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Friday January 25, 2008

‘Sopranos’ star on Birthright

Meadow Soprano, Jewish?

“Everyone assumes I’m Italian,” says Jamie Lynn Sigler, 26, pausing over her hummus lunch at the open-air market in Jaffa, one of the stops on her Birthright Israel tour. “Even kids on the trip keep asking, ‘Are you Jewish?’”

Sigler, who played the daughter of Mafia kingpin Tony Soprano on the HBO show “The Sopranos,” grew up in a Jewish home in Jericho, N.Y., went to Hebrew school and had a bat mitzvah.

Her father’s family immigrated to America from Greece and Poland. Her mother, who is Puerto Rican, converted to Judaism.

But it wasn’t until touring in Israel, her first trip to the country, that Sigler said she felt a true spiritual and emotional connection to her roots.

“It’s one of the most beautiful, inspiring places I’ve ever been to,” she said.

Israel had been a fairly abstract concept before the trip, Sigler noted, with her images of the country limited to media coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The actress bonded quickly with the other Birthright participants, and they joked about returning to Israel and renting apartments in the same building.

She compared these fast and seamless friendships to her experience with the cast and crew of “The Sopranos.”

“It’s a similar dynamic — people loving what they are doing,” she said.

Sigler acknowledged it’s been difficult realizing that the show is over after six seasons. She has plans to move to Los Angeles and continue her acting career.

So would Tony have allowed Meadow to come to Israel?

“Probably not,” she says. — jta

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