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I never paid much attention to being Jewish when I was a kid. In fact, I'd say my religion was more surfing than Judaism - that's what I spent most of my time doing.

I do strongly identify with being Jewish. I was raised Orthodox and had a childhood complicated by the fact that my father was deeply religious and my mother was not.

My dad was Jewish. My mom is not. So I was not raised anything.

If you are trying to raise a child to be a Jew, then you have to create a sense of Jewish identity. You really weaken that sense of identity if you celebrate two religions.

As a matter of fact, part of being Jewish is the whole question of what it is to be a Jew.

I was nearly a teen-ager before I stopped assuming that everyone I met was Jewish.

We are a mixed marriage, so our kids were raised with a little less Judaism than I was raised with.

I think that being Jewish is in some ways unique because there's this conflation of race, culture and religion.

The funny thing is that I write and I act a lot about being Jewish, but I don't really think about it as a regular person.

My four sons all knew I was a Jew, but they were allowed to be whatever they wanted to be. The only thing important to me was that they be good people who help other people, because all religion should try to make you a better person and a more caring person. Whenever religion does that for you, it's a good religion.