"Is Sarah Jessica Parker Jewish?" my little sister asked. We had just sat down to watch the actress's fun '80's film, Girls Just Want to Have Fun.
"I don't know, I'm pretty sure. Why?" I responded.
"Oh, cause that'd be cool."

For a moment, we both reveled in the silent, yet extremely prominent satisfaction that Sarah Jessica Parker was quite possibly a "landsmen." But that term, "landsmen" had irked me since I was a kid. I had always wondered what the reason for distinguishing a landsmen from any other public figure was. I remembered a time when honestly, my mom's habits of pointing out Jews involved in anything from sitcoms to ska music seemed like the most pointless waste of breath out of her lips. Growing up, however, helped me to gain a sense of familial esteem when recognizing Jews in the public spotlight.

My entire life we've lived in towns with very small to nonexistent Jewish communities. Mom made sure I knew Billy Crystal, Adam Sandler, and Bette Midler were Jews. When she first started mentioning that some celebrities were Jewish, these people would glow on television, and pull me in to a starry-eyed reality of sitcoms, glitzy award shows, and music videos. When I thought about how those celebrities had maybe at one time gone to Sunday school like I did or celebrated Rosh Hashanah like I did, I felt proud to be a Jew. I would have stayed with my shoulders back and head raised high, except that Mom never let up and I entered that dim, sometimes cruel period in a girl's life: adolescence.

With adolescence came a new attitude. I came down with a pretty terrifying bug—cynicism. Being practically the only Jewish girl in the community didn't help matters. I downright didn't care that Tracey Gold was Jewish or that my mom thought Ben Affleck could quite possibly be Jewish. Why did she assume that they were? What necessarily made them Jewish? And most importantly, how did it affect me?

I hadn't yet come to understand why my mother felt this practice was necessary. To me, she was just spouting out names and faces, trying to connect them to our heritage and our frustration, being lone Jews.

Perhaps my post-adolescent soul searching, including reading books like Generation J by Lisa Schiffman and Judaism for Dummies by Rabbi Ted Falcon, Ph.D., has led me to understand where she was coming from.

Rabbi Ted Falcon in Judaism for Dummies writes, "All Jews are inextricably linked together simply by being Jewish. Perhaps it's a common practice with belief in Judaism; perhaps it's a common sense of history, or a shared sense of being an outsider from the broader culture. Or perhaps it's a deep, innate feeling of connection to the tribe."

Since we didn't have other Jews in the community to share a sense of pride and culture with, Mom tried to invoke in me the same sense of pride and culture through famous Jewish people. She wanted me to understand the prominence of Jews in modern life and in history and most importantly, not feel like I was the only Jew with my particular interests. She showed me other Jews who are fascinated with the entertainment industry, who like to make people laugh, who love to write, watch movies and act in plays, and who revel in just being Jewish. She wanted me to realize that Jews are everywhere—in New York, in Hollywood, in Alaska and in Florida. And that Jews are not capable of fitting the description of a particular stereotype.

My Jewish parents, like any African-American parents, Hispanic parents, French parents or Polish parents, want their children to know where their people came from as well as where their people are going. They wanted to equip me with the knowledge that could possibly someday bring me peace of mind if an anti-Semite were to attack my background. No anti-Semite can avoid hypocrisy unless they boycott all contributions by Jews to the world. And because I know so many names and biographies of famous Jews who have made substantial contributions, I hold knowledge that gives me power.

Pointing out Jews on television, in music, or in movies is habitual in our household. Most of the time, I'll be sitting at the computer, chatting or typing an essay when I'll hear my mom in the next room saying, "Hey, Maressa, did you know (fill in name of Jewish actor/actress/Lisa Loeb/stunt double here) is Jewish?" And I'll smile and call back, "No, really? That's cool!" Sometimes, my voice replaces my mom's, as my sister sits in the neighboring room. And she will respond with, "Awesome!"

I have realized that by joining my mom in her quest to point out famous Jews, I am no longer taking my heritage lightly. I took advice from Yahoodi.com's Famous Jews site that states, "In abandoning one's culture, one detracts from the richness of human diversity and condemns one's descendants to walk the earth rootless. Heal, don't run." Looks like the only running I see myself doing now is to see more and more movies starring landsmen.

Maressa Brown is currently a senior at Carl Sandburg High School in Orland Park, Ill. In the fall of 2002, she will enter college with a major in journalism and hopes to one day move to Los Angeles to pursue a career in entertainment journalism.