“Jewish peasant to secular socialite”

That’s how author Lauren Weisberger describes the Jewish trajectory of the Devil herself in her famous new book, The Devil Wears Prada. The main character, Andrea, would-be-writer and unexpected assistant to the most difficult woman in New York, has a Jewish background much like Weisberger’s. More juicily, the character referenced by the book’s title, editor-from-hell Miranda Priestly, was once upon a time Known as Miranda Princhek, native of London’s onetime Jewish East End, and daughter of a penniless scholar of Jewish texts. Many critics were quick to notice the struggle with assimilation as adding an additional layer of thoughtfulness and meaning to the book; unfortunately, in what one critic described as a need to play things “Hollywood safe,” all Jewish undertones have been excised from the movie version.