Actress Mayim Bialik Answers All Your Questions About Passover

Actress Mayim Bialik (The Big Bang Theory, Blossom) tackles a bunch of questions about Passover and answers them in an upbeat style that you'll be able to share with friends who may not be up on all the basics.
 
In a video sponsored by the Manischewitz company, she explains the meaning of the holiday, the preparations for the seder and the whole week of living without chametz, and some personal reflections on ways for children to act out the Pesach story.

There's also a link to some of Mayim's personal recipes for Passover which are located on her website, www.groknation.com.

(Full disclosure: Jewish Humor Central's daughter-in-chief and Hollywood bureau chief Esther Kustanowitz is also Grok Nation's founding editor and contributor. In today's issue she offers a practical check list of things to buy, things to do, and an overall list of goals for the holiday.)

 A SPECIAL NOTE FOR NEW EMAIL SUBSCRIBERS:  THE VIDEO MAY NOT BE VIEWABLE DIRECTLY FROM THE EMAIL THAT YOU GET EACH DAY ON SOME COMPUTERS AND TABLETS.  YOU MUST CLICK ON THE TITLE AT THE TOP OF THE EMAIL TO REACH THE JEWISH HUMOR CENTRAL WEBSITE, FROM WHICH YOU CLICK ON THE PLAY BUTTON IN THE VIDEO IMAGE TO START THE VIDEO.

Today is Purim! Actress Mayim Bialik Narrates the Purim Story

Today Jews all over the world celebrate the holiday of Purim. Tomorrow is Shushan Purim, a day where Jews in walled cities (including Jerusalem) have their Purim celebrations.

Every year the story of Purim is retold in many ways, traditional and contemporary. Today we bring you a retelling narrated by actress Mayim Bialik.

You may know Mayim Bialik as Amy Farrah Fowler, Sheldon Cooper's neuroscientist girlfriend on The Big Bang Theory, but in real life she really is a neuroscientist who identifies as an Orthodox Jew.

In August 2015, Bialik launched her own lifestyle website, GrokNation, which caters to women and includes wide-ranging topics such as religion, popular culture, parenting, and Hollywood. 

Bialik also mentioned in her interviews that her website's title was in reference to the classic 1961 sci-fi novel Stranger in a Strange Land and was derived from the word grok, which means to fully grasp something in the deepest way possible.

A personal note: In Mayim's retelling of the Purim story, the role of Queen Vashti is played by Esther Kustanowitz, daughter of Jewish Humor Central's publisher and blogger-in-chief, and Co-Founding Editor and Contributor at groknation.com.

Enjoy!

A SPECIAL NOTE FOR NEW EMAIL SUBSCRIBERS:  THE VIDEO MAY NOT BE VIEWABLE DIRECTLY FROM THE EMAIL THAT YOU GET EACH DAY ON SOME COMPUTERS AND TABLETS.  YOU MUST CLICK ON THE TITLE AT THE TOP OF THE EMAIL TO REACH THE JEWISH HUMOR CENTRAL WEBSITE, FROM WHICH YOU CLICK ON THE PLAY BUTTON IN THE VIDEO IMAGE TO START THE VIDEO.

 

A Thanksgiving Journey: In Search of the Wild Challurkey

The staff at Mayim Bialk's website, Grok Nation, has been busy this week getting ready for Thanksgiving. 

FIlled with the holiday spirit, and probably somewhat nostalgic for the rare confluence of Thanksgiving and Hanukkah a couple of years ago, Grok Nation's Editorial Director Esther Kustanowitz ventured forth to find a way for like-minded Jews to perpetuate the traditions of both holidays.

She didn't have to travel far from her home base in Los Angeles. At Bibi’s Bakery & Cafe in the Pico-Robertson neighborhood, bakers have been hard at work in advance of Thanksgiving, producing Challurkeys around the clock. Esther's interview of owner and baker Dan Messinger about the peculiarities and importance of this festive Thanksgiving bread reveals everything you wanted to know about the Challurkey.

GrokNation is an online community for people of all ages and backgrounds to dive deep into conversations on contemporary issues. Actress and neuroscientist Mayim Bialik (The Big Bang Theory, Blossom) founded the site two years ago. Grok is one of those words that people who are fans of classic sci-fi probably know. Originally, it’s from a 1960s sci-fi novel called Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein, and refers to one character’s attempt to learn about the world around him by “grokking,” drinking in an idea until it becomes part of him from the inside out.

Enjoy, and have a happy Thanksgiving.

A SPECIAL NOTE FOR NEW EMAIL SUBSCRIBERS:  THE VIDEO MAY NOT BE VIEWABLE DIRECTLY FROM THE EMAIL THAT YOU GET EACH DAY ON SOME COMPUTERS AND TABLETS.  YOU MUST CLICK ON THE TITLE AT THE TOP OF THE EMAIL TO REACH THE JEWISH HUMOR CENTRAL WEBSITE, FROM WHICH YOU CLICK ON THE PLAY BUTTON IN THE VIDEO IMAGE TO START THE VIDEO.

Throwback Thursday Comedy Special: Rodney Dangerfield Gets No Respect in 1985

It's Throwback Thursday again and we're going back 32 years to get another dose of Rodney Dangerfield explaining why he "don't get no respect."

Born Jacob Rodney Cohen on Long Island, Dangerfield (he took the name from a character in a skit on the Jack Benny Show) had a career that went beyond standup comedy to the movies and to his own comedy club, Dangerfield's, in Manhattan.

Enjoy!

A SPECIAL NOTE FOR NEW EMAIL SUBSCRIBERS:  THE VIDEO MAY NOT BE VIEWABLE DIRECTLY FROM THE EMAIL THAT YOU GET EACH DAY ON SOME COMPUTERS AND TABLETS.  YOU MUST CLICK ON THE TITLE AT THE TOP OF THE EMAIL TO REACH THE JEWISH HUMOR CENTRAL WEBSITE, FROM WHICH YOU CLICK ON THE PLAY BUTTON IN THE VIDEO IMAGE TO START THE VIDEO.   



#Throwback Thursday   #TBT
 

 

EstherK Solves the Mysteries of Chanukah Celebration

We're right in the middle of celebrating the eight days of Chanukah. So here comes EstherK (also known as writer and queen of social media Esther Kustanowitz) to take a spin through some trivia and questions relating to the festival of lights.

1. Why are there so many ways to spell Chanukah?
2. Why do people eat latkes and what's with all the donuts now?
3. What do we light on Chanukah -- a menorah or a Chanukkiah?
4. How many candles do we need for all eight nights of Chanukah?
5. Why don't Jews have better Chanukah songs?

Esther D. Kustanowitz is a Los Angeles-based writer and consultant specializing in social media, pop culture, and Jewish community conversation. In August 2015, Esther became Editorial Director at GrokNation.com, a blog and web community founded by actress, neuroscientist and mom Mayim Bialik. Esther is also Contributing Writer at the Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles, where she writes on topics ranging from comedy to grief, from women in Jewish leadership to social media culture.

Esther is frequently sought out as a source on social media engagement and culture, and is known as one of the Jewish nonprofit world’s social influencers. Most recently, she was named to JTA’s list of influencers on “Jewish Twitter.”

She is also Jewish Humor Central's Los Angeles Bureau Chief and "First Daughter." In 2007 she convinced her father to found Jewish Humor Central and educated him in the skills of blogging. As she likes to say, "The tree doesn't fall far from the fruit."

Enjoy!

A SPECIAL NOTE FOR NEW EMAIL SUBSCRIBERS:  THE VIDEO MAY NOT BE VIEWABLE DIRECTLY FROM THE EMAIL THAT YOU GET EACH DAY ON SOME COMPUTERS AND TABLETS.  YOU MUST CLICK ON THE TITLE AT THE TOP OF THE EMAIL TO REACH THE JEWISH HUMOR CENTRAL WEBSITE, FROM WHICH YOU CLICK ON THE PLAY BUTTON IN THE VIDEO IMAGE TO START THE VIDEO.

Remembering Sid Caesar: a TV Skit, a Blog Post, a Daughter, a Friend, and a Seder

I usually write these blog posts in the first person plural, the "editorial we." But today's remembrance of Sid Caesar, who died on Wednesday, has a personal connection that requires "I" instead of "we."

I never had the privilege of meeting Sid Caesar, who was my inspiration for a growing interest in intelligent comedy. I watched every episode of Your Show of Shows, and saw Caesar act in the madcap adventure It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World many times.

As Sid approached his 90th birthday, I dug into the YouTube archives to share a few video clips of his funniest performances with you, my readers. These included  the Big Business sketch from Your Show of Shows, clips from a DVD of a reunion with his writers from the show, a visit of Caesar and Imogene Coca to a vegetarian restaurant, an appearance on a Chabad telethon where he performed his doubletalk language skit, and a skit in which Caesar and Nanette Fabray pantomime an argument between a married couple to the cadences of Beethoven's 5th Symphony.

When I included this latter skit in a Jewish Humor Central blog post last July 18, I expected it to reach my thousands of readers, but not Sid Caesar himself. Enter my daughter, Esther Kustanowitz, an acclaimed author, blogger, and social media consultant in Los Angeles. A friend of Esther's, Rena Strober, a singer and actress, and also an L.A. resident, had befriended Sid through a Friars' Club connection and was invited to a Passover seder at Sid's house last April. Also attending were Carl Reiner and Mel Brooks. The seder led to a friendship that saw Rena visit Sid many times, listening to his stories and show business advice.

A few months later, Esther told Rena about Jewish Humor Central and the Caesar-Fabray pantomime clip, which she showed to Caesar, sparking a discussion about it and whether it was improvised or rehearsed.

As Esther wrote in an article published yesterday in the Jewish Journal,

They talked about the clip, whether it was improvised or rehearsed (the former, she remembers him saying), and how brilliant it was, and Rena told him that the clip had appeared on a friend’s father’s Jewish humor blog. This was a story born decades ago in one comedy sketch that has resonated through the years and across technology, crossing from virtual into reality. I connected to Rena through blogging. I connected Rena to my dad’s blog. And she was able to bring my dad’s virtual connection to and deep appreciation for a legendary comedian to that comedian himself.

The virtual, with the intercession of real people having real conversations, enabled an ill man to understand that what he had produced in this world had resonance beyond the point that he could have imagined. I believe that this connection, midwifed by the Internet, was a gift for all of us.

In the video clip below, Caesar explains and demonstrates his proficiency in speaking doubletalk in four languages in an interview with Dean Ward.

We will miss you, Sid. And as Esther wrote at the end of her article,

May Sid’s memory — and the memories that people have of Sid, at seders or otherwise — be for a blessing, an inspiration, and more than occasionally, a guffaw.

(A SPECIAL NOTE FOR NEW EMAIL SUBSCRIBERS:  THE VIDEO IS NOT VIEWABLE DIRECTLY FROM THE EMAIL THAT YOU GET EACH DAY.  YOU MUST CLICK ON THE TITLE AT THE TOP OF THE EMAIL TO REACH THE JEWISH HUMOR CENTRAL WEBSITE, FROM WHICH YOU CLICK ON THE PLAY BUTTON IN THE VIDEO IMAGE TO START THE VIDEO.)