Zach Braff hearts Tel Aviv.

November 26, 2008 - 9:14 AM by Harry · Leave a Comment
Filed under: General, Pop Culture, Travel

Zach Braff of Scrubs ‘Scrubs’ star Zach Braff recently visited Tel Aviv and like many visitors fell in love with the city. Braff was not here for publicity reasons or to promote a new television show or movie but rather came on vacation. He gave a pretty cool interview to Ha’aretz, talking about his career as JD on Scrubs and what influences him as an actor. More interesting to me was that he spoke quite frankly about his previous experiences in Israel and his Jewish identity – a topic that many American Jews in Hollywood avoid (except our beloved Natalie of course).

As an American Jew it’s an amazing feeling to come to a place where you feel you belong. You know we’re such a minority in the U.S. Even though I grew up in New Jersey, which was very Jewish, and then I went to school in Chicago, which was Jewish, and then I moved to New York, which is very Jewish, and then I went to Hollywood, which is very Jewish. But they say we’re only 2 percent of the population and shrinking because of intermarriage.”

Braff says that when you come here, “you just feel this amazing sense of community. We hear so much about Israel and politics with the Palestinians and you feel so separate from it. So I really wanted to see for myself.” He says he was “lucky” to be able to come and see things firsthand and to talk to Israelis. “As a Jew I think it’s really important to come to this place. There is such a tremendous sense of community, tremendous bond for obvious reasons. I don’t know if Israelis have a sense of it because they live here, but I love it.”

His experiences reflect exactly what many American Jews feel when visiting Israel – myself included. Except I don’t have the power to make a movie about the experience.

The Israeli experience made such an impression on him, he says, he is thinking of his next film touching on a story about an American Jew who visits Israel. Braff, who wrote and directed the successful “Garden State,” which also starred Natalie Portman, says a story like what he has in mind is something he’s never seen in a movie and thinks it will be really interesting.

I question whether Braff would get the funding for a movie about an American Jew in Israel, but he pulled off funding Garden State on his own and we all know how successful that movie was… His co-star from Garden State, Natalie Portman will be making her directorial debut later this year with A Tale of Love and Darkness, based on the novel on Amos Oz, so perhaps she’ll help with getting Braff acclimated to the film scene here. Hey, maybe we’ll even see the two of them reunite on screen – that would be a surefire success. And mandatory viewing for all birthright participants.

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