Oy Vey JDate!
JDate is one of the largest online Jewish dating sites, and describes itself as “the premier Jewish singles community online.” It’s mission is “to strengthen the Jewish community and ensure that Jewish traditions are sustained for generations to come. To accomplish this we provide a global network where Jewish singles find friendship, romance and life-long partners within their faith.”
In a recent blog post, the site announced its Top 5 Jewish Celebrities who got married in the past year.
June has traditionally been the most popular month for couples to get married, and that includes celebrity couples! Rachel Weisz was just one of many Jewish (okay part-Jewish) A-listers who said, “I do” during the month of June, or what has also become known as “the height of Wedding Season.” We here at the Hollywood Yenta Roundup love celebrating love; and so we decided to highlight some celebs who have some connection to Judaism, who got married in the past year and are enjoying that next phase in their life known as marital bliss. In honor of this romantic time of year, here are our Top 5 Jewish Celebrities who got married in the past year:
1. Seth Rogen
Funnyman Seth Rogen said, “I do” last October. The Jewish actor and his fiancée, Lauren Miller, tied the knot at Kunde Estate in Sonoma in front of a star-studded group of guests. The guest list reportedly included Judd Apatow and wife Leslie Mann, Paul Rudd, Adam Sandler, Jonah Hill and Craig Robinson from The Office.
Rogen and Miller, who’ve been together since 2004, were married by a female rabbi in a Jewish ceremony on a hilltop surrounded by vineyards at Kunde Estate, People magazine reported. We give special kudos to Rogen for being the one celebrity on our list to marry another Jew! Yasher koach you two!
2. Natalie Portman
After falling in love on the set of Black Swan, Natalie Portman and her now-husband Benjamin Millepied announced in late December 2010 that they were not only engaged, but also expecting a child!
The two wed last February in an-ultra secret ceremony after their baby boy, whom they named Aleph, was born. In fact, it was such a well-kept secret that the press didn’t even find out the two were married until the couple appeared at the 2012 Academy Awards, quietly debuting new wedding bands.
3. Mark Zuckerberg
Mark Zuckerberg and wife Priscilla Chan pulled off the ultimate top-secret wedding. Last May the two invited around 100 friends to celebrate Chan’s graduation from medical school at the University of California, San Francisco. However, what party-goers didn’t know was that the Jewish founder of Facebook would actually be tying the know with Chan on that day as well!
The ceremony and reception were held in the couple’s backyard. While the location was low-key, the party was not! Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong sang at the ceremony, according to the Mercury News, and dinner came from the couple’s two favorite restaurants, Palo Alto Sol and Fuki Sushi.
4. Rachel Weisz
After a short, quiet courtship, Rachel Weisz and Daniel Craig made it official last June! Like Portman and Zuckerberg, the Jewish actress was also able to pull off a secret wedding with the James Bond actor.
The Daily Mail reported the couple were married in “a low-key ceremony with just four people present” in New York last year. The four witnesses included two family friends, Craig’s teenage daughter and Weisz’s 5-year-old son.
5. Nikki Reed
Nikki Reed says she “couldn’t be happier” after marrying Paul McDonald last October. The Twilight star, whose father is Jewish, wed McDonald, a former American Idol contestant, in a private wedding ceremony in Malibu.
The two were engaged after just two months of dating and got married only four months after that! However, it looks like Reed and McDonald have definitely hit a point of true intimacy in their relationship as she Tweeted last April, “@thePaulMcDonald Don’t worry I’m looking forward to tweezing your ear hair.”
The only problem is 4 of these 5 are intermarriages.
Now that’s a fail if I ever saw one. (hat tip: Jewish Journal)
Update: Of course, it’s not JDate’s first fail. Anyone remember how they used porn models back in the day?
About the Author
An Australian immigrant to Israel, Aussie Dave has been blogging since early 2003.Filed Under: Aussie Dave
2 of the 5 are not Jewish (though they have Jewish heritage), so does that even qualify as intermarriage? The female rabbi wedding turns out to be the most kosher then. Oy vey indeed.
Three are intermarriages. Nikki Reid is not Jewish, so it was a regular non-Jewish wedding…
I think Rachel Weisz is not Halachadly Jewish also.
Who knows where the heart leads one? There have been a lot of successful interfaith celebrity marriages — George Burns and Gracie Allen; Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara; Woody Allen and Soon Yi Previn. Why can’t the world blame and blame not; live and let live? After all, you don’t have to be Jewish to enjoy IsraellyCool!
Anne Meara became a convert, so what was initially an intermarriage became a Jewish one. Still, I appreciate your sentiments.
I think that the idea of JDate is to assist with Jewish unions.
JDate does not require that you be Jewish to sign up.
You have no understanding of the value of a Jewish soul nor of its loss through eternal destruction.
I understand a comment like this one is bringing us all down here at IsraellyCool. Lighten up, Francis. And don’t get all preachy all of a sudden. I liked the “Old Jews Telling Jokes” Shy Guy a lot better.
“Lighten up” on what the Jewish people have always viewed as a major national tragedy?
Thanks for enlightening us.
The only tragedy here is that you think you speak for all of the Jewish people. Who else could find fault with the idea that people who love one another should pursue that love? You’re just not special enough to overcome this lunk-headed thinking, Shy Guy. Try harder.
The only tragedy here is that you think you speak for all of the Jewish people. Who else could find fault with the idea that people who devoted to the Jewish People should pursue that devotion? You’re just not special enough to overcome this lunk-headed thinking, Iowa Jim. Try harder.
This isn’t my sentiment, it’s my rabbi’s from one of his speeches at shule – a Jewish soul should never be rejected. Every Jewish soul should be nourished, so he or she knows there is a way back. Natalie portman’s son is Jewish – a soul is a soul.
Who’s arguing with you? Certainly not me!
I’m just suggesting you should go easier on people who are Jewish souls. Their children won’t be, but who knows, they may return. There are plenty who will persevere.
I’m intermarried. If any of you has a problem with that you can kiss my ass.
You don’t realize it but you have to bend way over backwards.
Shyguy, it looks like you have the same problem with intermarriage the Nazis did. Intermarriage brought us many blessings and mitzvahs, starting with Carly Simon (Jewish father, Spanish / German mother), whose birthday is today.
A half million Americans sacrificed their lives 70 years or so ago so we could marry the person we’re in love with, regardless of religion or ethnicity.
Yeah, I’m a Nazi.
So is G-d.
Brilliant dissertation. Do you have a PhD in maroonery?
No, I don’t have a Ph.D in maroonery, whatever the hell that is.
But I’m more than willing to be educated. Perhaps you can educate me, up close and personal.
Educating through picture examples
Education through cinema
If there’s anything worse than a self-righteous, Jew-hating SOB like that ayotollah-loving, Israel-hating POS Little Dickie Kapostein it’s a self-righteous Defender of the Faith who tells me who I should have married, and that if my choice didn’t meet with his approval, that I’m condemned to Hell.
Who in hell, Shy Guy, gave you the right to speak for God? I thought that doing so violates one of the 10 Commandments.
If Heaven is comprised of black-hatted bastards such as yourself, I’ll take my chances with His Satanic Majesty.
Yes, because Jews are not supposed to defend their faith.
/sarc
Yes, because G-d told us never to speak of what we Jews are obligated to do.
/sarc
Yes, because it also says in the 10 Commandments that you must wear a black hat.
/sarc – I don’t wear a hat
Yes, have a nice trip down south.
Look in the mirror, you Jewish anti-Semite.
Oh, you never thought you could be one? That’s because you have thought much at all.
Dude,you’are in the year 2012…OPEN your MIND!
Dude we’re in 5772. Our minds and our eyes have been open for 3300+ years.
There were more Jewish souls lost because of intermarriage in the last 70+ years than murdered in the Holocaust.
You have no idea what it means to “cut the covenant cord”.
I don’t have to speak in anyone’s name. The Torah speaks for itself.
Tom:
I don’t tell you how to practice your religion. You don’t tell me how I should practice (or don’t practice) mine. Capice?
That’s what makes America great.
I’m not telling you anything. “the instruction book of life” aka the Torah is telling you. More precisley your Creator is.
And: it’s not your “religion” it’s your life.
Btw: it’s capisci (say “capishi”) capire
Before you give me lessons in Italian, Tom, learn to properly spell “precisely.” Capisci?
The Torah also says the universe was created 5,712 years ago. It’s only off by about 13 billion.
Where does it say any such thing in the Torah?
OK, “precisely” was more of a typo, I’ll give that point.
Please don’t start the “world is x billion years old”-discussion, the numbers are so far apart: Some scientists will talk about billions while others will talk about millions. Only billions or millions off.
You better start to investigate before you make false statements.
Now back to our subject. If you are interested in the subject and speak Hebrew:
Israel and the Nations
If the misguided and mistaken belief that the world is 5772 years old doesn’t come from the Torah, where does it come from? Out of some rabbi’s rear end? Well, that’s where much of the Torah originates from, so you may have a point.
There aren’t scientists who believe the universe is “millions” of years old. It’s “billions,” and the number of billions is growing as more is discovered about the universe. Currently, the best answer is approximately 13 billion.
I may be a “liar,” but I’m a rather large, muscular, two-fisted prevaricator who enjoys a getting into a scrap once in awhile. Especially with fellow Jews who think they’re superior to me because they won’t eat a lobster or a cheeseburger, or because their spouse’s maiden name was Abramowitz rather than Smith. And those who’d insult me because I don’t share their antediluvian beliefs.
Finally, you didn’t define the subject. The subject was a rather ridiculous lament that Jdate leads to assimilation. So what if it does?
JINO. When living flesh rots, it’s best to be cut off and tossed out. As you like it.
That’s 5772 years, I was only off by 60. Sorry. A mere microsecond compared with 13 billion.
From your last idiotic comment, I infer you want a piece of me.
Bring it on, Champ.
I’m a little confused by these statements about lost Jewish souls.
How does intermarriage effect this? If we go by the Orthodox definition of who is a Jew, it doesn’t matter who a Jewish woman has kids with, the child will still be Jewish. Likewise, it doesn’t matter who a Jewish man marries because “he” doesn’t have the ability to give their child a Jewish soul anyway.
So intermarriage doesn’t change the number of Jewish women giving birth. In fact, if we count Orthodox converts to Judaism as Jewish, it adds Jewish women.
Yes, you’re right. Assuming a woman marries a non-Jewish person and for all following generations has only girls, or at least one is a girl, they are all Jewish. But I know from personal experience that with intermarriage (unimportant which if man or woman are Jewish), the chance that the kids will grow up with Jewish values and knowledge what Judaism really is, is close to 0. Let alone continue to pass on Jewish values to their kids.
Eating matzeballs on Pessach and gefilte fish on Friday night are not the essentials of Judaism.
The man doesn’t pass on Judaism by birth, yes, but even a woman won’t pass on much Judaism, except the fact that the kids are Jewish by birth, but in truth are just like all the Goyim. (meaning nations of the world)