By Sonia Levitin

The Vulcan is a real Jew

The interview was given in Leonard's unpretentious, spacious room in his Beverly Hills office. Sonia Levitin mentions various works of Leonard Nimoy in the beginning

SL: Many of us are asking, how can I express my Judaism and still be involved in the commercial, predominantly Gentile world? How does one find the right balance? Apparently you have done this. You are an active member of a Reform congregation, and you take your Judaism seriously.

LN: That's right. My wife Susan and I are very involved with Temple Israel in Los Angeles, CA... I grew up in an Orthodox neighbourhood in Boston, went to an Orthodox shul, and sang in the choir. We spoke Yiddish at home. I was in the AZA as a kid and when I was 14 or 15 years old I was performing at war bond ralleys rin by B'nai B'rith. I also read Jewish short stories on the radio as a teenager. Later I worked with Maurice Schwartz, the founder of the Yiddish Art Theatre.

SL : What kind of Passover experiences did you have as a child?

LN: I have strong memories of my childhood seders in Boston, sitting around the kitchen table at my grandfather's house with my parents and my older brother Melvin. I remember a lot of food and candles and wine, pieces of chicken and boiled eggs and matzah, of course, and the afikomen. Whoever found the matzah got a quarter. I remember opening the door for Elijah, and that was always a very special, magical moment for me. Those moments in Judaism somehow captured my imagination, those ritual moments that have to do with something mystical.

LN:  We do seders for large number of people, friends and relatives, and we invite all the travelling people who aren't connected to a family here in town. Melvin comes with his two sons and daughter, my daughter and their three children come, and my son Adam comes with his two children... my wife is very committed to finding the feminine aspect of these rituals. She reads from a feminist haggadah and assigns readings readings from it.

SL :  Do you use different haggadot at your services?

SL : So you create your own service, do you lead the service?

LN: Yes, I feel particularly in the last 10 to 15 years I've come out of a cocoon in which I was bound up by obsessive career goals at the expense of personal life. I have lately given myself the license to be much more engaged with my family and our personal activities, and let the career be equal or at best second place...

SL : I understand you also write poetry, that in fact, you have written three volumes of poetry. What are your themes?

LN : Mostly love poems. A celebration of love and life. I write from a place of appreciation. I'm about ready to do more poetry. I'm getting close.

...

SL : What was like narrating the new documentary "A Life Apart"

LN: I have mixed feelings about the Orthodox. I value the Hasidim greatly as a people. They are in a sense the keepers of the flame. I also liked the people in that movie. I met them. I felt comfortable with them. But I am very troubled by this horrible issue of "who is a Jew?" I'm very simplistic about it. I ask, if Hitler were here, would he consider me a Jew? And of course he'd say yes, and that's the end of that. If we were all in line to go to Auschwitz, would the Orthodox pull us out of the line and say, "You are not a Jew?"

SL : It wouldn't matter.

LN: It wouldn't matter, exactly. I don't consider myself a politician or a sociologist, but just from the point of view of a Jew, I'm terribly pained by this, what seems to be a flagrant battle for territory.

...

SL (on Never Forget): The attorney acted like a Nazi. Did you think you would have actual tears? Did you plan it?

SL : It seems to me that for a long time in this country there was an attitude of "don't rock the boat, keep a low profile". For example in the 50s you didn't go around wearing a Morgan David – I mean, yes, you were a Jew but you didn't broadcast it. Was that your experience as well?

LN: Yes, don't make waves. When I came to Los Angeles, into the movie business, I found there was a strong stream of Judaism here. I actually felt more at home here than I had in Boston, where very often people were overtly anti-Semitic.

SL : How so?