June 19, 2003
Kosher Sex
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Talk about fiction: A show with four women who live in Manhattan and spend most of their time talking about men, eating and shopping -- and none of them are Jewish? That all could change this season on HBO's "Sex and the City," when one of the gals considers heading to temple.
In the beginning of season five, uber-WASP Charlotte York (Kirsten Davis) got back in the dating game, after her divorce from handsome mamma's boy Dr. Trey MacDougal. By the end of the season, she found herself falling in love with her "just-sex" divorce lawyer Harry Goldenblatt (Evan Handler).
After the divorce was final, Charlotte proclaimed her love to Harry in the season closer. He told her he felt the same -- but he could never marry her, because she isn't Jewish.
As a result, Charlotte's plot line in the show's sixth and final season will focus on her contemplating converting to Judaism. Rabbi Minsch (Pierre Epstein) makes an appearance in the second episode.
"This season, she has to try to understand why it's important to him that he marry a Jew -- she's hoping it's negotiable -- and whether she loves him enough to convert for him," said Cindy Chupack, the show's co-executive producer and one of its writers.
Chupack, who is Jewish, said that Charlotte (the only member of the quartet to have walked down the aisle) was more likely for this story line than her friends: Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker), Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) or Samantha (Kim Catrall).
"Charlotte always had the most fairy-tale vision of love, and, when she married Trey, it was a 'be careful what you wish for' situation," Chupack said. "Last season, we loved the idea of putting someone in Charlotte's path who was the opposite of what she thought she wanted. The problem ... was not that Harry was Jewish, it was that he was loud, crass and hairy -- every place but on his head."
Chupack is mum on if there is a chuppah in Charlotte's future (producers have said there will be two weddings at the end of the season). All she will say is that "this is not a season to pass over."
The first 12 of 20 new episodes will air on HBO Sundays at 9 p.m., beginning June 22; the rest will air beginning in January 2004.
