"I had no idea how super Jewish I am"

 If you’re surprised to learn that Alanis Morissette is Jewish… you’re not alone. So was she.
by Jewish Life Now

The singer-songwriter only discovered her Jewish roots at age 28.

Her mother, Georgia, was born in Hungary to Holocaust survivors Imre and Nadinia Feuerstein,
who, like so many others, hid their Jewish identity in the wake of unimaginable trauma.
 “I think there was a terror that was in their bones…
just not wanting antisemitism,” Alanis told host of “Finding your roots”,
Henry Louis Gates Jr. “They were doing it to protect us, to keep us in the dark.”

During the episode, Gates detailed

the brutal persecution of Jews in Hungary, including the “work battalions” - labor camps where Imre’s brothers, Gyorgy and Sandor, were sent.
Conditions were so horrific that people died off one by one.
“It’s unfathomable for me,” Morissette said, visibly shaken.

And then came the moment of emotional clarity.
With a bright, almost stunned smile, she said it out loud:

“I had no idea how super Jewish I am.”

When asked how that changes how she sees herself, Alanis didn’t miss a beat.

“I feel welcomed into a community I’ve always had a crush on,” she said. “I would just show up at Passover, at seder.”

(And yes, she now celebrates Hanukkah with her own family.)

After a lifetime of feeling drawn to Jewish traditions without knowing why, she finally gets it.

“It was a call from my ancestors,” she says. “Beckoning me to come home.”