Photos from L to R:#1. Marilyn Monroe’s Certificate of Conversion to Judaism  #2. Elizabeth Taylor and Eddie Fisher

On the January 15, 2001 “Larry King Live” show, Elizabeth Taylor was asked “You are Jewish, are you not?” and she replied “I am, I am.” (She had converted when marrying singer Eddie Fisher, and of course she later married the Jewish producer and impresario Michael Todd.) Elizabeth Taylor narrated portions of “Genocide,” produced by the Simon Wiesenthal Center, that went on to received the 1981 Academy Award® for best feature documentary, the first Holocaust documentary to be given this honor. Rabbi Marvin Hier, Director of the Wisenthal Center, describes how he “ flew to Washington, D.C., to ask United States Senator John Warner if he would show the script to his then wife, Elizabeth Taylor. Warner, a good friend of the Center, had worked closely with us on a number of social action issues; he promised he would take the script home to Elizabeth, but cautioned me against overoptimism. "You know stars; you can't tell which scripts they will accept. I'll call on Monday either way," Senator Warner promised.  “On Monday, Warner called excitedly. "Rabbi, I've got both good and bad news. The good news is that Elizabeth will do it without remuneration. The bad news is you ruined my weekend-she couldn’t stop crying from Friday to Sunday night."  “A week later, Elizabeth Taylor and I had lunch at the Polo Lounge in the Beverly Hills Hotel. A Greyhound bus driver spotted her coming in and alerted his bus load of tourists, who soon found the secluded window table where we were seated. When Elizabeth noticed them and turned around to wave, I told her that they did not come to see her, but that what attracted them was the sight of an Orthodox rabbi at the Polo Lounge! At this meeting, Elizabeth made it clear that this project was very special to her, since she regarded the Jewish people as her people, and wanted to identify personally with the tragedy of the Holocaust. She asked if we could record in London while she was filming Agatha Christie's The Mirror Cracked. She also asked if I could coach her in the correct Yiddish and Hebrew pronunciations that were part of her narration. We agreed to record in London in June with two days set aside for rehearsal. I flew to London to record Elizabeth Taylor's segments. Elizabeth Taylor pronounced "Mir velen zei iberleben " ("We shall outlive them") like a Jewess from Warsaw, and her perfectly accented "Hazak F' Ainatz" ("Be Strong and Brave") drew compliments from Israel's ambassador to the United States. She was deeply moved during the recording of one of the stories. She wept and could not continue recording Leon Kahn's description of the murder of the residents of Elsiskes at the hands of their Ukrainian tormentors.”
 
In 1954, entertainer Sammy Davis, Jr. almost died in a car accident where he lost his left eye. While in the hospital, his friend Eddie Cantor enlightened him on the similarities between the Jewish and black cultures. Davis converted to Judaism after reading Paul Johnson's “A History of the Jews” in the hospital. One paragraph about the ultimate endurance of the Jewish people intrigued him in particular: "The Jews would not die. Three centuries of prophetic teaching had given them an unwavering spirit of resignation and had created in them a will to live which no disaster could crush." It was not long after his conversion, and he refused to work on Yom Kippur. The director of the movie “Porgy and Bess” got angry and called the legendary producer Samuel Goldwyn. Goldwyn immediately called Sammy and wanted to know if it was true about his refusing to work. Sammy said that, as a Jew he could not work on the Day of Atonement. There was silence for a moment, with Goldwyn no doubt noting that stopping production would cost $30,000, a large sum then. Finally, Goldwyn (who was also Jewish) said, "Bless you." Production on the film was stopped for Yom Kippur.

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