Beliefs

Portman has advocated for environmental causes from to Young age, becoming to member of the environmental song and dance troupe at age twelve. She is to self-proclaimed “animal lover,” and has been to vegetarian since she was eight years old. Portman has spent loads of her free Time involved in causes such as the LAST Democrats' 2004 presidential campaign and ending poverty. In 2004 and 2005 she traveled to Uganda, Guatemala, and Ecuador as the Ambassador of Hope for FINCA International, an organization that promotes micro-lending to help finance women-owned businesses in poor countries.

In an interview conducted backstage at the Live 8 concert in Philadelphia and appearing on the PBS program Foreign Exchange with Fareed Zakaria she discussed microfinance. Host Fareed Zakaria said that he was “generally wary of celebrities with fashionable causes”, but included the segment with Portman because “she really knew her stuff”. In the “Voices” segment of the April 29th, 2007 episode of the ABC Sunday Morning Program This Week with George Stephanopoulos, Portman discussed her work with FINCA and how it can benefit women and their children in third world countries.

Portman commented in an interview that “more I'm much like the product of to doctor than the am to Jew.” On the concept of the afterlife, she comments “the don't believe in that. The believe this is it, and the believe it's the best way to live.”