TV and movie star extraordinaire Jamie Lee Curtis, the daughter of Jewish actor Tony Curtis, is very much in touch with her Jewish heritage.
It’s hard to forget how she burst into tears after Kanye threatened to go “death con three” on Jewish people, saying that all she could think about was her grandparents, who immigrated from Hungary and whose hometown’s Jewish population was completely decimated during the Holocaust. (Curtis has been very involved in helping rebuild that town’s synagogue.)
But she’s also in touch with her Judaism in less dramatic ways. Her children’s books feature Jewish holiday celebrations. She takes inspiration from Hillel and fellow strong Jewish women, and she loves using the occasional Yiddish word, as she proved in a recent Instagram post. While sharing a New York Times article about plastic surgery, Curtis, 67, wrote that she has been “geshreing about the cosmetic industrial complex for a LONG time. This piece is important!”
For those who don’t know the Yiddish word, traditionally spelled “geschrei,” it means to scream, yell or clamor about something, a beloved pastime for loud Jews like myself and absolutely a word that should get more mileage.
While Curtis says she never judges or proselytizes to any specific person who has had plastic surgery, including many of her co-stars, she has been speaking out against the plastic surgery industry for many years.
“I’ve been very vocal about the genocide of a generation of women by the cosmeceutical industrial complex, who’ve disfigured themselves,” she shared in a 2025 interview with the Guardian.
“I’ve used that word [genocide] for a long time and I use it specifically because it’s a strong word,” she continued. “I believe that we have wiped out a generation or two of natural human [appearance]. The concept that you can alter the way you look through chemicals, surgical procedures, fillers — there’s a disfigurement of generations of predominantly women who are altering their appearances. And it is aided and abetted by AI, because now the filter face is what people want. I’m not filtered right now. The minute I lay a filter on and you see the before and after, it’s hard not to go: ‘Oh, well that looks better.’ But what’s better? Better is fake. And there are too many examples — I will not name them — but very recently we have had a big onslaught through media, many of those people.”
I can’t say I agree with Curtis’ use of the word genocide in this context, but the “Halloween” and “Freakier Friday” star definitely isn’t mincing words about it, which also feels very Jewish. The actress is known for being loud and outspoken so using the word “geschrei” feels absolutely on point for her, even if she embodies so many other Yiddish words too, like kvelling and schepping naches — she loves to speak fondly of her children, her godchildren (Jake and Maggie Gyllenhaal) and even her former co-star Daniel Radcliffe.
Keep geschreing and kvelling, Jamie!
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