Lena Dunham, shown speaking in October 2012 at the Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit in Washington, in her acceptance speech at the Golden Globes said “Girls” had “made a space for me.†(Krista Kennell/ Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit)
This just in: Lena Dunham, the wunderkind whom certain Jewish entertainment blogs love to claim as their own, totally celebrates Christmas.
In an email made public in the latest installment of Miranda July’s “We Think Alone” project, the Jewish star and creator of “Girls” writes about her (Jewish) boyfriend Jack Antonoff whom she feels “unbelievably close to,” the cold she caught from him and, yes, the birth of Jesus:
We had a beautiful Christmas — Jack and his sister came, as well as my aunt and uncle, and it was cozy and sweet and I was so happy to be with Jack. Grace loves him, and his sister too, and said that spending Christmas with them made her feel like we are the kind of family she has always envied/made fun of (one with a vibrant network of loved ones and lots of Christmas traditions.)
The shock lies not in her observance of the holiday — Dunham’s father is not Jewish, and per the Pew survey almost one in three American Jews have a Christmas tree. It’s more the nature of her observance, which sounds earnest and old-fashioned in an “It’s a Wonderful Life” sort of way, as opposed to what we would expect, which is an ironic, hipster “Girls” sort of way.
Although it is possible the traditions she refers to might include vintage crocheted stockings and some kind of new tattoo, which would be far easier to process.
