Half-Japanese ‘Kind of Modern Orthodox’ Mom Joins ‘Real Housewives of New York’
The newest cast member of “The Real Housewives of New York” reality show is a woman who identifies as both Japanese and Jewish and describes her family as “kind of modern Orthodox.”
According to the the New York Post, Julianne “Jules” Wainstein, 35, joins the Bravo series about the lives of uber-wealthy women for its eighth season, which begins airing in April. The daughter of a Jewish father and a Japanese mother, Wainstein, who grew up in Cresskill, New Jersey, describes herself as “half-Japanese, half-Brooklynese.”
Before marrying venture capitalist Michael Wainstein, she worked as an event planner for the Women’s International Zionist Organization. The couple has two children.
Wainstein told the Post her family is “very traditional” about marking Shabbat each week.
“Even if we don’t have challah wherever we are, we always have a hot dog bun or cracker,” she said. “Or if we don’t have Manischewitz, we’ll use Gatorade. Whatever works, we make it happen. It’s all about just having the family together.”
A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.
If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO