Hanukkah with Hart

In a case of fiction imitating fact, Rachel Bilson’s TV character Zoe Hart on Hart of Dixie has one Jewish parent. In both character and real life, she has a Jewish father. In the November 25 episode of the CW series, she’ll celebrate her heritage in an episode that centers around Zoe hosting a Hanukkah celebration. Fans of The O.C. will remember Bilson as the girlfriend of the paternally Jewish Seth Cohen (Adam Brody), who celebrated Chrismukkah every year with his family. Of course, given the variances of the Jewish calendar, this year it would be Thanksgivukkah!

Banks on Fire

Back on screen November 22 in The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, the second film in a planned quartet, Elizabeth Banks is reprising her role as Effie Trinket, the outlandish tribute escort from the Capitol. Banks, who changed her name from Mitchell, converted from Christianity to Judaism when she married her husband Max Handelman in 2003. Though she said earlier this year that she “did not have my mikveh, so technically I’m not converted,” she is a practicing Jew. “I feel like I’m as Jewish as I’m ever going to be,” added Banks, who is raising two young sons with Handelman.

Disney and Not-so-Disney Roles

Broadway star and recurring Glee actress Idina Menzel can be heard this month (November 22) voicing Elsa, the Snow Queen in the Disney animated musical Frozen, also featuring the voices of Kristen Bell and another former Glee star, Jonathan Groff. Jewish New York native Menzel is married to actor Taye Diggs, who is not Jewish. They met in 1995 when they appeared on Broadway in Rent (they later reprised their roles in the movie version), also appearing in Wicked together, the musical that won her a Tony Award. They have a son, Walker Nathaniel, 3.

Winona Ryder returns to the screen November 27 as the biker chick girlfriend of a drug lord (James Franco) in Homefront, an action flick starring Jason Statham as an ex-DEA agent who tangles with the meth-making crew. Ryder, whose father is of Jewish ancestry (he describes himself as an atheist) and mother is Buddhist, identifies as Jewish, though she incorporates Buddhist elements in her spiritual beliefs. As noted last summer, Franco is interfaith too, of Portuguese and Swedish-Christian heritage on his paternal side and Russian-Jewish roots on his mother’s.