What was it like to grow up Jewish? | Jennifer Rubell | Big Think

What was it like to grow up Jewish?

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It’s like being a fish IN water.

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Jennifer Rubell:

Jennifer Rubell, 36, writer, renowned hostess, hotelier, Harvard grad and member of the illustrious Rubell clan, is poised to become the country’s newest entertaining guru. Jennifer is currently Food and Entertaining Editor of the Miami Herald’s Home & Design magazine, Former Contributing Food Editor of, the recently folded (March 2009), Condé Nast shelter magazine Domino, and her first book, Real Life Entertaining, was released in May 2006 by HarperCollins. She writes regularly for the Los Angeles Times Syndicate, and has appeared in, among others, Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, W, Better Homes and Gardens, Elle, The New York Times, Every Day with Rachael Ray, Travel + Leisure, Ocean Drive and Food & Wine. In 2007, Paper Magazine named Jennifer one of its 30 most beautiful people.

Entertaining is in Jennifer Rubell’s blood. Her uncle, the late Studio 54 owner Steve Rubell, treated Jennifer as his own child, taking her along to parties with Halston, Calvin Klein, Liza Minelli and Bianca Jagger, and inviting her to every major event at Studio 54, starting at the age of 7. Her parents, world-renowned contemporary art collectors Donald and Mera Rubell, became famous in the ‘80s for the Whitney Biennial after-party they hosted at their Upper East Side townhouse. With artists like Keith Haring, Jean Michel Basquiat, Julian Schnabel and Andy Warhol roaming around the house, Mera turned out bowl after bowl of spaghetti with homemade marinara sauce, with Jennifer at her side learning the Rubell family style: personal, unconventional and decidedly hands-on.

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TRANSCRIPT:

Jennifer Rubell: Well growing up Jewish in New York, you’re really a fish in water. It’s a really intensely . . . Well I think it’s an intensely ethnic city. So you have Jews. You have Italians. You have Dominicans. You have every wave of immigration. And I think the most . . . In the United States, New York is the place where you can come from anywhere and feel at home. This is . . . this is a place where your culture has its hub. And then you also are interacting with other cultures all the time. So it’s strange. It’s like you have more community and more mix also.

Recorded on 12/13/07