by Rebecca Honig Friedman

Mare Winningham is a multiple award-winning actress (with two Emmys and an Oscar nomination, amongst other accolades) and a singer/songwriter with three albums to her name. She is also a Jewess, having converted in 2003 after leading a couple decades of secular adulthood, though she was brought up a Catholic. (She also has five grown children, a respectable number even by Brooklyn standards.)
Though I will always think of Winningham as the virginal “Wendy” from “St. Elmo’s Fire” — in love with bad boy “Billy,” a.k.a. Rob Lowe — she has been in dozens of (much better) movies and television shows (including “Grey’s Anatomy”) since then, and she just finished a run in the Off-Broadway musical “10 Million Miles,” for which she received outstanding reviews.
But even more significant for our purposes is Winningham’s latest album, “Refuge Rock Sublime,” which continues in the country and bluegrass tradition of her first two albums, but adds a new and wonderful twist: Judaism!
Playing guitar and dulcimer, alongside clear, crisp vocals, Winningham includes old Hebrew classics like “Al Kole Ele,” “Etz Chaim” and, of course, “Hatikvah,” as well as original compositions that explore Jewish themes, such as “What Would David Do,” “Oh Moses,” and “A Convert Jig,” amongst others. The titles betray Winningham’s sense of humor, but the songs are also serious in their sincere grappling with what it means to be newly Jewish.
Despite her fame, busy schedule and self-admitted computer illiteracy, Winningham graciously agreed to an email interview, in which she describes her lucky escape from the brat pack, her Jewish cowgirl ambitions, and brain overload at the Drisha Institute.
And, by the way, she doesn’t know Madonna (an extra question we couldn’t help but ask), and is a fan of Jewess (a tidibt she offered on her own. Score!).

1. JEWESS: Your character in St. Elmo’s Fire was Jewish. We’ll assume that didn’t have much to do with your decision nearly two decades later to convert, but how did being in that particular 80’s classic and being associated with the “brat pack” influence you?
MARE WINNINGHAM: I like to think I dodged that “brat pack” bullet!
But that movie really did seem to define a certain generation. I hear that a lot. It didn’t influence me much because was a young mother at the time, and I was too busy chasing little ones down the hall. I missed the party, and I didn’t mind.

2. JEWESS: Is “Refuge Rock Sublime” the beginning of a “faith-based” musical career for you or just a one-time foray into the genre? Are you the next Debbie Friedman?
WINNINGHAM: I wanna be the First Jewish Cowgirl.
Yea, I know, Kinky Friedman did it first (is he related to Debbie Friedman?), but there’s the gender thing. I think I have more country Jewish folk songs to write and record. Would like to make that happen.
(I know there’s no relation. She is the Ima of Jewish Music.)

3. JEWESS: What’s nice and different about your album - it’s chiddush, if you will — is it’s a rare look into the internal process of becoming Jewish. For those of us who were born into the tribe, that’s a foreign concept. As a woman in particular, is your experience of the world/life/society/etc. different as a Jew than it was as a non-Jew?
WINNINGHAM: Everything seems different because I have a fairly new, developing relationship with G-d. It is shaping my world, in every way. And it points me towards a more connected relationship with my fellow man.
As for “especially as a woman?” Hmmmm….

4. JEWESS: What was your reception like initially by the Jewish community, particularly given your celebrity status? What kind of reception have you gotten from the secular world?
WINNINGHAM: I was warmly welcomed into the tribe. I am lucky, with the “celebrity” factor, in that it makes for an easy introduction. In Los Angeles, where I live, I have been invited to participate in numerous events and fund-raisers for Jewish causes. It’s nice, if I can be useful in that way. I don’t like speaking in public (as myself — I don’t mind being someone else, with carefully penned dialogue), but I’m glad to sing for a good Jewish cause whenever possible.
To answer the second part of your question, my secular world lives right next door to the religious one, and life intersects just fine. It is strange, I admit, to come to religion so relatively late in life. So naturally, it is a curiosity when it’s brought up. I treasure the many conversations I have had with my secular friends about religion and Judaism. Helps me to articulate my own religious understanding.

5. JEWESS: Have you been following the recent hullabaloo about conversion in Orthodox Judaism and rabbinic attempts to standardize the process? What are your thoughts about that?
5. I haven’t been following that, but I like that you use the word hullabaloo.
I am studying here in New York, taking biblical Hebrew and Jewish Text classes at the DRISHA institute, and I read the Jewish publications that they have on the tables, but I am on brain overload from trying to learn to conjugate the verbs so I’d best “restrict” my thoughts on subjects I don’t know much about.

6. JEWESS: Have you been to Israel, and if so, how was the experience? How good is your conversational Hebrew?
I’ve not been to Israel, yet, and hope to change that sad fact as soon as possible.
I don’t have any modern Hebrew skills. Nada. Zip. Next set of classes in my future, G-d willing.

7. JEWESS: In our last interview with a singer/songwriter, we asked which Biblical figure she’d most like to duet with and she said Moses. From your song “Oh Moses,” we gather you might answer the same (though please feel free to contradict and offer another choice). So, new question: if you could choose a fantasy lineup of Jewish women — dead or alive, musician or non, Biblical or contemporary — for a Jewess band (you can choose the musical genre), who would be in it and what would they play?
WINNINGHAM: Sarah on stand-up bass.
Rebecca on guitar.
Rachel on fiddle.
Leah on mandolin.
Obviously, The Beloved Matriarchs Jewgrass Band.

Posted on July 18th, 2007 Filed under: Interviews |