him is that he looks unmistakably
Jewish. "It's something that's been a
big issue my entire career;' he admits.
Before he came to New York to
attend Julliard,"I'd been in school my
whole life and not in the real world. I
was naive about the acting business
and how the outside world would per-
ceive me.
"I thought I would be a character
actor, and I could play anything. [But]
I will always be Peter Jacobson, the
Jewish guy. As my career has taken
off and I've become more secure, it's
something I'm proud of." ❑
se
MetiOP
the musical
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APrill
" THE ULTIMATE
GIRLS' NIGHT OUT."
-
tietroit Free Press
• • • •• • • • • .
. CELEBRATE . • •
' MOTHER'S DAY •
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• SUNDAY MAY
•
11 • •
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PEPS!
1AONG H ti4
The House episode described in
this article airs 9 p.m. Monday,
April 21, on FOX2.
- FINE CHINESE DINING
Invites You To
wonderful adventure in fine dining" — Danny Raskin
Featuring Gourmet Oriental Cuisine
says that she loved every minute of
her work. For the Wall Street Journal,
she covered the Middle East, based in
Cairo, and also reported from Bosnia,
Somalia and Eritrea.
When her son was born and she
realized that she couldn't do the type
of reporting that required her to drop
everything and travel, she turned to
book writing. Her first two books
were nonfiction: Nine Parts of Desire:
The Hidden World of Islamic Women
and Foreign Correspondence. She then
wrote two novels, Year of Wonders and
March, for which she was awarded the
Pulitzer Prize.
Her own mother is nothing like
Hanna's mother and, in fact, she and
her mother have always been very
close. Brooks and Horwitz, hoping
to give their son a brother, are in the
process of adopting a young boy from
Ethiopia.
Brooks notes that the response to
the New Yorker article has been greater
than to anything she's written in the
last 10 years.
She could be speaking about the
novel as well when she says,"The
times we live in are so bleak. People
want to be reminded that it's not
always about hatred and betrayal."
Excellent
Lunch
and
Dinner
Complete
Menu
Carryout
Selections
7 Days
a Week
•
I I a.m.-
Midnight
Gift
Certificates
•
Available
We Cater
To Private
Parties
Xes.
27925 Orchard Lake Road, north of 12 Mile • Farmington Hills
248.489.2280
Geraldine Brooks reads from and signs copies of People of the Book,
and her husband, Tony Horwitz, reads from and signs copies of his new
work of nonfiction, A Voyage Long and Strange, his account of events in
early America between the Plymouth Rock landing and the Jamestown
settlement, 7 p.m. Wednesday, April 30, at Borders, 612 Liberty, in Ann
Arbor. Free. (734) 668-7652.
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