Leonard Nimoy, the beloved actor known most prominently for his role as Spock in the Star Trek television series and film franchise, died Friday of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Shortly after, his life and legacy became the focus of Internet chatter.
His death even garnered attention from the White House:
In the wake of his passing, writers have focused on Nimoy’s life outside of his Star Trek persona.
"To the end, he used his acting career to get people thinking about technology, humanity, and responsibility,” The Daily Beast’s Noel Murray wrote on Friday.
But there’s another part of Nimoy’s life, arguably more fundamental than his iconic television role or philanthropy that has generated attention: his Jewishness.
After his death, media organizations began to scramble for content that would help provide a fuller picture of who Nimoy was to their readers. In this spirit, a couple outlets posted a video of Nimoy explaining the Jewish origins of the famous Vulcan salute, which, according to the interview, is actually a hand gesture symbolizing the Hebrew letter shin.
But Nimoy’s Jewishness extends far beyond his incorporation of the Hebrew alphabet into Star Trek.
Tablet Magazine, a website that covers Jewish culture, published a passage from Abigail Pogrebin’s book “Stars of David: Prominent Jews Talk About Being Jewish” that details Nimoy’s orthodox Jewish upbringing, as well as the anti-Semitism he experienced growing up in Boston.
In fact, the book passage quotes Nimoy giving credit to his Jewish upbringing — and an opportunity to act in the play “Awake and Sing” (a play that chronicles the hardships of a Jewish family during the Great Depression) — for his entire acting career.
“I became an actor, I’m convinced, because I found a home in a play about a Jewish family just like mine,” Nimoy is quoted as saying.
The passage contains many other stories of Nimoy’s life as a Jewish actor in Hollywood, as well as another detailed description of how his Jewish upbringing influenced the famous Vulcan salute.
Read the excerpt at Tablet Magazine.
JJ Feinauer is a writer and web producer for Deseret News National. Email: jfeinauer@deseretdigital.com, Twitter: jjfeinauer.