Star Trek exhibition explores its Jewish roots

The New York Times

Adam Nimoy, Leonard Nimoy's son, has helped Los Angeles' Skirball Center, a Jewish cultural center known mostly for its explorations of Jewish life and history, bring together an exhibition devoted to one of television’s most celebrated sci-fi shows. As Adam Nimoy notes, the Vulcan salute derived from part of a Hebrew blessing that Leonard Nimoy first glimpsed at an Orthodox Jewish synagogue in Boston as a boy and brought to the role. “A lot of Jewish tradition — a lot of Jewish wisdom — is part of Star Trek, and Star Trek drew on a lot of things that were in the Old Testament and the Talmud,” adds Star Trek writer David Gerrold. “Anyone who is very literate in Jewish tradition is going to recognize a lot of wisdom that ‘Star Trek’ encompassed.”