Sandra Bullock Hires a Mohel
Sandra Bullock’s husband, Jesse James, may have been photographed in Nazi garb, giving a Nazi salute, but Bullock wants to make it perfectly clear that she’s no antisemite. And she went so far as to have a bris for her newly adopted son, Louis.
Because she and James wanted to keep the adoption a secret until after the Oscars — where Bullock won an award for her leading role in “The Blind Side,” — she explained, “a friend of ours helped arrange for a bris [Jewish circumcision ceremony] at the house, because we couldn’t go [to the hospital for the procedure]. The mohel [a person trained in the practice] came to us,” she told People magazine.
Amid rumors of James’ cheating, Bullock has since filed for divorce, and said she plans to raise Louis on her own. Of the infamous photo of James doing a Hitler-style salute, Bullock told People:
The photo shocked me and made me sad. This is not the man I married. This was stupid, this was ignorant. Racism, anti-Semitism, sexism, homophobia, anything Nazi and a boatload of other things have no place in my life. And the man I married felt the same.
That interview comes on the heels of accusations by James’ own father that he was intrigued by Nazi culture from a young age. Larry James was recorded saying:
He did have a fascination with the Nazis, and it did start at an early age. He liked their war machine, he liked their uniforms, he liked their guns, he liked everything about them.
In a statement to People, James said, “I have always taken great pride in proving people wrong. That time has come once again to show that I am not what everyone says I am.” He has yet to apologize for that photo.
A message from our CEO & publisher 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.
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..
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO