Mayim Bialik's Breakdown - BEING JEWISH WITH JONAH PLATT: Does Mayim Bialik Feel Safe in Public? & The Collective Punishment Paradox

Episode Date: June 13, 2026

From The Big Bang Theory to Jewish advocacy, Mayim Bialik shares the personal journey behind the public persona with Jonah Platt on the Being Jewish Podcast!More Ways To Connect with Being Jewish:Being Jewish on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1MSpBNK7NpbR1K2LulGCSd?si=acb04f3322fa472cBeing Jewish on Spotify or Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/being-jewish-with-jonah-platt/id1767185986Watch Being Jewish on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@beingjewishpodcastSupport the podcast directly by becoming a member of the Kehillah: https://beingjewish.supportingcast.fm/All things BJJP: https://beingjewishpodcast.com/Watch Being Jewish on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@beingjewishpodcastSubscribe to the Being Jewish Newsletter: bit.ly/beingjewishnewsletterFor Sponsorships, please email: [e-mail]: https://beingjewishpodcast.com/merchFollow Jonah on:Instagram - @JonahPlattX - @JonahPlattFollow Being Jewish on:Instagram - @BeingJewishPodcastTikTok - @BeingJewishSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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That's helixleep.com slash breakdown for 20% off sitewide, helixleep.com slash breakdown. This episode is brought to you by our sponsor, Wondering Jews with Mikhail and Noam, an unpacked podcast. Start watching or listening at unpacked.bio slash wj. I spend a lot of time engrossed in the discourse surrounding Jews in Israel today, and there's a single paradox I keep observing that everyone, pro-Israel and anti-Israel alike, keeps bumping up against and blowing past without realizing it. It frustrates Jews, confuses Gentiles, and the only way to properly break it down for is by playing my favorite game.

That's right, folks. It's time for two truths at the same time. All right. The paradox consists of two statements, both true, yet both seemingly made untrue by the other. Denying the connection of the Jewish people to Israel is bigotry. And conflating the Jewish people with Israel is also bigotry. The what? As Jews, we get the crappy end of this paradox in both.

directions. On the one hand, whenever certain Israelis, be it politicians or the military or West Bank settlers, do something perceived as being bad, whether true or not, anti-Zionists will use the Jewish people's connection to Israel as an excuse to conflate accusations of those actions with all Jews globally and blame, harm, ostracize, antagonize, or kill whatever random Jews they so desire. To which Jews reply, conflating the Jewish people in Israel is bigotry. And sure, of the word Zionist for Jew, whatever, it's the same bigotry. On the other hand, let's say an American politician is spreading libeles about Israel and is consequently designated by Jews as harmful to our community here in the West.

Anti-Zionists will then weaponize our own words against us. Don't conflate Israel with Jews, remember? That's called inversion, whether conscious or not. And yeah, there's a monologue for that. So how do we articulate this paradox clearly so that everybody understands what the rules are? picture the Jews as a family. I mean, yes, of course, Jews are a family, but I mean as a literal, immediate family of siblings, parents, cousins, etc. And let's say this family's last name is Jew, and there are relatives all over the world. Now, let's say one cousin, Israel Jew,

is accused of a crime he says he did not commit. It would be completely wrong and immoral to blame some other random cousin, American Jew, for that crime simply by virtue of them loving and supporting each other as families do. It would be immoral and wrong for random people in random countries, not even personally affected by the crime for which Israel Jew was accused to start harassing anybody anywhere who also happened to be a Jew. They don't care if you're a first cousin, 10th cousin, friend of the family, or maybe you never even met the guy. If you're a Jew, they're going after you. That's terrible and obviously not a normal way to behave. It's called collective punishment, which, funny enough, is something anti-Zionists love to accuse Israel of,

because, again, inversion, which again, there's a monologue for it. Now, let's say someone with a platform, a teacher, an actor, a politician, starts defaming, demonizing, or libeling your brother, Israel Jew. It's only natural that you'd take this attack on your family personally and say, hey, stop attacking my family. You might also say, hey, aside from that being wrong, it also, as we established earlier, puts me and my other relatives in great danger because of how people like you collectively punish us Jews whenever there's been a perceived wrong committed by any of our Israeli relatives. Pretty straightforward. If my aunt does something you don't like, don't take it out on me. And if you come after my dear aunt, it's like you're coming after all of us

because we're a family. It's natural to stick by your family when they're attacked or wrongfully accused. What would be unnatural is to not defend them or worse go against them. And if it turns out my aunt did do something wrong, we'll reckon with it as families do. And if we don't, then it's on us. But any member of the Jew family who immediately disavows their own relatives to stand with their family's accuser, I would point them to the wise words Michael Corleone once uttered to his brother Fredo, never take sides with anyone against the family. I'm not saying we should aspire to be like Michael Corleone, but for sure, no one wants to be afraid of. So what should you say when you see anti-Zionists pulling the collective punishment or the don't conflate inversion card? Hit him with the two

truths. When you take something negative, you perceive Israel to have done and use that to assign blame to all Jews globally, that's bigotry, and we're going to tell you so. When somebody espouses anti-Israel bigotry anywhere, it impacts Jews everywhere, and we're going to tell you so. It's your shitty behavior we're explaining. here folks don't hate the player hate the game the only people who should get to speak about the impact bigotry has on jews is the jews who have been impacted by bigotry no one else gets to decide it for us and if you try to guess what that is bigotry and if this whole monologue is too much too many words too many ideas i've got your tlDR right here when it comes to matters of

bigotry anti-zionism anti-semitism israel and all the rest there's one simple directive Take your cues from Jews. Boom, put it on a t-shirt. No, wait, I'm going to put it on a t-shirt. That's right, it rhymes, so you know it's true. Take your cues from Jews. Parentheses, not anti-Zionist Jews who have not been impacted by bigotry and or are in denial about the impacts of anti-Jew bigotry

on the wider Jewish community, close parentheses. Nice. This is the 74th episode of Being Jewish with me, Jonah Platt. Welcome to the show, ladies and gentlemen. Most Hollywood child stars fall from innocence to infamy. But my guest today did the opposite. She followed her fame all the way to becoming an Orthodox Jew. She didn't just blossom.

She bloomed into a full-on neuroscientist, four-time Emmy nominee, best-selling author, hit podcaster, and oh yeah, a working mom of two strapping lads. With her consistent, unapologetic Jewish advocacy since well before October 7th, She's also easily cemented her place on the Mount Rushmore of public Jews doing it right. She's a vegan. She speaks Yiddish and was named, I can only assume, after a 1930s Israeli folk song, I definitely danced to at my Bar Mitzvah. Please welcome the real awesome blossom, Miss Maim Chaya Bialik.

Oh my goodness. Thank you. That's it. Him, Maim Bessasant. Do people just sing that at you all the time? When I was a kid, indeed, that is my name is the same as the song. Yes, well, welcome. It's a pleasure to have you here. Thank you. You have many career accomplishments, of course, which many people are well aware of, but I have so much respect in addition to all that for how openly Jewish you live your life, which shouldn't be the exception, but often is. Is that something you have ever thought to yourself and decided to do? Is there like a gauge to what you show and what you don't, or is that I'm just me being me? The easy answer is it's a little bit just me being me, but I think, as you know, you well know, the mediums that we can engage with have, I think, changed the way a lot of us present ourselves. So, you know, when I was on Blossom, I was 14 to 19. There was no social media. There were no smartphones. You know, like even having a publicist was something that a lot of people didn't have if they were actors. You know, it was a very different world. By the time I got to Big Bang Theory, which was, you know, many years later,

you know, almost 20 years later, it was a completely different landscape. And by then I had been writing for Kfeller. You know, I had been mommy blogging is what we used to call it, but also writing a lot about Jewish identity, Jewish observance. At that time, I was quite observant. And so I would write in particular about a lot of, you know, what observance means, especially for a modern lens. But once social media became a thing, I think the question was, yeah, how much of yourself

do you show? You know, maybe it was naivete. I did not think that there would be a problem with me showing that these are the holidays I celebrate or this is what I do. And apparently what I was opening myself up to was, you know, an internet that became a reflection, you know, of a lot of the places in society that were still not comfortable with Jews being Jewish, no matter their observance, political persuasion, belief system. You know, it didn't really matter. And that was, you know, long before October 7th, for sure. Sure. When you first sort of felt that, you know, there's this increased exposure and now you're getting,

I mean, when it sounds like you're getting some negative online threats, threats, how does that alter your behavior? I guess it doesn't. Baruch Hashem. It alters my sense of safety, not just my personal safety, but my self. but my sense of safety in the world, I think that's kind of undeniable. And it also echoed a lot of the fears that many of us were happy to discard, that we inherited from our parents or our grandparents or our great-grandparents.

You know, many of us wanted to push aside this notion that we are other. Look how assimilated we are. And indeed, we are, you know, and through all of our history, you know, we have survived by adapting just enough. You know, and maintaining just enough to sort of have that tension, you know, be palpable. It changed when I was first protested against long before October 7th. Protested in what way? I was giving a talk in, I believe it was in Ohio, Cincinnati.

I was speaking at a secular university with a secular topic. And it came to our attention that there was a group of anti-Israel activists. Yeah. I don't know what the monies. Nicar was, but I remember that I was shown the flyers that were being distributed to encourage this protest to happen. And the flyers said a very simple and confusing sentence. It said, Mayambiolic is a Zionist. And I thought, well, that's strange. Why would that be caused to be protested? They know me so well. Right. And I remember there was that confusion. And, you know,

in hindsight, it's very kind of clear. It was, you know, part of this Zionism. is racism, you know, campaign. And, yeah, during my talk, this group stormed into the auditorium. And this was like a thousand-person theater. It was a large theater with flags and screaming and this, that, and the police had to remove them. And this was 15 years ago. Wow.

This was a long time ago. That changed my requirements for security. Mm-hmm. Yeah, it definitely caused some sort of destabilization of comfort, right? Totally. That many of us, you know, have kind of been used to being used to. But it also really pissed. me off. Like, you're not allowed to use Zionism as a slur because it's not. I mean, at least the

last time I checked, it's a definition of, you know, someone who believes in an autonomous and free state of Israel, you know, with secure borders and with safety as our historic, spiritual, literal and figurative homeland. That says nothing about politics. It says nothing about how I feel about a two-state solution, a three-state solution, the treatment of Palestinians and God, like it says nothing about that. And again, this could be my naivete, which apparently, you know, many on the extreme left, I would say, and I guess the extreme right, have redefined Zionism to be something that, again, I did not think that it was 15 years ago and certainly not now.

Yeah, I don't think that's a naivete. I think that's just people co-opting a word and calling it something else. Yeah. I think it's hard to fully under. understand if you've never experienced the shitty feeling it is to be protested or harassed or like any of that stuff. Like, I'm a pretty tough cookie. You seem like a pretty tough cookie.

It's not fun. It really doesn't feel great. It's an understatement. Like, it doesn't feel good. Not to the point that I would be like, you shouldn't do that. It doesn't feel good. But it's disturbing. Yeah.

I experienced this when I was at UCLA. So I'm 50 now. As a student. As an undergrad. And this was the beginnings of what became the Zionism equals racism, you know, movement. That's somewhat unusual. I mean, most of the guests who I've had on the show, even of 50s and above, have been, oh, well, when I was in college, it was a totally different landscape.

No, I went to UCLA. So I'm 50 years old now. I entered UCLA at 19. That's 30 years ago. And we, in the five years that I was an undergrad there, we went from having positive interactions with all of the other minority groups on campus, the Latino, you know, Chicano organization, the African Student Union, all of the, you know, Asian American Pacific Islander groups. We had positive relationships with all of them. And by the end of the five years there,

they had been encouraged to sign an anti-Zionism charter. Wow. This was in the 90s, you know, the late 90s, early 2000s. Early 2000s, there were swastikas painted on Bruin Walk during our Yom Hatsma Oot Week that we were scrubbing off. Rabin equals Hitler was chocked all over Bruin Walk. And it was the beginning, what we now see was, I believe, you know, a global campaign of basically, you know, intellectual hijacking of the university system. We went from being able to converse as students and academics to not being able to speak at all. And this notion of non-engagement, which is not the approach that I take,

that's what is the most disturbing. Being shouted down, this is a new phenomenon. So it's not just being protested, right? It's being shouted down with anger, with aggression, with threats of violence in a way that there is no conversation. That, I think, is what's most alarming about whatever movement this is that is so actively seeking to engage in protest. I mean, it's certainly something we've talked about on this show before, how, you know, anti-Zionism is. a hate movement and it's not interested in a conversation. It's not actually interested in solutions. It's it wants to shut down one side and ostracize them and other them and certain ways get rid of

them entirely. Well, and look, we've had many opportunities even in our lifetime to see, oh, what happens when people don't agree about something? How do we talk about it? So we've seen this with Black Lives Matter. We've seen it with the LGBTQIA plus plus movement, right? We've seen it with even with the trans community. What does it look like if, let's say, someone doesn't agree, but how do we have dialogue, right? And it's not done perfectly. But for some reason, this situation and this conflict seems to be one that is above conversation, right? It's so...

Or below, perhaps. That's true. Depending which side of it you're on. Right. So your name obviously is Maim. Yes. Do you feel like you've had to explain your Jewishness your whole life? It's funny.

I don't know that I would have thought of it like that. I've had the opportunity to identify as Jewish every single time someone doesn't understand my name. Yeah. And there's not a situation I've been in where anyone has guessed the pronunciation of my name correctly. Like my whole life. Once I became, I guess, more of a public person, maybe. Right. But every single time someone has made a comment or asked about my name, I've had the opportunity to say, it's Hebrew for water.

My name means water in Hebrew, right? And then what's the most common follow-up? Oh, that's so beautiful. Oh, that's interesting. We love that. Yeah, we love that. You have a quote that I loved. You once said, there is nothing worth fighting for that is more important than the legitimacy of the Jewish people and the existence of the state of Israel.

First of all, I think we've got to get everybody to sign that pledge. I mean, let's pass that around. You are a neuroscientist. You host a podcast, Mind Bialx Breakdown, talk a lot about mental health and different things like that. What is the disconnect between, from your point of view, the stakes of that statement, which are so existential and urgent and important? And what's the chasm there between other people deciding to act on it when the stakes are so high?

I mean, what do you see there? It's a great question, but it's one that you could ask about many different aspects. I mean, not just of like human existing, but of Jewish identity, right? Because I've heard people say that there's nothing more, right, important, critical, and prescient than being religious, right? Which I don't think is true. It may be true for some people. But I think at this point in time,

so much of our Jewish identity and the Jewish identity of our children and our people, you know, is dependent on how we respond to a global attack on our legitimacy. And, you know, I think that what social media and TikTok misses is that there's,

there's an academic practice of examining anti-Semitism, just like there's an academic practice of examining systemic racism, you know, or the variety of injustices that are done all over the world and have been for thousands of years. This is not a group of Jews coming up with an idea that they hate us. You know, there's an academic tradition. I'm almost done with my master's in anti-Semitism studies. Right, well, that you can even get a master's in it.

There you go, yeah. So, you know, to be able to frame that takes more than 10 seconds, right? Yeah. There's a very systematic procedure that many people all over the world have spent and dedicated their lives to perpetrating. And that is de-legitimization and all of the things that happen. Questioning our peoplehood, questioning our right to statehood, our right to self-defense. Those are tropes, you know, and they're tropes for a reason.

I'm interested in sort of what you see as the disconnect for Jews who might think this, what you said. I agree that fighting for Jewish identity is so important, but, you know, I got to watch this TV show. You know, I got to go to grocery store. I think it takes all kinds, and I think we're called for different things at different times. But this is the time, right? Well, this is the time and people do exactly what they're able to. And I don't presume to judge because I don't know what the rest of the capacities are of any individual. And the fact is, you know, there's a lot of things that happened in my heart, in my mind after October 7th that I don't share and that I didn't share with people.

And in some cases, those may have prevented me from acting fully in ways that I wanted to, right? Maybe there was an event I wanted to go to, but I couldn't. Maybe my fear was too great. Maybe my anxiety about what it would mean to confront this global threat. Maybe it's too much. And I give people the right to be in denial because it's a powerful tool that people hold on to when what's on the other side might be too overwhelming or scary. You know, why are there Jews who turn on us, you know, turn on their own? own people, different question, and I think has a different, you know, set of framework around it.

They're almost more understandable to me because they at least have an agenda that they're working off of, of, you know, I don't agree with this statement. Right. And so I'm going to, what I think is the most important thing is my progressive value. It's not, I mean, it's not apathy. And yeah. Yeah, yeah. And as opposed to someone who says, yes, I agree, this is a really critical time. I just, I'm not going to really contribute to it. Yeah. Yeah. And to me, and again, this could just be my bleeding heart liberal side, right? You know, to me, there may be more, right, to that. And like I said, it kind of takes all kinds.

You know, I pick up trash when I see it. Me too. In places, right? I wish everyone would do that. To me, it's like one of the easiest things to do. It's one of the easiest things to do. You can literally make the world a better place by leaving it with less trash than you enter it.

And you don't have to clean up the whole world, right? Lo al-A-lecham, La Khaligmore. You don't have to finish the job, but like, you could do that. I don't think you get to rank. You know, the planet versus, like, it takes all kinds. And I think also, you know, the more we can have opportunities for us to feel united, I think is going to be like the building, you know, that we get to do. But I love that you're hostile towards people who are apathetic.

I'm not hostile. I mean, what I challenge people to, because I believe everyone is capable of contributing in their own way. I'm not saying everybody's got to come out there and be a, you know, shouting from the tree tops. Well, and I think one thing that I see, It's just before apathy. It's like, yeah, it's important, but someone else will handle it. Yeah. Right?

That definitely gets my goat. Because if you think it is important to the level that we're talking, then yeah. I do think you have to be willing to stand for, to stand up for, and to sacrifice. And I also, you know, understand that some people feel the need to hide. Some people feel the need to take off their keepers now. Yeah. Someone literally said to me the other day, he was not Jewish. I like your Jewish star. I don't see a lot of them anymore.

Wow. He said, my girlfriend's Jewish, but I don't see a lot of them, and I like yours. And I was thinking, what is this world? What is this world? What an interesting guy that he was observant enough to see many of them before and notice them diminishing? Correct. I love this guy. I know.

All right. Here's another quote of yours that I like. If people are critical of me for being Jewish or because I visit Israel or believe in the right of Israel, real to exist, that hurts me a lot. Are you hurt all the time? I guess so. I mean, like, that sounds, that's gotta be tough. I feel like there's gotta be a Yiddish expression.

Like, to hurt is to be a Jew. I definitely think since October 7th, many of us have experienced a level of hurt, you know, that, that previously was kind of unfathomable. Yeah. I think that since October 7th, we've had to think a lot more than we did before. Oh, yeah.

About the way we present ourselves and how we talk. and where we speak Hebrew and, you know, all these things. Yeah, I think there's a tremendous amount of grief. And it is, it's collective grief. It is intergenerational grief. What are your strategies? How do you stay buoyant and hopeful and, you know, deal with the hurt? You know, I think that there's a new sense of community for the Jewish people.

For sure. I think that, you know, all of a sudden going to synagogue wasn't just like going to synagogue. Right. It was like, I need to be around people who I don't have to explain myself to. I don't agree with everyone at my synagogue, right? I don't always agree with the rabbis. Like, we're allowed to not agree with everybody, right? I wish I didn't take this.

But I really felt that. I felt like I need to be held close. Yeah. I think also, you know, leaning into Shabbas, leaning into Yomtovim, like leaning into the things that are good and joyous about us. Mm-hmm. Like, we have a culinary history.

We have music. We have dance. We have a calendar that's all our own. It's always been phenomenal. to me, but especially to push back on that hurt, yeah, it's being able to remember the things that don't hurt. Yeah. And I think I also felt a really different kind of camaraderie with all kinds of Jews in a way

that I never did before. For sure. Because I think whatever your denomination or identity is, like, those are your people and you feel comfortable, right? You don't have to explain yourself. Oh, I'm not. I used to be, like, you don't have to do that, right? But what happened for me is, like, after October 7th, we seemed like one.

in a new way. And when I would see religious people where normally I'd be like, oh, I'm not as religious, it was like, what's up? Hey, you know? Yeah. And I was like, this is what it feels like to be in a community. Right. One more mind quote for you.

Oh, my goodness. It's like, this is your life. All right. This is an older one. You said, Israel is the country I most identify with as mine. Do you still feel that way? Absolutely. Great.

That's the whole question. Well, I think it needs like a little bit of flesh out. Like, this is the country that took me in. I'm a proud American. I'm patriotic. When you say took me and you were born here? I was born here, but I'm saying, like, I would not exist had Ellis Island not moved us through, right? Moved my grandparents through.

One of my grandmothers, she came from Warsaw. She had polio. She had to be, you know, essentially snuck in. Like, she was marked at three. I'm only here because of that. Yeah. And I believe in the values of this country. I believe in the freedoms that many of us hold sacred.

I also believe in the complexity of this country and that it was not discovered 250 years ago. There have been indigenous people here for most of history. But I believe in the promise that brought my grandparents here. But it doesn't feel like mine the way Israel does. Israel's mine, because that is my homeland. It's the place that I return to. in my heart and in my prayers,

and I physically return there, and it feels like coming home. I don't kiss the ground when I land here. I kiss the ground when I land there. You know, when I leave here, yeah, I miss home. When I leave there, that's like a, that's an eternal longing. Like that's where we've been exiled from

for thousands of years. Like that's, I'm in the exile. Like I'm a diaspora Jew, that's mine. This is what took me in. And all over the world, Jews have been taken in, We've had dozens of dialects that we design wherever they place us. But that's like, that's where I've been placed. My ancestral primal home is Israel.

That's my people. Would you ever make Aliaa? I thought of making Aliaa more than twice. At this point, my life is here because of my kids, my mom. I mean, I've tried several ways. I'm happy to pay taxes and be considered a citizen. I just don't know that I can live there right now. right and there are certain requirements.

So, you know, if anyone from the Israeli government wants to take my money, I'm happy to pay taxes. Let's go. Let's get her in. I feel like we should get me in. Like, wouldn't that be? It'd be the biggest win for Israel in three years. I already feel like a citizen, right? So a few weeks after October 7th, you recorded this nine plus minute TikTok video. Is that how long it was?

Yeah. Really just speaking off the cuff, it seems, speaking your truth. Millions of views. What, if you can record? call, like, felt so urgent in that moment that you're like, I got to go put this on the internet. And, like, what was the response that you got from that? Gentiles. I wanted non-Jewish people to understand what it felt like to be Jewish right now.

That was really what it was. Because we're a very small percentage of this country. We're like the Amish. And if you live in a city, I know you think we're everywhere. Maybe not this audience. Right. No, but I'm saying, like, if I'm saying, like, if I'm. Other people hear this, a lot of people who are like,

my favorite thing to do is to ask a Gentile how many Jews they think are, you know, especially if they live in New York or if they live, you know, in any large city. Like, I've heard people say like, I think like 50%. No. So, um. Two. Right.

What I was driven by, you know, was wondering what it must be like for, you know, even the sweet Gentiles, right? to be walking around the world after October 7 and be like, what the f f f it's happening? Like, what happened there? What happened in this far off place that I've never been to and maybe can't even find out a map? But what's happening with all these Jews? Like, what that's really what I felt motivated to explain, not as a defense, not as like, let me explain.

It was just like, if you're curious what it feels like, this is what it feels like. And that was just my experience, but I also know that it. resonated with a lot of people, probably because we're all very similar, because we're a people. We are a tribe, and we share a lot of things. We share a heart. Did you receive response from the audience you were trying to reach? Mostly I heard and hear from Jews. A lot of Jews felt really seen and heard. And obviously, I don't need to shout in a matchbox, which is a lot of, I think, what you and I and people like us end up doing, right? We end up speaking to people who get it, Right. But I know that people shared it. I know that they shared it with other people. And people told me that they would share that with people to say this.

Right. This is how I'm feeling. This lady, you know, articulated it. This lady you know from TV, she's feeling it too. You've called being a liberal Zionist. I guess I have more quotes. You've called being a liberal Zionist a strange intersection. How's that going for you these days? What I've discovered is that I cannot, you know, be asked to choose between being a liberal and being a Zionist. I think that every term and all of the nomenclature that many of us used to use, especially if we are, you know, liberals or Democrats, right? Right. That's what they called us. Yeah. And I think the part of that is that this spectrum on both ends has been pulled so far that it's just a circle.

Totally. It's like a messed up circle. So I don't identify, you know, with many politics of the far left. I mean, you know. And I don't identify with many of the things that the Democratic Party has chosen to prioritize, you know. not just for the Israel reason or the Jewish reason, I think many of us feel very confused about our identity as Democrats, because I think the Democratic Party has really let a lot of us down, you know,

and saying that, you know, earned me accusations of being a Republican in my own home, right? Which there's nothing wrong if people want to be Republicans, but I'm saying the fact that that is where, that's how polarized. it got that if you questioned, right, that if you questioned what's going on in the Democratic Party, all of a sudden there's only one solution. That means you're a Republican. No, I got a lot of other choices in between, you know. So for me, you know, the principles of liberalism hold true no matter what. I believe in upholding the fallen and healing the sick. I do, you know, I'm okay with also living in a country where some people believe in the welfare system and some

people don't. Like I was raised to understand that people have differences of opinion. We don't go shooting each other in the street about it, right? So none of that has changed for me. I believe in many of the policies surrounding, you know, legalization of drugs, of prostitution. You know, I'm a liberal. I don't believe, I will never believe in the death penalty. Like, you cannot get me to change. However, this notion that support for Israel is, you know, is, you know, it's a in conflict with the Democratic Party is fallacious, and it's sinful, right? It's sinful.

And in addition, whatever's going on on the other side of the spectrum is a lot more in line with my democratic socialist tendencies of like, see, I always knew they were against us. Whatever's happening on those far fringes of the right is also not appreciated. So I feel like, like we have to get out of that binary, right? Absolutely. And this country is young. And whatever

experiment we were doing seems to be revealing that there's something about this, you know, binary system that is not, it's not meeting my needs, certainly, as a liberal Jew. I think that there's a lot of moral ineptitude. I think that it is egregious to treat, one minority population with such disdain, hatred, disrespect, and intensity when if any other minority group receive this kind of attention, there would be blood in the streets. And that is the most suspicious aspect of what is going on. And this is what I tell my children. We don't have to agree on everything, but there's something conspicuously suspicious about the attention being paid to Israel. Yeah.

We've seen it in the United Nations. We're used to that, right? We've seen it in certain fringes of campuses, right, and of organizations. Never, like Afpa Aml, never in my life did I think that any Middle Eastern program, right? Middle Eastern Studies program at a university would only have candidates that don't believe in the right of Israel to exist. Never in my life did I think we'd see that, right? Yeah.

There's something happening here, right? That's the Buffalo Springfield song. Would you ever run for office? I can't even get the mail on time. Can't even put on my shoes. So you're saying there's a chance. I wear slippers most days now. I mean, look, the way the politics is going now,

We need good people. Well, clearly anything goes. All you need is a good AI campaign and you're in. No, I literally, like on any given day, there's not enough food in the fridge. If I forgot to go to the market, you do not want me engaging. They have people for that. No, but I really, no, it's not. I mean, look, I think there's a lot of ways that I can do advocacy and continue to.

No, I think that until I can reliably find my keys, my AirPods and my cell phone, we should not have me taking on any civil responsibility. You've also said... Oh my goodness. Someone did their research. This is literally the last one though. Jews are often the canary in the coal mine. And that's not a specific monocope, but you have said that.

If that's true right now, what's the warning? What's coming in the way of the United States if we continue down this road? There's a group of people who have, you know, perverted their own, you know, religion in many ways to attack people. who are not like them. And, you know, radical jihadist individuals do not single out Jews. We are simply the first. We're seen as kind of like the simplest, you know, first attack. But there is no fondness for Christians, you know. Many of us, right, are infidels to a certain, you know, group of individuals. And, you know, it feels, it feels necessary to say this is not about Islam, this is not about the origins of Islam, this is not about the Quran, this is not about individual

Muslim people. This is a completely different conversation. Right. Right. I am not attacking Islam. I'm not. And, you know, hatred and attacks on Muslim people are horrendous and we emphatically, categorically, undeniably, do not condone that. This is a very, very old and complicated, you know, battle that is being waged not just on Jews, but on, you know, all people who do not believe a certain way. I don't know how many other ways people need to see it. I thought 9-11 was going to be a wake-up call. It was for a couple years, and then everybody forgot. I mean, that's like, I'm being hyperbolic, but like a little bit, that's kind of what it feels like. That is what we're here to announce, right, this canary, there's more.

It's a crap job, but I guess somebody's got to do it. That's your bedtime story, Jim. Sleep tight. Thank you. You know, one of the things I love most about podcasting is getting to have conversations that don't pretend to have all the answers. That's probably why I've always enjoyed talking with my friend, Noam Weissman. Noam has been on this show, I've been on his, and every time we talk, I walk away thinking a little differently about the world.

That's exactly what you'll find on his other podcast, Wondering Jews, with Mikhail and Noam, a podcast from Unpacked and Open Door Media. Hosted by my friends, Mihal Betone and Noam Weissman, two seriously dynamic Jewish voices, they tackle the big questions

about the Jewish experience and about life. They explore what anti-Semitism looks like right now, what the future of Jewish identity might be, how American Judaism is changing, and a whole lot more. Now, what I love most about the show is that it's not about arriving at neatly packaged answers. It's about wondering together.

Michal and Noam bring real intellectual honesty to every conversation. They challenge each other. They push back. They keep it curious. And they invite listeners into the process. And it's not just serious. It's joyful. They laugh.

They make Judaism feel alive. And they create the kind of conversation that leads you thinking long after it's over. Search for wondering Jews. with Mikhail and Noam, wherever you listen for your podcasts or watch them, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube. You have family, a lot of family in Israel, specifically you have family that lives in the West Bank area, Judea, Samaria, whatever you want to call it. Yeah. How does having family in this contested area shape your relationship to the situation there?

And has that relationship been useful as a vehicle for? discussion with other people or has it been a magnet for people coming after you or both? I mean, look, what I learned is that it doesn't matter if I go to the West Bank or Israel proper. Like, haters going to hate. You know, I've never heard someone say, I would have no problem with you visiting the land of Israel if you wouldn't cross the green line. Like, no one's ever said that to me. It's just not a thing people say.

Right. Because people who hate that you're in Israel, hate that you're in Israel. However, Jews ask me a lot about the West Bank. And I would say that the years that I've spent, you know, in the West Bank and with my family have given me, I think, a more nuanced understanding, maybe, of the complexity. Yeah. You know, I can't. I would assume so. Yeah, I can't say that I get it.

I can't say that I can explain religious Zionism, you know. to a satisfactory degree. And what I know is I have seen what it was like when that land was given away by Netanyahu many decades ago. And for many families, it was their only opportunity to ever get out of a tiny apartment, right? It was the promise of a home. It was the promise of a different lifestyle than people who are living in cities, right? It was supported by a government that does a lot of things that I don't agree with. You know, I've also seen it obviously grow.

You know, my family lives past Malayadumim. So most people, when they hear West Bank, they think like, oh, Malayadamam. Malayadamam is a very large, over 100,000 people now, you know, city and surrounding area outside of Jerusalem. But there's a lot of West Bank, you know, beyond that. And that is where, you know, I go into. It is complicated. It's become a lot more painful. And it is true that the more you see about what happens at checkpoints, the harder it is to go through one. I will say that. And as I've gotten older, the soldiers look younger.

Wow. Yeah, funny how that happens. Yeah, but it's very, that's painful too. Say more about that. Israel has a very interesting structure, you know, for its military in many ways. you know, Aharae, right? Like the, our leaders and sergeant, they go first, you know, and the soldiers are behind them. Right. Which is like, you know, when people hear that, it's like, oh, you know, that's how we go to war.

Right. Unlike America, which is generals in the back. Correct. And you send all the kids in, right? And look, it's still, war, war is terrible, right? War is horrible. It's not healthy for children and other living things, you know. But, yeah, we have a, we.

We have generations that I've seen grow, right? I mean, I'm 50, and I've been going to Israel since I was 16. So I've seen my cousins have kids and grandkids, and I've seen what it's like for young people also to be raised in conflict. Meaning in the same way that we would say the patriarchy affects men as well as women. Whatever is going on in Israel, it affects everyone. Sure, meaning it impacts and it erodes trust and love. And, you know, when I think of the God of my understanding, that's a God of, love and cohabitation.

Is there anything more you can illuminate for us about life in the West Bank, especially far out there, like that you've seen up close and personal? You know, when you're on an armed settlement, it's a real bubble. You know, in many settlements, like the one where part of my family lives, is an armed settlement. You know, and that means that there's a, you know, a giant gate and an, you know, armed soldiers. And then once you're in, those gates close, it's like a bubble.

Everything you need, you know, pretty much is there. So there's no, where they are, there's no integration. No. They're totally separate. Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah. This is a good question.

You know, because some people are like, you know, we go to the same supermarket. We just live in this community and they go to this community. There's different kinds of places in the West Bank, obviously. If you're on an armed settlement, you know, that's different. And men wear guns to shul, you know, over there to lace them. Like, that's like a thing that sometimes happens. And, you know, it's very hard because I feel like I have to apologize, you know, that people live there. And that's not for me to do.

Do you know what I mean? Like, it's beautiful. It's a beautiful place. Right. Like, it's beautiful. It's like the desert is thriving, right? It's like there's a supermarket and different minions and you could go to this minion, you can go to that minion. And, like, there used to be a Carlbeck.

Minion where they only do Karlbach melodies. You know, like, it's like I spent, I've spent so much beautiful time there, davening and learning how to cook and watching, you know, my aunt and, you know, like, just watching what traditional orthodoxy looks like, right? That's part of my experience there. And, you know, another part of my experience is one of my cousins once said that he was driving by and he was patrolling an area that, you know, was mixed as it were. and he saw a tiny child cowering behind a bush.

And the bush was not even very dense. So the boy, like, is so clear that he could be seen by anyone. But his fear was such that he was trying to make himself so tiny. And my cousin, who at the time was a soldier, said, like, it broke his heart. Like, this is what me driving by makes this child do, right? To cower behind like a twig, right? Like, it's not even safe. that also, you know, happens.

And there are regions of the West Bank that I have driven through that do go through, you know, Arab towns. When I was a teenager and into my 20s, we took buses. And the bus would go from a settlement, you know, where I was staying, through various Arab towns. This was before the second Intifada. And there was always, you know, it's an interesting moment because you're passing through someone else's village.

And you're stopping and you're picking people up and you're all sharing a bus. But of course, I grew up with these images of buses blowing up, right? And you don't want to be fearful about every person who gets on the bus. That's not a way to live. And yet that is the way that a lot of people live. And I know that the other side of that is what's it like to see a soldier, right? Drive by. That's also terrifying.

Like this is the tension of the West Bank. And there are regions in the West Bank now where there are red signs. That is different. And the red signs say you cannot enter here. You are not protected if you go here. And those are entrances to certain, you know, Arab villages. And, you know, technically that's for everyone's protection. Right.

You know, but those red signs are newer. I hadn't seen those before. What the West Bank is like is it's like a lot of human beings. it's a lot of human beings what's the feeling of being in a place where they have to carry guns to shoal to protect themselves and like what does that mean

in terms of their presence there and you sort of can look at it with a little bit of a remove that doesn't feel very safe to me like that feels like this is not the world that I want us to build together as humans, you know? And I think that's the thing too, because it's not just the West Bank.

And this was what I was glad that my children were reminded of when we went in December. Much of Israel is integrated. Yeah. Much of Israel is integrated. We once went into a coffee shop in a mall, and we were the only non-Arabs there. We were the only people not speaking Arab. I was the only woman not in hijab. And there's nothing wrong with that, right?

Right. Right. Like, that's a lot, you know, when you go into a supermarket, when you go buy shoes, when you like, there's all sorts of people. And that's in many places in Israel, you know, and like, that's important for people to remember. Complicated stuff. Speaking of your sons, you've mentioned them a couple times. And you mentioned they're 17 and 20. Correct. So they're sort of right in the thick of, you know, high school, college where it's in this country, it's been sort of the front lines of dealing with. with anti-Jew sentiment. How have these couple of years been for them?

I decided, you know, after October 7th, in particular, you know, to allow them to have their own processing and their own experience. And with that comes a certain amount of anonymity that I grant them because they're not anonymous, right? Meaning I let them have their own experience. And I don't, I mean, I could write so many amazing articles, I think, you know, about like what it's like to parent in this day and age and what's it like when your kid goes to a UC. Yeah.

So probably those are very difficult places. You know, I made the commitment to my older son, you know, not to be part of any parent advocacy because of my name at the school that he, you know, attends. Because he needs to have his own identity. He needs to have his own life. You know, he carries my name. He looks just like me. That's not easy, you know. So there were a lot of meaningful, complicated conversations, obviously after October 7th.

He was a high school senior, my older one at that point. But we also called on, you know, our secular family in Israel to try and have some of these conversations. And we got help. I'm really grateful to my aunt Judy and my uncle Elliot. Shout out at Anunk. Shout out to, you know, the community of Kibbutz-Ghzer, right? like for being part of what I consider kind of raising my children, you know, in that, you know, is really kind of consciousness.

He has a strong foundation and also I would add, you know, a very liberal perspective in terms of I want my children to tolerate other people's opinions. I want them to be able to have reasonable conversation. And I also want them to be educated. And that's what I've said to both of them. You don't have to agree with me, but you also can't make things up. And you can't take things off the interwebs that are not true. and use those as evidence.

The New York Times can do that, but you cannot. We got different standards in this house, and the New York Times does. That's right. But post-October 7th was when we went to the orientation at my younger son's school, which is a Jewish school. The head of school got up there and he said, you know, I had a whole speech prepared about why you should send your children to Jewish school.

He said, and then October 7th happened. And it was like, it's like it's a mic drop. Right, I don't need to make any more speeches. Correct, because, you know, my goal in things, sending my child to a Jewish school was so that he would not, so that both of them would not be ashamed of being Jewish simply because they're Jewish. And like that's a low bar here, people. Welcome to the world in 2026. I just don't want them to hate themselves because of their ethnic and religious and cultural identity. Have you been successful? I wouldn't say that I've been

successful. I would say that the Jewish school system is not perfect. And I also think it's exorbitant. I don't really understand why things have to be so expensive in general. I'm just like a hippie. Because it's two schools and one. Right, right. Exactly. But I'm just like a hippie. So, you know, I'm like, education for everyone. To the greatest extent possible and not everyone obviously is affording Jewish school or has that opportunity. But wherever you're doing it, whether it's at home, whether it's at their public school, whether it's at a Jewish school, whether it's at Sunday school, which, you know, I went to, there needs to be a reinforcement of not just our identity as it relates to a war in Gaza, but we have a calendar, we have an intellectual heritage, we have food, we have music,

we have a global language. Imagine that. We have a language that is the unifying language of Jews all over the world. That language is Hebrew, right? That is a fundamental education, right? To learn Hebrew is to learn what it is to be Jewish. So much about the grammar, the way we form things, the way we structure it, which words are regular, which are irregular, which are the ancient words, like the Anamonapaya, the numbers that go with words. That's like that. We have a language.

That's remarkable, you know, so that needs to be reinforced wherever we can. Love that. Yeah. Let's talk a little bit about Hollywood in the post-October 7th landscape. What are you seeing? I think there's been a lot of remarkable. Jews who have stepped up. I feel that way too, for sure.

And I think I know what everyone's thinking. Most Jews have not. I know that's what most people are thinking, right? Or it's like, Hollywood hates us. Yeah. No, and I don't know that I'd say that, but I think there's been a lot of remarkable Jews. And like you and I could name them, and I'm sure everybody, you know, who's listening could as well.

But there's been some exceptional remarkable Jews. And, you know, I want to call out Ben Stiller who wrote a beautiful. piece for Time magazine. You know, I haven't checked in with Ben personally on how he's feeling today, right? But the fact that Ben Stiller wrote a piece for Time magazine saying, what is happening when secular, liberal, apolitical Jews are being, you know, attacked? Like, what's, what? I considered that incredibly courageous, right? There have been things like that. Yeah. That have really, you know, touched my soul, Deborah Messing. We left Deborah.

You know, Jerry Seinfeld and Jesse. Like, you know, even Amy Schumer, who they, you know, they eventually got to her, you know. What do you mean? Yeah, she had, there was a thing and she had an apology and it was like a thing. And, you know, and I don't know who the they is, but I'm saying, like, I meant that in a non, non-threatening way. But, like, there have been amazing, you know, Sasha Baron Cohen has done some incredible work. you know there's been an entire behind the scenes you know group of mostly women but men as well you know who have protected those of us who speak out and who were getting silenced literally by

platforms yeah so there's been a tremendous showing up you know for i think in a lot of ways i think there's also been a real fatigue and i think there's a fatigue for all of us i did not want a war you know, that lasted this long and looked like this. Of course. No one did. And I know that there's a lot of people who are like, oh, that was the goal. It's genocide and Gaza. No, that was not the goal. It's not how that works.

And I think that that wore out a lot of people in Hollywood. Yeah. Because I think a lot of Hollywood is secular, liberal Jews. For sure. And it has become increasingly hard in a liberal climate, especially in Los Angeles in Southern California. It has been hard for many people to maintain that because it's very, very, very, very painful. Yeah.

And so I think there's that. And I think that there's a lot of people who feel like, yeah, like everything Jews touch becomes a problem. I think that's, I think a lot of people feel that way. And I don't think people would say that. But I think that we're a problem. We're noisy and we're, we're complicated. And, you know, we get involved with things that make trouble.

I think you're giving even there a little too much credit. I mean, I, I mean, it's been my experience in. certain situations has nothing to do with the people involved themselves. You know, I've talked about this before I had a situation. I was doing a Shabbat event, and there were certain folks. I couldn't even get to come to that because they were just like, too hot right now. Oh, yeah, for sure. And it's like too hot to go to dinner with Jews, you know?

That's, we're not, I'm not stirring anything up there. No, but also, you know, there's a lot of justifiable reticence, you know, to participation. This is one of the questions I get asked by when I speak for Jews, which I do a lot. It's mostly who I speak for. You know, when I go out and about, or I do speaking engagements. Why will more people speak up? It's very, very clear. It says you should not be confused. People don't speak up because they don't want death threats. They don't want to have to hire security for their home. They don't want to worry about walking down the street. They don't want to worry about people beating up their kids at school. Like, that's why. Like, that's what it looks like. It's that fear. And sometimes it's just a and sometimes it's not, but you know what? Fear's the same. How much of that is actually happening, though? I've seen things happen to Jews in office that are terrifying. Right. That's terrifying.

Sure. To have your house burned down on Pesach? Right. That's terrifying. To have red paint splattered all over your car and your driveway, that's terrifying. That happens to like a region of UCLA. Yeah. Minutes from here.

Like spitting distance. That's terrifying. And you know what? Like my fear that I might be harmed physically, that's a big fear. That's not like, oh, that might happen today. Oh, they might not have coffee at my coffee shore. Like, this is a fear of like, what does it mean to leave my house and go to the market right now? I was out with my kids in Hollywood at a really awesome vegan restaurant.

And it's just like it's in a strip mall. And I'm saying, like, it's like a dive. It's like an awesome dive. Sure. And like most people who are vegan know what I'm talking about. It's like in the middle of Hollywood. And I was there with my kids and we were walking from the, you know, it's in a strip mall. Right.

So you're in the parking. It's in the parking lot. Just like to our car. And there was obviously there had been some sort of protest that I did not know about. Okay. Because three grown adults were wearing, you know, Zionism is racism shirts. And the man of the group started to come up to me. And he did not have a positive look on his face.

Mm-hmm. I had this moment of like, I'm in this parking lot with my two teenagers. The fuck is about to happen. Yeah. Like what, like, and in that moment, I'm not weighing the statistics. I'm saying to my children, get in the car and do not ask any questions. Get in the car. Yeah.

And I'm thinking, this is a grown man. I'm a five foot three and a half, like old lady, basically. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. Whose crime is being a Zionist. What are you even entering into my physical space to talk about? Like, what are we doing here? If it was a woman, I'd be like, okay, some lady wants to get in my face.

You are a grown-ass man. What are you coming up into my physical space in this parking lot to do with that t-shirt and that look on your face? Yeah. What's happening? I wasn't at the protest. What happened? I got in my car and I felt scared. Yeah.

And my nervous system got dysregulated because that's what happens. And I drove home. And it was quiet in the car. Yeah. Because no matter how much my children want to talk about this, that, and the other, that's scary. Yeah. It's no way to live. It's no way to live.

And it's the way a lot of us are living, especially if you wear Jew on your face, as I describe it, if you're a public Jew. Which I think it's important to do. Yeah. In spite of it all. Yep. 2022, you made your directorial debut. I did. As They Made Us is the film.

Could you get it made now the same way? It's a good question. So, yeah, I wrote that film a year after my father, Zicharnal-Averha, passed away. I wrote a screenplay that I never thought would go anywhere, and I ended up not only getting it made, I directed it, and Dustin Hoffman and Candace Bergen starred in it. Also, Simon Helberg from Big Bang Theory and Diana Agron. Is it a Jewish movie?

It's funny. My kids once heard me being asked if every character I play is Jewish. Jewish to which I think my then five-year-old said, well, has to be because you're Jewish, right? Yeah, I think that it's a Jewish-e, you know, it's a Jewish-ish kind of movie. You know, it's not like bad Chavez, right? Like, it's not about Chavez. But yeah, it's definitely there, you know, would I be asked to tone stuff like that down? I don't know.

I think that's the beauty of independent film and of funding. but, you know, post-October 7th, endorsements changed for me. We lost sponsors on our podcast. Really? Speaking engagements changed for me. Wow. So, yeah, Hollywood, and I'm not the only Jew. Many of us felt that.

Many of us felt that. So I think that, yeah, that might change investors. And what I see, and I've seen this in other minority communities as well, is a sort of self-segregation has started happening. because we've needed to like join forces. Right, you find the people who are going to support these things. But I'd like to say that like that feels dangerous in a country that was, you know, supposed to be, right? A place for everyone to be the same, right?

Do you attribute the sponsorship dropout, things of that nature, to we don't like this Jewish person or we don't like this person talking about Israel? Or is it like they're getting political? I just want to sell washing machines. You know, at the time that October 7th happened, it was the middle of the writer's strike, the WGA strike at Jeopardy. And I was let go about two months after October 7th. And, you know, I'm not going to stand here

and say, I know why that was. It could have been because the new producer just preferred Ken Jennings. Like, that's completely their prerogative. It's an unfortunate set of timing, you know. And also, I have been, as many liberal Jews have been, I have been actively excluded from many prominent liberal organizations. Wow.

Yeah. Like, your voice is no longer welcome here. Wow. Uh-huh. And which, like, again, for a bleeding heart liberal, that's pretty, that's a low blow. Because I marched with a silly hat, you know, like I did a lot of marching for a lot of other organizations that I still believe in. You know, I'm not, and I've had Jewish friends who have said, like, see, you can't be a liberal.

They don't, no, that's not the solution. You know, that's the fabric of a society. The things that hold us together are the different kinds of people who come together to support women, underserved populations, the poor, you know, mental health. You know, I also have a bone to pick with Jeopardy. I was on it and I came in second. That's right. I forgot.

And it's really a bone to pick with myself. I like brain farted and blew a question into the answer too. I'm terrible at Jeopardy. It's the damn buzzer. Well, the buzzer is like, that's part of it. 80% of my anxiousness was on that. That's definitely right. As you lost endorsement, sponsorship, whatever, did new ones come out of the woodwork at all from, like, you know, friendlies?

I think there's been, you know, the most positive influx possible of Jewish speakers. So I guess technically less, you know, opportunities because so many incredible people. And that feels so good. to always say yes. Always say yes. That sound means my am just finished answering my five deep questions.

A bonus segment I write exclusively for members of the Kehila, my subscriber-only community for my most supportive supporters. Join us, won't you? To get exclusive content, exclusive merch, preferred ticketing in my live events, monthly live FaceTime with yours

truly and your fellow Kehila members and a lot more. This week's five deep questions was a doozy. Here's a little taste. Aliens. I don't believe we are alone. Those angels, those are actually representations of other beings. Another thing that's spoken a lot about on your show are near-death experiences.

Where is your consciousness? Does it exist outside of your body? Is it fundamental? Is it something that we learn? Juicy stuff. You have described yourself as a balchua. What is that for those in my audience who don't know? and what led you there?

Yeah, I'm considered a Balchua because I was not raised with observance and took on observance when I was, I guess, yeah, in college. So a Balchua, yeah, is the owner of that answer of return, as it were. And I was raised reform, but my mother was raised very religious and there were a lot of remnants of her orthodoxy

in my childhood. So I think I actually got kind of a mixed, you know, experience. Like, we had two sets of dishes. but I didn't know why. I thought it was just like breakfast dishes and dinner dishes. But sometimes we would have tuna fish for dinner and she'd serve it on the breakfast dishes. And I didn't understand. Now I do.

We had two sets of dishes. And I also grew up in a very, you know, my grandparents immigrated from Eastern Europe during the series of pogroms, you know, leading up to the Holocaust. So my mom's parents in particular lost, you know, most of their family. And so like the Holocaust was like right here. That's how I describe it. It was like right here. So, like, they were Yiddish speakers. My mom did not speak English in her home of origin.

I was raised with Yiddish. I spoke Yiddish to my children. Like, you know, I grew up in like a very steadily kind of, you know, home. Because I mean, my mom's parents lived like survivors. And they lived in a community of Holocaust survivors, even though they were not, you know, in camps. But that was just like that culture. Yeah. So the notion of taking on observance was very scary to my mom because she's like,

you're going to be religious, just like my sister who moved to Israel. because my mom's older sister, you know, became more religious and made Aliyah when I was born. I get that parental fear. Oh, yeah, totally. It's like, you want them to love their Jewish or any, but not so much that they move thousands of miles away from you. Oh, you think you're so hot. You celebrate Chavez. Like, oh, I'm not good enough for you.

And, you know, it was like a little of that for many years. But, but yeah, I took on observance in college. I had, as I said, a very, you know, traditional wedding. And I was, you know, quite observant for the years that my kids were young. And then I got divorced when my kids were four and seven, and it was much harder. There's not really a place for divorced Orthodox women with young children in Jewish communities, meaning it's like you're kind of an odd, you know, it's like, do you get invited to places with couples? Like, that's sad.

And like if you're not looking to be dating right away, you know, it's just like a little bit of a... It seems like an oversight. It's like a liminal space. Yeah, I think that like unmarried Jewish women is like a very special. category, but in particular, like, being divorced and with kids. Like, it's, you know, it's very different. It's got to describe a lot of women. Yes. Oh, I know. Yeah.

Yeah, I know many, too. Especially, like, when you age out of, like, the 20s and 30s, you know, then it's like, oh, now I'm this lady. I think that's... We got to, we got to plug that gap. I mean, I think it's very, very, very interesting, yeah. All right. Let's get to this game.

We're going to do a good old-fashioned lightning round. I know you speak Yiddish, as you've mentioned. What's one of your favorite Yiddish words or phrases? is. For shimelt. What's for shimalt? Fichimalt is the, you know, when you open a fruit and it's kind of mealy but also dry, it's not just mealy, it's also dry, that's for shimled.

Wow, I can't believe there's a word for that. Why wouldn't there be? Because otherwise you'd have to say it's kind of mealy but a little bit dry and it's like, is it rotten? It's for shimalt. The shimalt. What's one of your most memorable, unique experiences, davening on the road? Ooh, davening on the road. What a great question.

The year that I said cottage for my father, I did the full year. Yeah. And I was once in Savannah for, it was a speaking engagement. And what I always would do during my year of cottage, because the most reliable place to say cottage on a weekday is an Orthodox shul, I ended up going to Orthodox shul's a lot, mostly. And also I'm pretty observant, so like, that's fine. But they often don't allow women to say cottage, or it can be complicated.

So I would always alert them. Savannah, Georgia. They are so unaccustomed to having women at their weekday minchas that there was no women's section. So I was placed in a refreshment corner off the main synagogue room and the Michita they created. And I'm not saying this to tell a bad story about Orthodox people. They did it as lovingly as they could. They put like a cart, like a library cart of books as the Michitsa to try and create this. Would you duck down behind that, please?

But honestly, then I recited Kaddish. it was fine, but they literally were like, we have to improvise. And like, we don't have a woman section because, like, there's no, never a woman here. And so they made this little alcove, my, my mechita section. Okay. That's certainly unique and memorable. It's what you asked. What was the most Jewish moment on the Big Bang theory?

We lit candles together on Chanica. Oh, that's nice. And, like, I would put the word out. It would usually be, if it happened on a tape night, we would do it between dinner and touch-ups before the show, and we would all gather. Cast members who wanted to, producers, crew, and it was really beautiful, and we would all sing together. That's so nice.

If you made Alia, what city would you live in? Oh, my gosh. I mean, I'd want to live in the middle of the old city. Special place. I would want to live in one of those, like, weird, windy, crazy little streets. I mean, I could also imagine living in Spot. like, you know, of the places I've been. Spiritual place.

Oh, and just like, it's, you know, on the hill and just that region. And actually, I have family in Hoshaya, which is near there, which is also lovely. But there's something about living in, like, a place that feels ancient. Like, I don't want to live in, like, a new building. I want to live in an ancient place. Cool. What's your favorite Jewish holiday? I'm a person that gets a lot out of, like, Tish above, like, fasting.

Whoa, that's definitely, you're definitely the first answer to be that. It's a deep cut. Saddest day of the year for this guy. Okay, but like saddest and also the potential for redemption. Sure. And, you know, a day of like true immersion. The only other one you could compare it to is Yom Kippur. Right.

Not just because of the not eating. But when you don't eat, you can't expend a lot of energy. So you're spending the day immersed, you know? And I really, I just, I really, that's a thing. Do you have a favorite Parsha? I love a Jewish question. Yeah. I get so many of them here.

You know, I'm Vaiyghash. It was my bat mitzvah parcia. And, like, Joseph revealing himself to his brothers is very, very special. It's special on, you know, so many levels. Like, what does it mean to be seen also by your family? What happens when we change? Do people recognize us, right? What's it like to reintroduce yourself to people?

I mean, like, just like it's so many things. I'm a super, you know, super Jew nerd in case you couldn't tell. Yeah, I'm picking up what you're putting down. If you could have any three Jews dead or alive over for Shabbat dinner. Who would they be? My partner, Jonathan Cohen. Nice. Just, you know.

He's got to be there. He's got to be there. I mean, it's hard not to have my kids, but like I'll... They're already invited. These are three Ushkizine. My partner, my partner Jonathan Cohen, I think we'll make him one. You know, Albert Einstein and Sigmund Freud. It's a hell of a dinner table conversation.

Yeah, and I'm also thinking like, oh, there's so many ladies, like gold in my ear. There's so many incredible Jewish women. Like, there's so many incredible women. But, like, I think, like, Einstein, Freud. I mean, also, you could throw marks in there and kick out my boyfriend. Well, that'd be a really interesting conversation. And my last question that we ask of all of our guests, Chala, rip or slice. Oh, my goodness.

It's not even ripping. It's called Knipping. That's the Yiddish. That's Yiddish for RIP. It's a Kniep. You're the first Kniep we've had. We had a lot of rips, not a Knipe. Kni.

And also the best part is the Kepi, the end, the head. Some people call it the heel, but in my house we called it the Kepi. Love that. Mime, thank you so much. This was delightful. Thank you so much. It's been a real pleasure. Thank you.

Thank you. And thanks to all of you for watching. If you enjoyed the show, please be sure to like it, subscribe to the channel, and leave me your thoughts in the comments. We talked about a lot of stuff. We'd love to hear your feedback. And I want you to try something. Share this episode with someone you think might find it interesting. If you're a Jew, send it to an ally.

If you're an ally, send it to a Jew. I predict good things will happen. If I'm right, find the clip from this episode on Instagram or TikTok, and let me know. I'll be waiting for you. All right. That's it for me. I'll see you right back here for the next, whoa, episode of being Jewish with me, Jonah Platt. Thanks again to our sponsor, Wondering Jews with Mikala Noam, an unpacked podcast.

Start watching or listening at unpacked. bio slash wj. Big ups to everybody that makes being Jewish with Jonah Platt possible. executive producer Steve Hein, production manager and executive assistant Josie Rothschild, research associates Samantha Greenwald, production associates Rachel Stern and Charlie Zucker, production interns Sasha Nelson and Emma Webb, YouTube consultants, Jason Alsamari and Zach Stein, post-production by Time Weaver Studios, creative director F. Brian Schofield, lead editor Noam Clement, editors Gray Clevenger and Joe King, graphic designer Noah Bell, and publicist Sarah Fruman. with theme music by Gabriel Mann, performed by yours truly.

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