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‘God has led me to famous people’

Miranda Levy talks to Marc Rubenstein, the self-styled 'Rabbi to the Stars'

October 17, 2019 11:44
Marc RubensteinRabbi with Weston Cage Coppola, son of Nicholas Cage and great-nephew of Frances Ford Coppola.

By

Miranda Levy,

Miranda Levy

5 min read

Six years ago, Rabbi Marc Rubenstein had just finished officiating at a wedding in Calabasas, California, when he spotted one of his showbiz heroines. Diane Keaton was clad in an Annie-Hall style hat, sitting by herself, a little lost.

“I went over and introduced myself,” says the 69 year-old. “We had a couple of glasses of red wine and within minutes we were firm friends. My wife, Margery, loves Diane, so I asked for an autograph. She signed it: ‘Dear Margery, your husband is the BEST’.

"Some time later, I heard that she’d told a mutual friend that she would never forget me.”

Meet Marc Rubenstein, the self-styled “Rabbi to the Stars”. Born to Conservative parents in New York, he started as a rabbi in Brooklyn Heights, before moving to the West Coast in the early ’80s. His family first settled in the northern Californian wine region, then Hollywood — “everybody’s dream”.