36 | FEBRUARY 25 • 2021 

CELEBRITY JEWS
ARTS&LIFE

PUNKY BREWSTER 
REBOOT; RASHIDA JONES
A reboot of Punky 
Brewster, the popular ’80s 
sitcom, will begin streaming 
on the Peacock Channel 
Feb. 25. (All 10 episodes 
will be released at once.) In 
the original, Punky (Soleil 
Moon Frye) was a warm and 
funny 7-year-old who was 
abandoned by her parents. 
Luckily, she met a kind old 
man who eventually became 
her legal foster parent. In the 
new version, Izzy, a young 
girl, is suffering in the foster 
system when she chances 
to meet Punky Brewster 
(Frye, again), now the harried 
single mother of three. Izzy 
reminds Punky of her young-
er self and she takes Izzy in.

 Since the original ended, 
Frye, now 43, has continued 
to act, mostly in voice parts. 
She also had four children 
with her TV producer hus-
band, Jason Goldberg, 48. 
Sadly, they separated last 
year. Like their mom, their 
kids have colorful names 
(all have the last name 
Goldberg). Here they are: 
(daughter) Poet Sienna Rose, 
15; (son) Jagger Joseph 
Blue, 12; (son) Lyric Sonny 
Roads, 7; and (son) Story, 4.
Actress Rashida Jones, 44, 
was interviewed (Feb. 11) by 

Terry Gross, 69, the host of 
Fresh Air (NPR). She mostly 
talked about costarring in the 
2020 film On the Rocks and 
about the birth of her first 
child (2018) and the death 
(2019) of her mother, actress 
Peggy Lipton. (Rashida’s life 
partner, and the father of her 
son, is Ezra Koenig, 36, a 
successful rock musician).
She also talked about 
her African American father, 
Quincy Jones, a legendary 
musician and music produc-
er. Her father, she said, grew-
up poor, in a rough Chicago 

neighborhood. But, she said, 
he beat the odds and sur-
vived and thrived. 
Later in the interview, 
Rashida told Gross that 
she went to the Latvian 
village where her Jewish 
great-grandparents came 
from while a guest on the 
ancestry TV show Who 
Do You Think You Are? 
Everybody (meaning the 
Jews), she said, were killed 
during the war. She then 
said: “And I just think about 
how ridiculous it is that I 
exist because the lineage on 
both sides, the probability 
that I would exist, a Black 
Jew in 2021, and succeed 
and thrive is a miracle. And 
it’s something I do not take 
for granted. I think about 
it constantly every day. I 
don’t understand why I was 
chosen, but I feel like I have 
to make good on my dad’s 
survival and my family’s sur-
vival.” 

NATE BLOOM COLUMNIST

SCREENSHOT FROM TRAILER

Soleil Moon 
Frye as Punky 
Brewster

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