Toni Braxton’s Jewish Grandma
Toni Braxton Image by Getty Images
Could Braxton Family Values include observing Shabbos?
R & B hitmaker Toni Braxton, whose family stars in its eponymous WEtv series, has revealed she has Jewish roots.
In an interview with The New York Times, the Grammy winner said she’s “still surprised by the revelation that her grandmother was Jewish.”
“I didn’t understand it as a kid – ‘My grandma eats differently than we do sometimes,’” she told the Times. During Braxton’s Broadway run in Beauty and the Beast, the singer recalled, “my grandma said something about ‘the sun’s going down, and I should be in,’ and I was like, ‘Grandma, what are you, Jewish?’ I mean, I knew she was Caucasian.”
Braxton holds her own religious convictions. In a 2009 interview with Sister2Sister magazine, the avowedly Christian singer explained that she and Alec Mazo would clash about his atheism behind the scenes during the hit ABC show Dancing with the Stars.
“He was a nice guy (but) I’m a Christian and he’s an atheist,” she told Sister2Sister. “He’d say things and I would say things. Some days I felt sorry for him.”
No word about whether she’ll consider embracing her Hebraic side.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.
If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
