When actress Julianna Margulies was 13 years old, she read “The Diary of a Young Girl” by Anne Frank. While she didn’t quite understand what Frank was going through, she could relate to the feelings the teenager experienced, and the book inspired her to keep a journal.
“I started writing journals,” Margulies, star of “The Good Wife” and “ER,” told the Journal. “It taught me how to express myself, and it taught me that that’s not a bad thing. It put me in someone else’s shoes. Books are supposed to do that, whether they are fun, funny, or sad. You can be in that person’s shoes and experience it. Otherwise, if we don’t have books, we are small-minded people.”
Margulies, who is Jewish, is part of a group of celebrities who are part of the #LetAmericaRead campaign from CAA Foundation, the philanthropic arm of entertainment and sports agency Creative Artists Agency, in partnership with Campaign for Our Shared Future. The celebrities are urging communities not to ban books that deal with issues like race, gender and culture. Julia Roberts, Selma Blair, Sterling K. Brown and Andy Cohen have signed on to keep books like “The Diary of a Young Girl” and “The Handmaid’s Tale” in classrooms throughout the country.
“Our children deserve the freedom to learn about our history, diverse stories and each other,” said Campaign for Our Shared Future Executive Director, Heather Harding. “We must all join together to defeat book bans and keep age-appropriate books in the hands of our students.”
Looking at the banned books, Margulies chose “The Diary of a Young Girl” not only because she related to it, but also because people who read it can see the world through Frank’s perspective.
“The most important thing is for a child to see the world through someone else’s eyes and experiences,” she said. “Books teach us to be compassionate and become humanitarians as we grow up and try to make the world a better place.”
Margulies grew up in England and was only one of two Jews in her school. Her family members were persecuted in Prussia and Romania and escaped just in time. The relatives that stayed behind were killed.
“My family didn’t want to celebrate their Judaism because they were afraid,” she said. “My mother spoke Yiddish at home, but didn’t want to bring attention to herself by celebrating the holidays.”
It wasn’t until Marguiles was 25 and met Rabbi Naomi Levy at the dog park that she embraced her Judaism. She told the rabbi she was Jewish, and the rabbi invited her over for Passover seder.
“She led the seder in such a beautiful and spiritual way that I opened up my arms to Judaism in a way I hadn’t before,” Marguiles said. “I married a Jewish man and we do Shabbat every Friday night. What I love about Judaism is the tradition and this place of belonging I feel.”
Margulies is passionate about ensuring that students are properly educated about history and the Holocaust.
Now, Margulies is passionate about ensuring that students are properly educated about history and the Holocaust. She hosted Holocaust Remembrance Day specials on CBS and MTV last year and discovered that only 19 out of 50 states teach about the Holocaust. After that, she gave a generous donation to the Holocaust Educator School Partnership to teach more students about it.
“We had a session with students in the Bronx, and one eighth grade boy raised his hand and said, ‘Six million Jews died during the Holocaust, so are there any left in the world?’” she said. “To me, that’s heartbreaking.”
Through #LetAmericaRead, Margulies is hopeful that the bans on books will end and students will continue to be able to learn about important topics like the Holocaust in the classroom.
“Who are these people telling us what we can and can’t read?” she said. “It’s unconscionable to me. History repeats itself. I truly believe the rise in antisemitism is due to ignorance. You have to sow the seeds in the young so they become the heroes of the future.”
