Jonah Platt refuses to be quiet

Jewish News UK – Every Friday evening, Jonah Platt gathers his family around the Shabbat table and places his hands on his children’s heads to say the blessing. The kids find it slightly annoying. He does it anyway – and has, without exception, since the day they were born.

“Since I was a little kid, I always said: ‘When I have kids, I’m blessing them every Shabbat,’” he said, laughing.

Growing up, the actor and singer would watch his second cousins receive the blessing and quietly take note – a thing he wanted, a thing he would do. They will understand when they’re older.

That is Jonah Platt: a man who pays attention, takes notes and shows up – especially when no one is making him.

Jonah is the second of five Platt children. Growing up in Los Angeles, he was the first in his family to be born there; his parents, aunts, uncles and cousins were scattered across American cities from Baltimore to Houston and Kansas to New York. The family came together for holidays, for summer camp and for Shabbat whenever geography allowed. What held it all together was less about ideology than habit that became identity.