Debra Winger, three-time Academy award nominee for Best Actress in a Leading Role, just released her first foray into publishing, Undiscovered, a book of poems, memoirs and drawings. She was recently in Houston, where she starred in Urban Cowboy with John Travolta, and spoke with the Jewish Herald-Voice about the book and her Judaism.

Asked whether she finds America to be a death-denying culture, Winger said, “People are in denial of aging. But does anyone think they won’t die? The thought of it just brings some people down. It enlivens others. It includes the messy things about life.

“The panic I’ve experienced is when people get ill for the first time. I’ve discovered that sitting at the bedside of an ill person is a deed for myself as well as for that person. It’s a mitzvah. The Torah tells us to do it. I’m not ultra-religious. I just grew up doing it. It’s the caring for people when they need you that does it for me. At the same time, there’s always a little voice that says: It isn’t happening to me. Part of me felt like that with my mother. There but for the grace of G-d…

“So there’s something very therapeutic about visiting the sick. It’s one of the most beautiful parts of Judaism, as well as the care of somebody after death. Being Jewish would be my choice, even if I wasn’t Jewish. I’m always amazed by the wisdom of Jewish rituals.

Winger appears at the Y on June 30 for a conversation with her husband, actor Arliss Howard.