A Celebration of Zsa Zsa Gabor’s Rejection of ‘Natural’

Zsa Zsa Gabor, self-made woman. Image by Getty Images
Until approximately five minutes ago — that is, until she died yesterday, at 99 — I had not realized Zsa Zsa Gabor came from a Jewish family. (Was of Jewish origin, I’m tempted to say, because that’s how it would be said in French, and a Continental flair seems apropos.) As Benjamin Ivry points out, this is no coincidence: Gabor wasn’t particularly ‘out’, as Jews go. It’s also worth noting, the ‘Jews and whiteness’ topic being very of the moment, that Gabor was an icon of a certain sort of blonde, small-nosed beauty that… yes, exists among Jewish women, but in Gabor’s case appears to have been the result of artifice.
In the Guardian, Suzanne Moore writes, of Gabor, “Like many women of her generation she understood that femininity is always a performance, and she performed it to the hilt.” People like Gabor, who unabashedly reject the pretense of authenticity, serve as reminders that it’s all a performance. (In an era with readily accessible and inexpensive cosmetics, the natural look, too, is a choice.)
And the right to perform a chosen identity should (with rare exceptions) be celebrated. Anti-Semitism, remember, isn’t a mere religious hatred, penalizing Jewish believers but sparing non-believers or converts out. It’s about restricting Jewish possibility, very much including the possibility for someone of Jewish origin to, well, pass. Anti-Semitism destroys Jewish spaces and prevents Jews from coming and going freely from such spaces. I suppose what I’m saying is, where Jewishness is concerned, Zsa Zsa Gabor’s “performance” needs to be understood both as a result of an anti-Semitic society, and as a pushback against the same.
Phoebe Maltz Bovy edits the Sisterhood, and can be reached at [email protected]. Her book, The Perils of “Privilege”, will be published by St. Martin’s Press in March 2017.
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a gift today!
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Most Popular
- 1
Culture Trump wants to honor Hannah Arendt in a ‘Garden of American Heroes.’ Is this a joke?
- 2
Opinion The dangerous Nazi legend behind Trump’s ruthless grab for power
- 3
Opinion A Holocaust perpetrator was just celebrated on US soil. I think I know why no one objected.
- 4
Culture Did this Jewish literary titan have the right idea about Harry Potter and J.K. Rowling after all?
In Case You Missed It
-
Culture In a Haredi Jerusalem neighborhood, doctors’ visits are free, but the wait may cost you
-
Fast Forward Chicago mayor donned keffiyeh for Arab Heritage Month event, sparking outcry from Jewish groups
-
Fast Forward The invitation said, ‘No Jews.’ The response from campus officials, at least, was real.
-
Fast Forward Latvia again closes case against ‘Butcher of Riga,’ tied to mass murder of Jews
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.