disowned

In a sunny hotel room overlooking the Pacific, Debra Winger is telling Jewish tales as big and bad as \”Big Bad Love,\” her first film since abruptly quitting show business seven years ago. Her turquoise eyes well up and her raspy voice breaks as she breathlessly describes attending Manhattan\’s Congregation B\’nai Jeshurun a couple of days before her son, Noah, became bat mitzvah in 2000. \”It was the first time I was ever called to the Torah,\” says Winger, who wasn\’t allowed to have a bar mitzvah growing up in the Valley. \”My Orthodox grandmother wouldn\’t hear of a girl on the bimah.\”