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Leonardo DiCaprio Is Cool, but He’s Not Bubbe-Approved

Bar Refaeli rightly wed a Israeli businessman after a long relationship with the man-bunned serial modelizer

by
Rachel Shukert
October 07, 2015
Noel Vasquez/Getty Images
Bar Refaeli (R) and Leonardo DiCaprio attend a game between the Oklahoma City Thunder and the Los Angeles Lakers at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, California, April 27, 2010. Noel Vasquez/Getty Images
Noel Vasquez/Getty Images
Bar Refaeli (R) and Leonardo DiCaprio attend a game between the Oklahoma City Thunder and the Los Angeles Lakers at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, California, April 27, 2010. Noel Vasquez/Getty Images

You guys, we need to talk about Bar Refaeli’s recent wedding. The dress was semi-sheer Chloe, sexy (obviously) but tasteful; the venue was the Carmel Forest Spa Resort in Haifa; and the groom was Israeli businessman and food heir (meaning heir to Neto, the giant Israeli food conglomerate, not the literal heir to food) Adi Ezra.

It sounds like it was a lovely affair, but let’s back up for some context. Bar Refaeli is that rarest of creatures: a tall, blonde, Jewish supermodel. Refaeli is the very epitome of what Millionaire Matchmaker Patti Stanger—whose belief in the possibility of physical attractiveness among her fellow members of the tribe seems basically akin to the Third Reich’s—would call a chupacubra, a statistical and biological impossibility. In her incredibly successful career (she is reported to command roughly $10 milion a year), Refaeli has specialized mainly in the male-friendly arts of lingerie and swimsuit modeling, but she is perhaps best known for her five-year relationship with movie star and serial modelizer Leonardo DiCaprio, whom she dated before Ezra. And it wasn’t Leo standing by her side under the chuppah in Haifa last month.

So what gives? Did Bar finally realize there is something vaguely unseemly about a man who, well into his forties, sees nothing remotely unflattering in publicly trading one emaciated 19-year-old blonde girl for another, even as his fellows in the Pussy Posse have long moved on to other, more mature pursuits (See: Tobey Maguire and Jennifer Meyer)? Or does Refaeli simply, in the end, subscribe to the ancient wisdom a relative passed down to me at a bat mitzvah party (because where else would I have seen her?): “Fool around and have fun with all the non-Jewish boys you want, Rachel. Just remember when it’s time to settle down, they honestly do make the best husbands. Otherwise, so many shikses wouldn’t marry them.”

I’m not sure if that’s true, or just has the ring of truth from being repeated so many times, and in so many variations, over the past 3,000 years or so. But either way, there is something satisfying about seeing Bar Refaeli at least partway turn her perfectly exfoliated back on the bright lights of St. Bart’s/St. Tropez/other expensive jet-set-y destinations that one usually sees Leo frolicking in, shirtless and man-bunned, to become part of a power couple right back at home with a man her bubbe would no doubt be thrilled to meet.

And it’s about time Israel got a little bit of tabloid glamour to go with its usual daily helping of terrible news. So, mazel tov to the happy couple, and let’s hope they have lots of babies. The gene pool needs them.

Rachel Shukert is the author of the memoirs Have You No Shame? and Everything Is Going To Be Great,and the novel Starstruck. She is the creator of the Netflix show The Baby-Sitters Club, and a writer on such series as GLOW and Supergirl. Her Twitter feed is @rachelshukert.