arts & life

Patricia Arquette

Graham Moore

At The Oscars

A Jewish
"Who's Who"
of the 2015
Academy Award
nominees.

The 87th Academy Awards
are being presented on
Sunday, Feb. 22 (8:30 p.m.
on ABC), hosted by
Neil Patrick Harris.

Nate Bloom
Special to the Jewish News

W

hat do we love most
about watching the
Oscars (besides the
films, of course)? The dresses.
After that, it's guessing which
nominees from the Hollywood
tribe are members of our tribe.
So we've compiled a list to
enhance your viewing pleasure.
Here, the Jewish nominees in all
but the technical categories:

Best Supporting Actress:
Patricia Arquette, 46,
for Boyhood. A little
insight into Arquette's
background, as reported
in 2011 by the Brit paper
the Telegraph: "The classic
middle child, the mother
hen, was brought up to
question authority, to
believe that anything was pos-
sible, even religious harmony:
Her father was Muslim [by con-
version], her mother Jewish and
she was sent to a Catholic school.
She was harshly disabused of
that idea when, at the age of 5
or 6, a teacher told her that she
couldn't take communion because
`your mother is Jewish and she's

going to hell. `You know what?'
responded the young Arquette,
who had wanted to be a nun, 'I
think your Jesus and my Jesus
are different."' While sincerely
spiritual, Arquette doesn't follow
any organized religion. Her sister,
Rosanna, 55, who had her only
child with a Jewish husband and
is now married to another (obser-
vant) Jewish guy, is the most
Jewishly affiliated of the Arquette
acting family.

Best Director: Bennett
Miller, 48, Foxcatcher;
Best Original Screenplay:
Dan Futterman, 47,
Foxcatcher (with E. Max
Frye, who isn't Jewish).
Futterman's wife, Anya
Epstein, 44, is the grand-
daughter of the late Philip
G. Epstein, who was a co-winner
(with twin brother, Julius J.) of
the 1943 screenplay Oscar for
Casablanca. Her brother, Theo
Epstein, 42, is a baseball execu-
tive who turned the Boston Red
Sox into champions and is now
trying to turn around the Chicago
Cubs; Best Adapted Screenplay:
Graham Moore, 32, The
Imitation Game. Moore's mother,
Susan Sher, 69, formerly served
as Michelle Obama's chief of staff

and she was also White House
liaison to the Jewish community.
Moore recently said, "My Judaism
has felt more and more important
to me, and more and more of a
social identifier. My grandparents
passed away a few years ago, and
I was very close to them, and for
their generation, their Jewish
identity was extremely important.
And after they passed away, this
notion that my mother and I
would become the keepers of this
tradition became very apparent
and very important."

Best Documentary,
feature length: John
Maloof, who is Lebanese-
American (and not
Jewish), and Charlie
Siskel, 44, who is Jewish
(he's the nephew of the
late film critic Gene
Siskel), for Finding
Vivian Maier. Best Live Action
Short Film: Oded Binnun and
Mihal Brezis, who are both
Israeli, for the French-Israeli
film, Aya, a film about a young
woman waiting at an airport
who has an unexpected encoun-
ter with an arriving passenger.
Reports say the filmmakers are
now working on a feature-length
version of Aya.

OSCARS on page 45

February 19 • 2015

41