Like many of my fellow millennials, I am heartbroken at the news that James Van Der Beek of “Dawson’s Creek” fame has died at 48 after a long battle with colorectal cancer, leaving behind a wife and six children.
Van Der Beek’s Dawson Leery, that aspiring filmmaker with that luscious, dirty blonde mane and bright blue eyes and his artsy (sometimes too self-important, but hey, aren’t we all?) philosophical musings, were such a huge part of my own coming-of-age (as were his roles in movies like “Varsity Blues” and “The Rules of Attraction). Just like Joey (Katie Holmes), I vacillated between the artistic Dawson and the rugged Pacey (Joshua Jackson).
As time passed, there was joy, too, in seeing how Van Der Beek approached his career after “Dawson,” with grace, humor and humility, not taking himself too seriously, in shows like “Don’t Trust the B—- in Apt 23,” and stints on reality franchises like “The Masked Singer” and “Dancing with the Stars.”
And while “Dawson’s Creek” is decidedly not a Jewish show, Israel and Kabbalah were a big part of the actor’s life.
Van Der Beek was raised in a Christian home in Connecticut. But as part of a certain famous millieu, he kept hearing his friends wax poetic about Kabbalah. Finally, in the early 2000s, as “Dawson’s Creek” was drawing to a close, he decided to ask what it was they couldn’t stop talking about, but noted, “as soon as this gets weird, I’m out of here.” In 2010, while visiting the Kabbalah Centre as a personal guest of its leader, Rabbi Yehuda Berg, he had already been into Kabbalah for seven years. He also spoke of his love for the Yiddish word for rag, “shmatte,” which he used to describe his failed film projects.
Also in 2010, he flew a small group of family and friends to Tel Aviv for his wedding to model Kimberly Brook, whom he had met in Israel the previous year on a Kabbalah Centre trip. He wore a white Armani suit and a white kippah for what, according to a press release from the Van Der Beeks, was “a small spiritual ceremony surrounded by a few close friends and teachers.” Berg, known for marrying famous couples like Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher, officiated the wedding.
“The woman I love did me the honour of becoming my wife today,” Van Der Beek wrote on Twitter, “I look forward to earning her for the rest of my life.”
Back in 2020, on their 10-year anniversary, Van Der Beek penned an Instagram ode to his relationship with Kimberly, writing about meeting the woman who has made him “the happiest I’d ever been.”
“I’d been famous, been wealthy, been married, been divorced, been less-than-wealthy, been single… and I was in Israel, on a trip with an organized group, when it hit me: I was done being single. I wanted a real relationship. A soul mate. Someone with whom I could build a family. I was mid-revelation, rattling all this off to a friend of mine when a voice interrupted us, wanting to ask him a question. I was annoyed. Who the hell was stepping all over my moment?”
Turns out the interloper at a Tel Aviv restaurant that day was none other than Kimberly. Despite telling him three days later that she wasn’t looking for a relationship, they moved in together after six months, and Kimberly got pregnant two weeks after that.
The actor added that almost “exactly one year to the date after she’d first interrupted me,” the two were married, sharing a picture of the two of them on the Tel-Aviv/Jaffa Boardwalk, with Kimberly visibly pregnant.
The couple even named their firstborn daughter after an Israeli tree.
“There’s an olive tree in Israel that’s special to us,” Kimberly told People. “We spent time under it when we first met in Israel, then we went back to this tree when I was pregnant.”
Olivia, their firstborn, is now 15, and the couple had five other children: Joshua, 13, Annabel, 12, Emilia, 9, Gwendolyn, 7, and Jermiah, 4. At a 2025 “Dawson’s Creek” reunion, they sang the show’s unforgettable theme song “I Don’t Want to Wait” by Paula Cole, along with their father’s co-stars. At the time, Van Der Beek was too sick to attend the event.
Back in 2020, Kimberly shared in a blog post about spirituality and said Kabbalah was still a part of their lives: “I grew up enjoying the teachings of my Christian church. As I got older, I found myself wanting something that I didn’t get from religion. I knew the morals I desired, but lacked the tools to get there. Years, research, books and several conversations later, I found the spiritual path that worked for me: Kabbalah.”
Israel remained a special place in the Van Der Beeks’ hearts, too. “It’s where we met, it’s where we fell in love,” Kimberly said in one interview, and James added, “It’s a pretty magical place. There’s an energy, a vibration that transcends any one religion or ideology, you can feel it.”
In 2021, he wrote a nuanced post about his experiences in the region, talking about the suffering he saw and the warmth he felt while visiting Palestinians in Hebron. He also noted the kindness of Jewish Israeli friends and how strangers would yell “mazel tov” at him on the street following his wedding.
“There’s a lot of humanity on both sides of that razor wire, and whatever ‘solution’ fails to recognize that… isn’t a solution,” Van Der Beek said.
“Our beloved James David Van Der Beek passed peacefully this morning. He met his final days with courage, faith, and grace. There is much to share regarding his wishes, love for humanity, and the sacredness of time. Those days will come. For now we ask for peaceful privacy as we grieve our loving husband, father, son, brother, and friend,” the family shared on social media on Feb. 11, the day of his passing.
The tributes came pouring in, from beloved co-stars, friends and even one from Rabbanit Alissa Thomas-Newborn, who recalled learning Torah as a teen alongside Van Der Beek. One post from his longtime friend, Israeli director Guy Nattiv (“Skin,” “Golda,” “Tatami”) featured a photo of the Van Der Beeks with him and his wife, the filmmaker and actress Jaime Ray Newman, lighting a Hanukkah menorah.
Nattiv wrote about how their friendship was formed over “Birthdays, Jewish holidays, crowded tables, loud laughter, NFL games and concerts… For more than fifteen years, you were family in the truest sense of the word. Not the kind you’re born into, but the kind you choose and build, day by day.”
“You were there in our brightest moments and in our darkest ones. Always showing up. Always rooting for us. Always loving without conditions. Losing you feels like losing a brother. It leaves a hole that doesn’t close,” Nattiv added.
Our hearts are with his family. May his memory be for a blessing.
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