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

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=acb04f3322fa472c Being Jewish on Spotify or Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/being-jewish-with-jonah-platt/id1767185986 Watch Being Jewish on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@beingjewishpodcast Support 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/@beingjewishpodcast Subscribe to the Being Jewish Newsletter: bit.ly/beingjewishnewsletter http://bit.ly/beingjewishnewsletter For Sponsorships, please email: [email protected] Merchandise: https://beingjewishpodcast.com/merch Follow Jonah on: Instagram - @JonahPlatt https://www.instagram.com/jonahplattX - @JonahPlatt https://www.x.xom/jonahplattFollow Being Jewish on: Instagram - @BeingJewishPodcast https://www.instagram.com/beingjewishpodcastTikTok - @BeingJewish https://www.tiktok.com/@beingjewish See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:03Speaker 00

  This episode is brought to you by our sponsor, Wondering Jews with Michal and Noam, an Unpacked Podcast. Start watching or listening at unpackedbio/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 you is by playing my favorite game. That's right, folks, it's time for Two Truths at the Same Time!

• 0:42Speaker 00

  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.

• 1:27Speaker 00

  To which Jews reply, conflating the Jewish people in Israel is bigotry. And sure, sub the word Zionist for Jew, whatever, it's the same bigotry. On the other hand, let's say an American politician is spreading libels 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.

• 2:11Speaker 00

  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.

• 2:54Speaker 00

  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. 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.

• 3:39Speaker 00

  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

• 4:24Speaker 00

  to be Fredo. So what should you say when you see anti-Zionists pulling the collective punishment or the "don't conflate inversion" card? Hit them 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 gonna tell you so. When somebody espouses anti-Israel bigotry anywhere, it impacts Jews everywhere, and we're gonna 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.

• 5:08Speaker 00

  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 gonna 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.

• 6:19Speaker 00

  Bienvenue, 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 blew. ...into a full-on neuroscientist, four-time Emmy nominee, bestselling 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.

• 7:03Speaker 00

  Please welcome the real awesome blossom, Ms. Mayim Chaya Bialik.

• 7:08Mayim Bialik?

  Oh my goodness, thank you.

• 7:10Speaker 00

  Mayim, mayim, mayim, mayim. Do people just sing that at you all the time?

• 7:15Mayim Bialik?

  When I was a kid, indeed, that is, my name is the same as the song.

• 7:20Speaker 00

  Yes, well, welcome. It's a pleasure to have you here.

• 7:23Mayim Bialik?

  Thank you.

• 7:24Speaker 00

  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?

• 7:47Mayim Bialik?

  The easy answer is it's a little bit just me being me, but I think, as 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.

• 8:31Mayim Bialik?

  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

• 9:14Mayim Bialik?

  system, you know, it didn't really matter. And that was, you know, long before October 7th, for sure.

• 9:20Speaker 00

  Sure. When you first sort of felt that, you know, this, there's this increased exposure, and now you're getting, I mean, when it sounds like you're getting some negative online

• 9:32Mayim Bialik?

  Threats.

• 9:32Speaker 00

  Threats. How does that alter your behavior?

• 9:37Mayim Bialik?

  I guess it doesn't.

• 9:38Speaker 00

  Baruch HaShem.

• 9:39Mayim Bialik?

  It alters my sense of safety, not just my personal safety, but my sense of safety in the world. I think that's kind of undeniable. And it also, you know, 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, look how assimilated we are. And indeed, we are, you know, and through all of, 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

• 10:20Mayim Bialik?

  palpable. It changed when I was first protested against, long before October 7th.

• 10:25Speaker 00

  Protested in what way?

• 10:26Mayim Bialik?

  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. I don't know what the moniker 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, "Mayim Bialik is a Zionist." And I thought, "Well, that's strange. Why would that be cause to be protested?"

• 11:04Speaker 00

  They know me so well.

• 11:05Mayim Bialik?

  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.

• 11:29Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 11:30Mayim Bialik?

  This is a long time ago. That changed my requirements for security.

• 11:33Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm.

• 11:34Mayim Bialik?

  Yeah, it definitely caused some sort of destabilization of comfort, right?

• 11:39Speaker 00

  Totally.

• 11:40Mayim Bialik?

  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.

• 11:52Speaker 00

  Right.

• 11:52Mayim Bialik?

  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. 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.

• 12:16Speaker 00

  Right.

• 12:17Mayim Bialik?

  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.

• 12:31Speaker 00

  Yeah, I don't think that's a naivete. I think that's just people co-opting a word and calling it something else.

• 12:36Mayim Bialik?

  Yeah.

• 12:37Speaker 00

  I think it's hard to fully understand if you've never experienced the...

• 12:44Speaker 00

  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 like, it really doesn't feel great.

• 12:57Mayim Bialik?

  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.

• 13:06Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 13:06Mayim Bialik?

  I experienced this when I was at UCLA. So I'm 50 now.

• 13:09Speaker 00

  As a student?

• 13:10Mayim Bialik?

  As an undergrad. And this was the beginnings of what became the Zionism equals racism, you know, movement. So I'm-

• 13:18Speaker 00

  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, while I was in college, it was a totally different landscape."

• 13:27Mayim Bialik?

  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.

• 13:58Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 13:59Mayim Bialik?

  This was in the 90s, you know, the late 90s.

• 14:01Speaker 00

  That's early.

• 14:02Mayim Bialik?

  Early 2000s. There were swastikas painted on Bruin Walk during our Yom Ha'atzmaut week that we were, you know, scrubbing off. Rabbein equals Hitler was chalked 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,

• 14:34Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 14:34Mayim Bialik?

  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?

• 14:43Speaker 00

  Right.

• 14:44Mayim Bialik?

  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 what- Whatever movement this is that is so actively seeking to engage in protest.

• 15:02Speaker 00

  I mean, it's certainly something we've talked about on this show before, how anti-Zionism is a hate movement. And it's not interested in a conversation. It's not actually interested in solutions.

• 15:12Mayim Bialik?

  Correct.

• 15:13Speaker 00

  It wants to shut down one side and ostracize them and other them and in certain ways, get rid of them entirely.

• 15:20Mayim Bialik?

  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++ movement, right? We've seen it 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-

• 15:53Speaker 00

  Or below, perhaps.

• 15:54Mayim Bialik?

  Or below. That's true. Depending which side of it you're on.

• 15:57Speaker 00

  Right. So your name, obviously, is Mayim.

• 15:59Mayim Bialik?

  Yes.

• 16:00Speaker 00

  Do you feel like you've had to explain your Jewishness your whole life?

• 16:03Mayim Bialik?

  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.

• 16:12Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 16:13Mayim Bialik?

  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.

• 16:24Speaker 00

  Right.

• 16:24Mayim Bialik?

  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?

• 16:36Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm. And then what's the most common follow-up?

• 16:38Mayim Bialik?

  Oh, that's so beautiful. Oh, that's interesting.

• 16:41Speaker 00

  We love that.

• 16:42Mayim Bialik?

  Yeah, we love that.

• 16:43Speaker 00

  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 gotta get everybody to sign that pledge. I mean, let's pass that around. You are a neuroscientist. You host a podcast, MindBee Alex 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?

• 17:20Mayim Bialik?

  This is 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, maybe 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 an academic

• 18:05Mayim Bialik?

  practice of examining antisemitism, just like there's an academic practice of examining systemic racism.

• 18:12Speaker 00

  Right.

• 18:13Mayim Bialik?

  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.

• 18:27Speaker 00

  I'm almost done with my masters in antisemitism studies.

• 18:30Mayim Bialik?

  Right, well, that you can even get a masters in it.

• 18:32Speaker 00

  There you go, yeah.

• 18:33Mayim Bialik?

  So, you know, to be able to, to frame that takes more than 10 seconds, right?

• 18:38Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 18:38Mayim Bialik?

  There's a very systematic procedure that many people all over the world have spent and dedicated their lives to perpetrating. And that is delegitimization 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.

• 19:01Speaker 00

  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. Important, but you know, I gotta watch this TV show, you know, I got, I gotta go grocery store.

• 19:18Mayim Bialik?

  I think it takes all kinds, and I think we're called for different things at different times.

• 19:24Speaker 00

  But this is the time, right?

• 19:25Mayim Bialik?

  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.

• 20:08Mayim Bialik?

  And I give people the right to be in denial because it's a powerful tool.

• 20:13Speaker 00

  Sure.

• 20:14Mayim Bialik?

  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 people? Different question, and I think has a different, you know, set of framework around it.

• 20:31Speaker 00

  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.

• 20:39Mayim Bialik?

  Right.

• 20:40Speaker 00

  And so I'm gonna, what I think is the most important thing is my progressive values.

• 20:43Mayim Bialik?

  It's not, you mean, it's not apathy and yeah.

• 20:46Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. And as opposed to someone who says, yes, I agree, this is a really critical time. I just, I'm not gonna really contribute to it right now.

• 20:53Mayim Bialik?

  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.

• 21:05Speaker 00

  Me too.

• 21:05Mayim Bialik?

  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 entered. And you don't have to clean up the whole world, right? Lo alecham lechalig more. You don't have to finish the job, but like, you could. To 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.

• 21:42Speaker 00

  I'm not hostile. I, I mean, what I, 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 troops.

• 21:53Mayim Bialik?

  Well, and I think one thing that I see, it's the, it's, it's just before apathy. It's like, yeah, it's important, but someone else will handle it.

• 22:02Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 22:02Mayim Bialik?

  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, 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.

• 22:21Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 22:22Mayim Bialik?

  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.

• 22:30Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 22:31Mayim Bialik?

  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?

• 22:39Speaker 00

  What an interesting guy that he was observant enough to see many of them before and notice them diminishing.

• 22:44Mayim Bialik?

  Correct.

• 22:45Speaker 00

  I, I love this guy.

• 22:46Mayim Bialik?

  I know.

• 22:48Speaker 00

  All right, here's another, 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 to exist, that hurts me a lot. Are you hurt all the time?

• 23:01Mayim Bialik?

  I guess so. I mean, like,

• 23:04Speaker 00

  That sounds, that's, that's gotta be tough.

• 23:05Mayim Bialik?

  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.

• 23:19Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 23:19Mayim Bialik?

  I think that since October 7th, we've had to think a lot more than we did before 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.

• 23:38Speaker 00

  What are your strategies? How do you stay buoyant and? Hopeful and, you know, deal with the hurt?

• 23:44Mayim Bialik?

  You know, I think that there's a new sense of community for the Jewish people.

• 23:48Speaker 00

  For sure.

• 23:48Mayim Bialik?

  I think that, you know, all of a sudden going to synagogue wasn't just like going to synagogue.

• 23:53Speaker 00

  Right.

• 23:53Mayim Bialik?

  It was like, I need to be around people who I don't have to explain myself to.

• 23:57Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 23:57Mayim Bialik?

  I don't agree with everyone at my synagogue, right?

• 23:59Speaker 00

  Oh, sure.

• 24:00Mayim Bialik?

  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.

• 24:07Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 24:08Mayim Bialik?

  I think also, you know, leaning into Shabbos, leaning into Yom Tovim, like leaning into the things that are good and joyous about us.

• 24:17Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm.

• 24:18Mayim Bialik?

  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.

• 24:35Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 24:36Mayim Bialik?

  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.

• 24:43Speaker 00

  For sure.

• 24:43Mayim Bialik?

  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.

• 24:57Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 24:58Mayim Bialik?

  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?

• 25:05Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 25:06Mayim Bialik?

  And I was like, this is what it feels like to be in a community.

• 25:08Speaker 00

  Right. One more Mayim quote for you.

• 25:10Mayim Bialik?

  Oh, my goodness. It's like, this is your life.

• 25:12Speaker 00

  All right. This is an older one. You said, "Israel is the country I most identify with as mine."

• 25:17Mayim Bialik?

  Hmm.

• 25:18Speaker 00

  Do you still feel that way?

• 25:18Mayim Bialik?

  Absolutely.

• 25:20Speaker 00

  Great. That's the whole question.

• 25:22Mayim Bialik?

  Well, I think it needs, like, a little bit of flesh in it.

• 25:24Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 25:24Mayim Bialik?

  Like, this is the country that took me in. I'm a proud American. I'm patriotic in that I-

• 25:29Speaker 00

  When you say "took me in," you were born here.

• 25:31Mayim Bialik?

  I was born here, but I'm saying, like, I would not exist had Ellis Island not moved us through, right?

• 25:38Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 25:39Mayim Bialik?

  Moved my grandparents through. One of my grandmothers, she came from Warsaw. She had polio. She had to be, you know, essentially snuck in.

• 25:46Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 25:46Mayim Bialik?

  Like, she was marked at three. I'm only here because of that.

• 25:50Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 25:51Mayim Bialik?

  I believe in the values of this country. I believe in the freedoms that many of us hold sacred. I also believe in, you know, the complexity of this country.

• 26:03Speaker 00

  Sure.

• 26:03Mayim Bialik?

  And that it was not discovered 250 years ago. There have been indigenous people here for, you know, for most of history. But, you know, I, I believe in, in the promise that, that brought my grandparents here.

• 26:16Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 26:16Mayim Bialik?

  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.

• 26:30Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 26:30Mayim Bialik?

  I don't kiss the ground when I land here. I kiss the ground when I land there.

• 26:33Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 26:34Mayim Bialik?

  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. And 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.

• 27:07Speaker 00

  Would you ever make Aliyah?

• 27:09Mayim Bialik?

  I thought of making Aliyah more than twice. At this point, my life is here because of my kids.

• 27:16Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 27:16Mayim Bialik?

  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.

• 27:31Speaker 00

  Let's go, let's get her in.

• 27:32Mayim Bialik?

  I feel like we should get me in. Like, wouldn't that be?

• 27:35Speaker 00

  It'd be the biggest win for Israel in three years.

• 27:37Mayim Bialik?

  I already feel like a citizen, right?

• 27:39Speaker 00

  So a few weeks after October 7th, you recorded this nine plus minute TikTok video.

• 27:46Mayim Bialik?

  Is that how long it was?

• 27:47Speaker 00

  Yeah. Really just speaking off the cuff, it seems, speaking your truth, millions of views. What, if you can recall, like felt so urgent in that moment that you're like, I gotta go put this on the internet? And like, what was the response that you got from that?

• 28:03Mayim Bialik?

  Gentiles.

• 28:05Mayim Bialik?

  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.

• 28:20Speaker 00

  Maybe not this audience.

• 28:23Mayim Bialik?

  Right, no, but I'm saying like, if 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%.

• 28:43Speaker 00

  No.

• 28:43Mayim Bialik?

  So, um.

• 28:44Speaker 00

  Two.

• 28:45Mayim Bialik?

  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**k is happening? Like, what happened there? What happened in this far-off place that I've never been to and maybe can't even find on a map? But what's happening with all these Jews? Like, what, that's what, that's really what, 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.

• 29:28Mayim Bialik?

  We are a tribe, and we share a lot of things. We share a heart.

• 29:33Speaker 00

  Did you receive response from the audience you were trying to reach?

• 29:38Mayim Bialik?

  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?

• 29:53Speaker 00

  Right.

• 29:54Mayim Bialik?

  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.

• 30:04Speaker 00

  Right.

• 30:04Mayim Bialik?

  This is how I'm feeling. This lady, you know, articulated it. This lady you know from TV, she's feeling it too.

• 30:11Speaker 00

  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?

• 30:21Mayim Bialik?

  What I've discovered is that I cannot, you know, be asked to choose between being a liberal and being a Zionist.

• 30:32Mayim Bialik?

  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. None of that seems relevant anymore, you know? I've had, you know, so many people laugh in my face when I say like, "I used to be a progressive." 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, um, I don't identify, you know, with many politics of the far left. Sure.

• 31:10Mayim Bialik?

  I mean, you know, um, and I don't identify with many of the things that, 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. Right. That if you questioned... It's so binary.

• 31:54Mayim Bialik?

  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, 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.

• 32:39Mayim Bialik?

  Like, you cannot get me to change. However, this notion that support for Israel...

• 32:50Mayim Bialik?

  Is in conflict with the Democratic Party is fallacious. And it's, you know, it's sinful, right? It's sinful. And in addition, whatever's going on on the other side of the spectrum is, you know, a lot more in line with my, you know, 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 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

• 33:35Mayim Bialik?

  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 received this kind of attention, the, there would be a blood in the streets. And I, that is the most suspicious aspect of what is going on.

• 34:19Mayim Bialik?

  And this is what I tell my children. No matter, we don't have to agree on everything, but there's something conspicuously suspicious about the attention being paid to Israel.

• 34:30Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 34:31Mayim Bialik?

  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 Amlo, 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. And never in my life did I think we'd see that, right?

• 34:59Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 34:59Mayim Bialik?

  There's something happening here, right? It's the Buffalo Springfield song.

• 35:04Speaker 00

  Would, would you ever run for office?

• 35:10Mayim Bialik?

  I can't even get the mail on time. Can't even put on my shoes.

• 35:15Speaker 00

  So you're saying there's a chance.

• 35:17Mayim Bialik?

  I wear slippers most days. No. I mean, look, the way the politics is going now.

• 35:22Speaker 00

  We need good people.

• 35:23Mayim Bialik?

  Well, clearly, anything goes.

• 35:24Speaker 00

  Yeah, all you need is a good AI campaign and you're in.

• 35:27Mayim Bialik?

  No, I literally, like, on any given day, there's not enough food in the fridge, because if I forgot to go to the market, you do not want me engaging.

• 35:35Speaker 00

  They have people for that.

• 35:36Mayim Bialik?

  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 cellphone, we should not have me taking on any civil responsibility.

• 35:53Speaker 00

  You've also said.

• 35:54Mayim Bialik?

  Oh, my goodness, someone did their research.

• 35:56Speaker 00

  This is literally the last one, though. Jews are often the canary in the coal mine. And that's not, you know, a specific mine quote, but you have said that.

• 36:02Mayim Bialik?

  Yeah.

• 36:03Speaker 00

  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?

• 36:10Mayim Bialik?

  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.

• 36:50Mayim Bialik?

  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.

• 37:06Speaker 00

  Right.

• 37:06Mayim Bialik?

  Right? I am not attacking Islam. I'm not.

• 37:11Mayim Bialik?

  And 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 battle that is being waged, not just on Jews, but on 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 of years, and then everybody forgot.

• 37:40Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm.

• 37:41Mayim Bialik?

  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.

• 37:52Speaker 00

  It's a crap job, but I guess somebody's got to do it.

• 37:55Mayim Bialik?

  That's your bedtime story, Jim. Sleep tight.

• 37:58Speaker 00

  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 Weisman. 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. And that's exactly what you'll find on his other podcast, Wondering Jews with Michael and Noam, a podcast from Unpacked and Open Door Media. Hosted by my friends, Michael Bitone and Noam Weisman, two seriously dynamic Jewish voices, they tackle the big questions about the Jewish experience and about life. They explore what antisemitism looks like right now, what the future of Jewish identity

• 38:40Speaker 00

  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. Michael 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 leaves you thinking long after it's over. Search for Wondering Jews with Michael and Noam wherever you listen for your podcasts or watch them: Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.

• 39:22Speaker 00

  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.

• 39:31Mayim Bialik?

  Yeah.

• 39:32Speaker 00

  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?

• 39:49Mayim Bialik?

  I mean, look, what I learned is that it doesn't matter if I go to the West Bank or Israel proper. Like, haters gonna 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.

• 40:08Speaker 00

  Right.

• 40:08Mayim Bialik?

  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.

• 40:32Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 40:33Mayim Bialik?

  You know, I can't-

• 40:34Speaker 00

  I would assume so.

• 40:34Mayim Bialik?

  Yeah, I can't, 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 a promise of a different lifestyle, you know, 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-

• 41:19Mayim Bialik?

  My family lives past Malachi Dome, so most people when they hear West Bank, they think like, "Oh, Malachi Dome." Malachi Dome 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.

• 41:55Speaker 00

  Wow, yeah, funny how that happens.

• 41:57Mayim Bialik?

  Yeah, but it's very, that's painful, too.

• 41:59Speaker 00

  Say more about that.

• 42:00Mayim Bialik?

  Israel has a very interesting structure, you know, for, for its military in many ways, you know, Acharai, right? Like, the, our leaders and sergeants, they go first, you know, and the soldiers are behind them.

• 42:14Speaker 00

  Right.

• 42:15Mayim Bialik?

  Which is like, you know, when people hear that, it's like, oh. You know, that's, that's how, that's how we go to war.

• 42:21Speaker 00

  Right. Unlike America, which is generals in the back.

• 42:24Mayim Bialik?

  Correct, and you send all the kids in, right? And, 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 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, you know, 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.

• 42:58Speaker 00

  Sure.

• 42:58Mayim Bialik?

  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.

• 43:09Speaker 00

  Is there anything more you can illuminate for us about?

• 43:14Speaker 00

  Life in the in the West Bank, especially far out there, like that you've seen up close and personal?

• 43:20Mayim Bialik?

  You know, when you're on an armed settlement, it's it's a real bubble, you know, and many settlements, like the one where my fam- 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.

• 43:45Speaker 00

  So there's no, where they are, there's no integration?

• 43:47Mayim Bialik?

  No.

• 43:48Speaker 00

  They're they're totally separate?

• 43:50Mayim Bialik?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 43:51Speaker 00

  Well, yeah.

• 43:52Mayim Bialik?

  No, this is a good question.

• 43:53Speaker 00

  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.

• 43:58Mayim Bialik?

  There's different ki- there's different kinds of places in the West Bank, obviously. If you're on an armed settlement, you know, that's different. And, um, 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.

• 44:24Speaker 00

  Right.

• 44:25Mayim Bialik?

  Like, it's it's beautiful. It's like the desert is thriving, right? It's like there's 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 Carlebach minion, where they only do Carlebach 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.

• 45:08Mayim Bialik?

  And the bush was not even very dense, so the boy, like, it was 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,

• 45:40Mayim Bialik?

  that do go through, you know, Arab towns. When I was a teenager and into my twenties, 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.

• 46:25Mayim Bialik?

  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.

• 46:49Speaker 00

  Right.

• 46:49Mayim Bialik?

  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.

• 47:00Speaker 00

  What's the feeling of being in a place where they have to carry guns to shul?

• 47:07Mayim Bialik?

  Yeah.

• 47:07Speaker 00

  To protect themselves?

• 47:10Mayim Bialik?

  Sure.

• 47:10Speaker 00

  And like, what does that mean in terms of their presence there?

• 47:14Mayim Bialik?

  Yeah.

• 47:14Speaker 00

  And you sort of can look at it with a little bit of a remove.

• 47:20Mayim Bialik?

  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. Like, and this is what I was glad that my children were reminded of when we went in December. Much of Israel is integrated.

• 47:39Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 47:40Mayim Bialik?

  Much of Israel is integrated. We once went into a coffee shop in a mall. And we were the only non-Arabes there. We were the only people not speaking Arab. We were the only, I was the only woman not in hijab. And there's nothing wrong with that, 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.

• 48:09Speaker 00

  Complicated stuff. Speaking of your sons, you've mentioned them a couple of times. And, and you mentioned they're 17 and 20.

• 48:16Mayim Bialik?

  Correct.

• 48:17Speaker 00

  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 anti-Jew sentiment. How, how have these couple of years been for them?

• 48:32Mayim Bialik?

  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? Apparently, 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

• 49:15Mayim Bialik?

  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, 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, my Aunt Judy and my Uncle Elliot.

• 49:49Speaker 00

  Shout out Aunt Nunk.

• 49:50Mayim Bialik?

  Shout out, shout out to, you know, the community of Kibbutz Gezer, right? Like, for being part of what I consider kind of raising my children, you know, in that, you know, Israeli kind of consciousness. He has a strong foundation, and also, I would, I would add, you know, a very liberal perspective in terms of I want my children to tolerate other people's opinions.

• 50:11Speaker 00

  Sure.

• 50:12Mayim Bialik?

  I want them to be able to have reasonable conversation and I also want them to be educated.

• 50:16Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 50:16Mayim Bialik?

  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.

• 50:29Speaker 00

  We've got different standards in this house than the New York Times does.

• 50:31Mayim Bialik?

  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.

• 50:50Speaker 00

  Right, I don't need to make any more speeches.

• 50:53Mayim Bialik?

  Correct, because, you know, my goal in 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.

• 51:18Speaker 00

  Have you been successful?

• 51:20Mayim Bialik?

  I wouldn't say that I've been successful. I would say that the Jewish school system is not perfect.

• 51:26Speaker 00

  No.

• 51:27Mayim Bialik?

  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.

• 51:32Speaker 00

  Because it's two schools in one.

• 51:33Mayim Bialik?

  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, 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

• 51:52Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 51:52Mayim Bialik?

  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 onomatopoeia, the number, right? The numbers that go with words. That's like that. We have a language. That's remarkable,

• 52:36Mayim Bialik?

  you know? So that needs to be reinforced wherever we can.

• 52:39Speaker 00

  Love that.

• 52:40Mayim Bialik?

  Yeah.

• 52:40Speaker 00

  Let's talk a little bit about Hollywood in the post-October 7th landscape. What are you seeing?

• 52:46Mayim Bialik?

  I think there's been a lot of remarkable Jews who have stepped up.

• 52:52Speaker 00

  I feel that way too, for sure.

• 52:53Mayim Bialik?

  And I think, I know what everyone's thinking. There's, most Jews have not. I know that's what most people are thinking, right?

• 53:00Speaker 00

  Or it's like Hollywood hates us.

• 53:02Mayim Bialik?

  Yeah. Well, 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've been things like that.

• 53:45Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 53:45Mayim Bialik?

  That have really, you know, touched my soul. Debra Messing.

• 53:49Speaker 00

  We love Debra.

• 53:49Mayim Bialik?

  You know, Jerry Seinfeld and Jesse, like- You know, even Amy Schumer, who they, you know, they eventually got to her, you know.

• 53:57Speaker 00

  What do you mean?

• 53:58Mayim Bialik?

  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, I don't know who the they is, but I'm saying like, I, I meant that in a non, non-threatening way.

• 54:07Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 54:09Mayim Bialik?

  But like, there have been amazing, you know, Sacha Baron Cohen has, 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.

• 54:29Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 54:29Mayim Bialik?

  So there's been a tremendous showing up, you know, for, I, 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. No one did. No one, and, and I know that there's a lot of people who are like, oh, that was the goal, is 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.

• 54:56Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 54:57Mayim Bialik?

  Because I think a lot of Hollywood is secular, liberal Jews.

• 55:00Speaker 00

  For sure.

• 55:01Mayim Bialik?

  And it, it has become increasingly hard in a, in a liberal climate, especially in Los Angeles and Southern California. It has been hard for many people to maintain that because it's very, very, very painful.

• 55:13Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 55:14Mayim Bialik?

  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, we're a problem. We're noisy and we're, we're complicated. And, you know, we get involved with things that make trouble.

• 55:37Speaker 00

  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, the people involved themselves. You know, I, I've, 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. You know? And it's like, too hot to go to dinner with Jews?

• 56:03Mayim Bialik?

  Yeah.

• 56:03Speaker 00

  You know? That's, we're not, I'm not stirring anything up there.

• 56:07Mayim Bialik?

  No, but also, you know, there's a lot of, there's a lot of justifiable reticence, you know, to participation. And like, this is one of the questions I get asked, you know, 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, um, or I do speaking engagements, you know, why won't 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 justified and sometimes it's not, but you know what? Fear's the same.

• 56:44Speaker 00

  How much of that is actually happening, though?

• 56:46Mayim Bialik?

  I've seen things happen to Jews in office that are terrifying.

• 56:51Speaker 00

  Right.

• 56:52Mayim Bialik?

  That's terrifying.

• 56:53Speaker 00

  Sure.

• 56:53Mayim Bialik?

  To have your house burned down on Pesach?

• 56:55Speaker 00

  Right.

• 56:55Mayim Bialik?

  That's terrifying. To have red paint splattered all over your car and your driveway? That's terrifying. That happened to like a region of UCLA.

• 57:05Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 57:05Mayim Bialik?

  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 shop. Like, that's, 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, um, at a really awesome vegan restaurant. And, um, it's just like, it's in a strip mall. And I'm saying, like, it's like a dive. It's an awesome dive.

• 57:39Speaker 00

  Sure.

• 57:39Mayim Bialik?

  And like, most people who are vegan know what I'm talking about. It's like in the middle of Hollywood. And, um, I was there with my kids and we were walking from the, you know, it's in a strip mall. We're walking from the restaurant. It's in the parking lot, just like to, to our car. And there was, obviously, there had been a, some sort of protest that I did not know about.

• 57:57Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 57:57Mayim Bialik?

  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.

• 58:10Mayim Bialik?

  I had this moment of like, I'm in this parking lot with with my two teenagers. The fuck is about to happen?

• 58:18Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 58:19Mayim Bialik?

  Like, what, like, what? And in that moment, I'm not weighing the statistics. I'm I'm saying to my children, get in the car and do not ask any questions. Get in the car.

• 58:29Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 58:30Mayim Bialik?

  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?

• 58:39Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 58:40Mayim Bialik?

  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, OK, 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?

• 59:01Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 59:01Mayim Bialik?

  What's happening? I wasn't at the protest.

• 59:04Speaker 00

  What happened? Did you just?

• 59:05Mayim Bialik?

  I got in my car and I felt scared.

• 59:07Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 59:07Mayim Bialik?

  And my nervous system got dysregulated because that's what happens. And I drove home. And it was quiet in the car.

• 59:16Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 59:16Mayim Bialik?

  Because no matter how much my children want to like, talk about this, that and the other, that's scary.

• 59:21Speaker 00

  Yeah. It's no way to live.

• 59:23Mayim Bialik?

  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.

• 59:28Speaker 00

  Which I think it's important to do.

• 59:30Mayim Bialik?

  Yeah.

• 59:30Speaker 00

  In spite of it all.

• 59:31Mayim Bialik?

  Yep.

• 59:32Speaker 00

  2022, you made your directorial debut.

• 59:35Mayim Bialik?

  I did.

• 59:35Speaker 00

  As They Made Us is the film. Uh, could you get it made now the same way?

• 59:41Mayim Bialik?

  It's a good question. So, yeah, that, um, I wrote that film a year after my father, Zichan Elvira, uh, 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, um, starred in it. Also, Simon Helberg from Big Bang Theory and Diana Agron.

• 1:00:01Speaker 00

  Is it a Jewish movie?

• 1:00:02Mayim Bialik?

  It's funny, my my kids once heard me being asked if every character I play is Jewish. To which I think my then five year old said, well, has to be because you're Jewish, right?

• 1:00:13Speaker 00

  Mm hmm.

• 1:00:13Mayim Bialik?

  Yeah, I think that it's a it's it's a Jewishy, you know, it's a Jew-ish, um, kind of movie. Um, you know, it's not like Bad Chabbis, right? Like, it's not about Chabbis. Um, but yeah, it's definitely there. You know, would I be asked to tone stuff like that down? Um, I don't know. I think that's the beauty of independent film. And of funding. But, you know, post October 7th. Um endorsements changed for me. We lost sponsors on our podcast.

• 1:00:43Speaker 00

  Really?

• 1:00:44Mayim Bialik?

  Um, speaking engagements changed for me.

• 1:00:46Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 1:00:46Mayim Bialik?

  So yeah, Hollywood, and, 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. Cause we've needed to like, join forces.

• 1:01:06Speaker 00

  Right. You find the people who are gonna support these things.

• 1:01:08Mayim Bialik?

  But I'd like to say that like, that feels dangerous in a country that was, you know, supposed to be, right? A, a place for, um, for everyone to be the same, right?

• 1:01:20Speaker 00

  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, I just wanna sell washing machines.

• 1:01:34Mayim Bialik?

  You know, at the time that October 7th happened, it was the middle of the writer's strike, the WGA strike at Jeopardy.

• 1:01:40Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:01:40Mayim Bialik?

  And I was let go about two months after October 7th.

• 1:01:44Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:01:45Mayim Bialik?

  Um, and, you know, I'm not gonna stand here and say, I know why that was. It could have been because they, the new producer just preferred Ken Jennings. Like, that's completely their prerogative. It, it's an unfortunate set of timing.

• 1:01:56Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:01:56Mayim Bialik?

  You know, and, and also I've been, as many liberal Jews have been, I have been actively excluded from many prominent liberal organizations.

• 1:02:05Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 1:02:06Mayim Bialik?

  Yeah. Like, you're no longer, your voice is no longer welcome here.

• 1:02:10Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 1:02:11Mayim Bialik?

  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, 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.

• 1:02:43Speaker 00

  You know, I also have a bone to pick with Jeopardy. I was on it and I came in second.

• 1:02:48Mayim Bialik?

  That's right. I forgot.

• 1:02:50Speaker 00

  And I'm, it's really a bone to pick with myself. I like, brain farted and blew a question into the answer too.

• 1:02:54Mayim Bialik?

  I'm terrible at Jeopardy, so I-

• 1:02:57Speaker 00

  It's the damn buzzer.

• 1:02:57Mayim Bialik?

  Well, the buzzer is, that's part of it.

• 1:02:59Speaker 00

  It's like 90% of my anxiousness was on that.

• 1:03:02Mayim Bialik?

  That's definitely right.

• 1:03:03Speaker 00

  As you lost endorsement, sponsorship, whatever, did new ones come out of the woodwork at all? From like, you know, friendlies?

• 1:03:11Mayim Bialik?

  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.

• 1:03:33Speaker 00

  That sound means I am just finished answering my five deep questions. A bonus segment I write exclusively for members of the Kahilah, my subscriber only community for my most supportive supporters. Join us, won't you? To get exclusive content, exclusive merch, preferred ticketing to my live events, monthly live FaceTime with yours truly and your fellow Kahilah members, and a lot more. This week's five deep questions was a doozy. Here's a little taste. Aliens.

• 1:04:02Mayim Bialik?

  I don't believe we are alone. Those angels, those are actually representations of other beings.

• 1:04:08Speaker 00

  Another thing that's spoken a lot about on your show are near-death experiences.

• 1:04:12Mayim Bialik?

  Where is your consciousness? Does it exist outside of your body? Is it fundamental? Is it something that we learn?

• 1:04:18Speaker 00

  Juicy stuff. You have described yourself as a balchua. What is that for those in my audience who don't know? And, and what led you there?

• 1:04:28Mayim Bialik?

  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, 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- Two sets of dishes, but I didn't know why. I thought it was just like breakfast dishes and dinner dishes.

• 1:04:59Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:05:00Mayim Bialik?

  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.

• 1:05:06Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:05:07Mayim Bialik?

  Um, and I also grew up in a very, you know, my, my grandparents immigrated from Eastern Europe during the series of pogroms, you know, uh, leading up to the Holocaust. So, um, my, my mom's parents in particular lost, you know, my much, m- 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 stedally kind of, you know, home.

• 1:05:40Mayim Bialik?

  Because I, you know, my, 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, that culture.

• 1:05:48Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:05:49Mayim Bialik?

  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. Cause my, my mom's older sister, um, you know, became more religious and made aliyah when I was born and.

• 1:06:01Speaker 00

  I get that parental fear.

• 1:06:02Mayim Bialik?

  Oh yeah, totally.

• 1:06:03Speaker 00

  It's like you want them to love their Jewish identity, but not so much that they move thousands of miles away from you.

• 1:06:07Mayim Bialik?

  Oh, you think you're so hot? You celebrate Chabbis. 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, um, I, I took on observance in, in college. I had, as I said, a very, you know, traditional wedding and I, um, was, you know, quite observant, um, for the years that my kids were young. And then I got divorced when my kids were four and seven and it's, it was much harder. There's not really a place for divorced Orthodox women, uh, with young children in Jewish communities. Meaning it's like a, 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.

• 1:06:48Speaker 00

  It seems like an oversight.

• 1:06:49Mayim Bialik?

  It's like a liminal space. Um, 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.

• 1:06:59Speaker 00

  It's gotta describe a lot of women.

• 1:07:01Mayim Bialik?

  Yes. Oh, I know. Yeah.

• 1:07:02Speaker 00

  Yeah, I know many too.

• 1:07:04Mayim Bialik?

  Well, especially like when you age out of like the twenties and thirties.

• 1:07:06Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:07:07Mayim Bialik?

  You know, then it's like, oh, now I'm this lady. I think that's.

• 1:07:09Speaker 00

  We gotta, we gotta, we gotta plug that gap.

• 1:07:12Mayim Bialik?

  I mean, I think it's very, very, very interesting. Yeah.

• 1:07:14Speaker 00

  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?

• 1:07:24Mayim Bialik?

  Feshimalt.

• 1:07:25Speaker 00

  What's feshimalt?

• 1:07:26Mayim Bialik?

  Feshimalt 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 feshimalt.

• 1:07:34Speaker 00

  Wow, I can't believe there's a word for that.

• 1:07:36Mayim Bialik?

  Why wouldn't there be?

• 1:07:36Speaker 00

  That's so specific.

• 1:07:37Mayim Bialik?

  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 feshimalt.

• 1:07:43Speaker 00

  Feshimalt. What's one of your most memorable or unique experiences doveoning on the road?

• 1:07:50Mayim Bialik?

  Ooh, doveoning on the road, what a great question. The year that I said Kaddish for my father, I did the full year.

• 1:07:58Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:07:58Mayim Bialik?

  And I was once in Savannah for, it was a speaking engagement. And what I always would do during my year of Kaddish, because the most reliable place to say Kaddish on a weekday is an Orthodox shul.

• 1:08:12Speaker 00

  Sure.

• 1:08:12Mayim Bialik?

  I ended up going to Orthodox shuls a lot, mostly. And also, I'm pretty observant, so like, that's fine. But they often don't allow women to say Kaddish, or it can be complicated. So I would always alert them. Savannah, Georgia, they are so unaccustomed to having women at their weekday minchahs that there was no women's section. So I was placed in a refreshment corner off the main synagogue room. And the mechitza 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 mechitza to try and create-

• 1:08:48Speaker 00

  Would you duck down behind that, please?

• 1:08:50Mayim Bialik?

  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 women's section because like, there's never a woman here." And so they made this little alcove, my mechitza section.

• 1:09:02Speaker 00

  Okay. That's certainly unique and memorable.

• 1:09:05Mayim Bialik?

  It's what you asked.

• 1:09:07Speaker 00

  What was the most Jewish moment on The Big Bang Theory?

• 1:09:10Mayim Bialik?

  We lit candles together on Hanukkah.

• 1:09:13Speaker 00

  Oh, that's nice.

• 1:09:14Mayim Bialik?

  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.

• 1:09:33Speaker 00

  That's so nice.

• 1:09:34Mayim Bialik?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:35Speaker 00

  If you made Aliyah, what city would you live in?

• 1:09:37Mayim Bialik?

  Oh my gosh.

• 1:09:40Mayim Bialik?

  I mean, I'd want to live in the middle of the old city.

• 1:09:43Speaker 00

  Special place.

• 1:09:44Mayim Bialik?

  I would want to live in one of those like weird windy crazy little streets. I mean, I could also imagine living in Spah, like, you know, of the places I've been.

• 1:09:53Speaker 00

  Spiritual place.

• 1:09:54Mayim Bialik?

  Oh, and just like, I 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 want, I don't want to live in like a new building. I want to live in an ancient place.

• 1:10:08Speaker 00

  Cool. What's your favorite Jewish holiday?

• 1:10:10Mayim Bialik?

  I'm a person that gets a lot out of like Tisha B'Av, like fasting.

• 1:10:14Speaker 00

  Whoa, that's definitely, you're definitely the first answer to be that.

• 1:10:18Mayim Bialik?

  It's a deep cut.

• 1:10:19Speaker 00

  Saddest day of the year for this gal.

• 1:10:21Mayim Bialik?

  Okay, but like saddest and also the potential for redemption.

• 1:10:24Speaker 00

  Sure.

• 1:10:25Mayim Bialik?

  And, you know, a day of like true immersion. The only other one you could compare it to is Yom Kippur.

• 1:10:31Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:10:31Mayim Bialik?

  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 the thing.

• 1:10:42Speaker 00

  Do you have a favorite parsha?

• 1:10:43Mayim Bialik?

  I love a Jewish question.

• 1:10:45Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:10:46Mayim Bialik?

  I get so many of them here. You know, Imvayigash is my bat mitzvah parsha. 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.

• 1:11:12Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's, I'm, 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?

• 1:11:22Mayim Bialik?

  My partner, Jonathan Cohen.

• 1:11:24Speaker 00

  Nice.

• 1:11:25Mayim Bialik?

  Just, you know.

• 1:11:27Speaker 00

  He's gotta be there.

• 1:11:27Mayim Bialik?

  He's gotta be there. I mean, it's hard not to have my kids, but like I'll, I'll.

• 1:11:31Speaker 00

  They're already invited.

• 1:11:32Mayim Bialik?

  Okay, right.

• 1:11:32Speaker 00

  These are three, three.

• 1:11:34Mayim Bialik?

  My partner, my, okay, my partner Jonathan Cohen, I think we'll, we'll make him one.

• 1:11:41Mayim Bialik?

  You know Albert Einstein and Sigmund Freud.

• 1:11:44Speaker 00

  It's a hell of a dinner table conversation.

• 1:11:46Mayim Bialik?

  Yeah, and I'm also thinking like, oh, there's so many ladies like gold to my ear. Like, there's so many incredible Jewish women, like Hannah Sannish. Like, there's so many incredible women, but like, I think like Einstein Freud. I mean, also, you could throw Marx in there and kick out my boyfriend, but you know.

• 1:11:59Speaker 00

  That'd be a really interesting conversation. And my last question that we ask of all of our guests, challah, rip or slice?

• 1:12:06Mayim Bialik?

  Oh, my goodness. It's not even ripping, it's called knipping. That's the Yiddish.

• 1:12:11Speaker 00

  That's Yiddish for rip, is knip?

• 1:12:12Mayim Bialik?

  It's a knip.

• 1:12:13Speaker 00

  You're the first knip we've had. We had a lot of rips, none of knip.

• 1:12:16Mayim Bialik?

  Knip, 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.

• 1:12:23Speaker 00

  Love that. Mime, thank you so much.

• 1:12:25Mayim Bialik?

  This was delightful, thank you so much.

• 1:12:27Speaker 00

  It's been a real pleasure.

• 1:12:29Mayim Bialik?

  Thank you.

• 1:12:29Speaker 00

  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've talked about a lot of stuff, would 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. And 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, Wandering Jews with Michaela Noam and Unpacked Podcast.

• 1:13:11Speaker 00

  Start watching or listening at unpackedbio/wj. Big ups to everybody that makes Being Jewish with Jonah Platt possible. Executive producer Steve Heine, production manager and executive assistant Josie Rothschild, research associate Samantha Greenwald, production associates Rachel Stern and Charlie Zucker, production interns Sasha Nelson and Emma Webb, YouTube consultants Jason Al-Samari 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.

• 1:13:52Speaker 00

  And thanks, of course, to all of you for listening, especially if you made it this far. Man, I love you guys.