April 4, 2023
When Zack Galifianakis asks Paul Rudd about his Jewishness in “Between Two Ferns: The Movie,” the actor responds with a quip.
“I’m not a practicing Jew,” he says with a smirk. “I perfected it.”
Rudd’s now widely referenced line nods to a sentiment felt by many Jews: There isn’t any one way to be Jewish. Judaism is one of the world’s oldest surviving religions. But Jewishness is more than that. Jews have shared customs, traditions and histories. People can be Jewish and secular. They can convert into the faith. There are Jews who consider themselves White and Jews who are people of color. At various points in time, the Jewish people have been characterized as a nation, an ethnicity and a race.