Alanis Morissette’s family Holocaust history
"I think there was a terror that is in their bones and they were being protective of us and just not wanting antisemitism," says Alanis Morissette.
(JTA) Seven-time Grammy Award winner Alanis Morissette explored her family’s Jewish past, which she said was kept a secret from her for most of her life, on the American celebrity genealogy series Finding Your Roots.
“I think I found out that I was Jewish in my late 20s. I didn’t know,” the American rock star said in the episode.
Morissette, 49, was raised Catholic and is now a practising Buddhist. But her mother, Georgia Mary Ann Feuerstein, was born in Hungary to two Holocaust survivor parents.
“I think there was a terror that is in their bones and they were being protective of us and just not wanting antisemitism,” Morissette said. “So they were doing it to protect us, sort of keeping us in the dark around it.”
Morissette, who has sold more than 85 million albums worldwide and has performed in Israel multiple times, is the latest in a long list of celebrities to explore their Jewish ancestry on the show. Past guests have included Pamela Adlon, Dustin Hoffman, Scarlett Johansson and Paul Rudd.
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