{"id":86277,"date":"2025-02-26T14:20:31","date_gmt":"2025-02-26T19:20:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/?p=86277"},"modified":"2025-02-26T14:20:31","modified_gmt":"2025-02-26T19:20:31","slug":"michelle-trachtenberg-jewish-gossip-girl-and-buffy-star-dies-at-39","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/michelle-trachtenberg-jewish-gossip-girl-and-buffy-star-dies-at-39\/","title":{"rendered":"Michelle Trachtenberg, Jewish \u2018Gossip Girl\u2019 and \u2018Buffy\u2019 star, dies at 39"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By BEN SALES<\/p>\n<p>(JTA) \u2014 Michelle Trachtenberg, who starred in films and TV shows ranging from \u201cHarriet the Spy\u201d to \u201cGossip Girl,\u201d has died at 39.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_86278\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/Trachtenberg_Michelle.webp\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-86278\" class=\"wp-image-86278 size-medium lazyload\" data-src=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/Trachtenberg_Michelle-300x167.webp\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"167\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/Trachtenberg_Michelle-300x167.webp 300w, https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/Trachtenberg_Michelle-1024x569.webp 1024w, https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/Trachtenberg_Michelle-768x427.webp 768w, https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/Trachtenberg_Michelle-1536x853.webp 1536w, https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/Trachtenberg_Michelle-2048x1138.webp 2048w\" data-sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 300px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 300\/167;\" \/><noscript><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-86278\" class=\"wp-image-86278 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/Trachtenberg_Michelle-300x167.webp\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"167\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/Trachtenberg_Michelle-300x167.webp 300w, https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/Trachtenberg_Michelle-1024x569.webp 1024w, https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/Trachtenberg_Michelle-768x427.webp 768w, https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/Trachtenberg_Michelle-1536x853.webp 1536w, https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/Trachtenberg_Michelle-2048x1138.webp 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/noscript><\/a><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-86278\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Michelle Trachtenberg, pictured in 2007. (J. Meric\/WireImage for Manning, Selvage and Lee)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>She was discovered Wednesday in a Manhattan apartment complex, according to the New York Post. The cause of death was not immediately clear.<\/p>\n<p>Trachtenberg was Jewish, and she said her mother immigrated from what is now Russia. She grew up in New York speaking English and Russian.<\/p>\n<p>Trachtenberg got her start as a child actress on Nickelodeon, and had a breakout performance as the title character in 1996\u2019s \u201cHarriet the Spy.\u201d From there, she starred in a variety of shows and movies in teenage roles. She was one of a trio of Jewish actresses to star in the supernatural series \u201cBuffy the Vampire Slayer,\u201d along with Sarah Michelle Gellar and Alyson Hannigan, and later appeared in a recurring role on the prep school drama \u201cGossip Girl.\u201d&nbsp; In between, she starred in the raunchy 2004 teen comedy \u201cEuroTrip.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She did not have any prominent roles in more recent years, though she appeared in two episodes of the \u201cGossip Girl\u201d reboot in 2022.<\/p>\n<p>On Instagram, Trachtenberg made occasional references to her Jewish identity, posting about a Hanukkah celebration a decade ago and again about the holiday in 2022. Since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack that launched the war in Gaza and touched off a wave of global antisemitism, Trachtenberg has posted photos of herself wearing a Star of David necklace and another, last year, of a Mickey Mouse Hanukkah backpack along with the caption \u201cPlease stop hatred towards the innocent \ud83d\udc99.\u201d<\/p>\n<div style=\"padding-bottom:20px; padding-top:10px;\" class=\"hupso-share-buttons\"><!-- Hupso Share Buttons - https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/ --><a class=\"hupso_toolbar\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" data-src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top: 5px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" class=\"lazyload\" \/><noscript><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top: 5px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\"\/><\/noscript><\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\">var hupso_services_t=new Array(\"Twitter\",\"Facebook\",\"Google Plus\",\"Pinterest\",\"Linkedin\",\"Tumblr\",\"Email\");var hupso_background_t=\"#EAF4FF\";var hupso_border_t=\"#66CCFF\";var hupso_toolbar_size_t=\"medium\";var hupso_image_folder_url = \"\";var hupso_url_t=\"\";var hupso_title_t=\"Michelle%20Trachtenberg%2C%20Jewish%20%E2%80%98Gossip%20Girl%E2%80%99%20and%20%E2%80%98Buffy%E2%80%99%20star%2C%20dies%20at%2039\";<\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/js\/share_toolbar.js\"><\/script><!-- Hupso Share Buttons --><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":86278,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,7139],"tags":[14443,14442,8790,8795,14441,8788],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86277"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=86277"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86277\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":86279,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86277\/revisions\/86279"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/86278"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}