PITTSBURGH — When Cooper Raiff was growing up in Dallas, he thought everyone was Jewish. He even told his mom as much, at which point she set her son straight on how small the country's Jewish population actually is.
The 25-year-old writer, director and star of the Pittsburgh-filmed movie "Cha Cha Real Smooth" went to a K-12 school that he described as being about 40% Jewish. Though Raiff is not Jewish, he took part in traditions like the Shabbat dinners he attended with his girlfriend's family and the many Saturdays he spent at his seventh-grade classmates' bar mitzvahs.
"I had my first kiss at a bar mitzvah at an aquarium by stinky penguins," Raiff told the Post-Gazette. "I have clearer memories of that year than I do of every other year."
