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Lucille Ball of our time,” noting her 
Emmy Award for her role in Will 
and Grace, one of the first network 
television show with openly gay 
characters.
Messing, making her first visit to 
Detroit, grew up in Rhode Island. Her 
parents were observant Jews active in 
the local Jewish federation, but she was 
one of only three Jews in her school. 
In second grade, she was told to “get 
to the back of the line, kike,” and it 
was then that she started to believe 
being Jewish was something bad, even 
though she didn’t understand exactly 
what ”kike” meant. One Halloween, 
her grandfather’s car was defaced with 
swastikas. She began to think being 
Jewish could be dangerous and started 
to downplay her Jewish identity.
That changed after she attended 
Brandeis University. “For the first time, 
I felt safe,” she said. “I didn’t have to 
explain what it meant to be Jewish.” She 
went on to New York University for a 

master’s degree in acting.
She was just finishing a role in a live 
play when she was offered the role of 
Grace Adler. She almost turned it down 
because she felt she needed a break. 
Then, she said, she read the script and 
realized how special the show was, 
with a Jewish character that wasn’t a 
stereotype and a chance to be the first 
Jewish leading lady on television in 
decades. 
The show ran for 11 seasons.

STANDING UP FOR ISRAEL
Messing spent many years working on 

behalf of groups she felt were being 
treated disrespectfully, including 
women, Muslims, people of color, 
people with AIDS and more. No one 
from these groups showed up for the 
Jewish victims after Oct. 7. “The silence 
was devastating,” she said.
Shortly after Oct. 7, she spoke at 
the nationwide pro-Israel rally in 
Washington, D.C. 
Addressing the crowd of 300,000 was 
intimidating. “I was very scared,” she 
said. It was not what she had trained 
for, but, quoting the Jewish sage Hillel, 
she added, “If not now, when?” When 

ABOVE: The panelists pause as the crowd 
held a moment of silence for the Israeli 
hostages and victims of violence. 
BELOW: Signature Leadership: Sherrie Singer, 
Amy Berman, Julie Trepeck Harris, Stefanie 
Aronow, Shelly Rubenfire, Melissa Wolf and 
Nancy Glen.

OUR COMMUNITY