Mayim Bialik's journey

Every last seat was occupied in the Young Israel of West Hempstead kiddush room on Dec. 18. The enraptured audience laughed and nodded their heads as they learned of one woman’s path to observant Judaism. Actress Mayim Bialik isn’t really a socially inept nerd… she only plays one on television.

Bialik, an actress on the hit show The Big Bang Theory, led the sold-out audience along her journey from 14-year-old Blossom star to religious wife and mother. The program was the first shul event of this magnitude to ever be completely sold out, according to organizers from the YIWH Sisterhood.

Bialik, who was raised in a Reform household, started acting as a child. At the age of 12, she auditioned for Beaches. Bialik got the part, and laughingly told the audience that the film came out the week of her bat-mitzvah.

“If there’s a moment you can pinpoint where life will never be the same, that was it,” Bialik said. “The movie came out, and [afterwards] I was offered my own TV show [Blossom]. I didn’t picture I’d have my own show at 14.”

After finishing Blossom at the age of 19, Bialik went on to college at UCLA. She joined the Hillel to get involved socially, and it was there that she met a modern Orthodox rabbi for the first time. Bialik gradually started learning more about Judaism, and formed several chevrutas.

As a child, Bialik had gone to Hebrew school, and said she was “that kid who really liked it.” Yet, she didn’t learn much about her Jewish heritage at home. Like many American Jews, Bialik is the granddaughter of immigrants who came to the United States just before the Holocaust began. Bialik’s maternal grandmother had lost many family members in the violence and pogroms that characterized Europe at the time.

“The Judaism I grew up with was very complicated by the sadness that my mother’s parents experienced,” said Bialik. “[However,] there were remnants of [my mom’s] Orthodoxy. We had two sets of dishes, and I thought they were breakfast and dinner dishes. It was never explained.”

Bialik’s decision to start living a more observant way of life was particularly challenging, given her career. Hollywood is not known for being consonant with a Torah way of life. And yet, as fans of The Big Bang Theory will know, Bialik’s character is dressed in a modest skirt every week.

“Especially because of the industry I work in, tznius is something that really appealed to me initially and still does,” said Bialik. “[I always] had a sense of not feeling comfortable in a lot of ways women are expected to behave and be presented.”

Bialik is fortunate in that her character, a socially awkward scientist named Amy Farrah Fowler, can get away with wearing frumpy skirts and sweaters. The fact that Bialik holds a real-life PhD in neuroscience can’t have hurt her chances when it came to being cast as Fowler.

“When I auditioned for the character, I wore a long pencil skirt and nerdy cardigan. Often with Big Bang, the way they see you [at the audition] is the way they [have you dress on the show],” said Bialik. “There’s kind of a “look” each character has that they don’t deviate from.”

As part of the event, the YIWH Sisterhood also launched a drive to donate children’s books to local hospitals. Event organizer Sari Kahn and fellow shul member Eve Baruch came up with the idea after Baruch had to take her son to the emergency room one eruv Shabbat. When Shabbat started, and Baruch could no longer distract her son with the TV, she asked the nurse for some books. The nurse only had two books in the entire ER for children.

The Sisterhood decided to start a collection that will provide books to Mercy Medical Center, Cohen’s Children’s Medical Center at LIJ (Schneider’s), and Winthrop-University Hospital. There will be a drop box in the shul and at upcoming sisterhood events over the next month.

For more information about the book drive to support local pediatric emergency rooms, please contact Sari Kahn at kahn.sari@gmail.com or 516-662-6095.