Apparently, if you go to Paris and ask around for French Bubbes to interview, you get one response: MAMIKA.

Frederika, also known as Mamika (Hungarian for “my little grandmother”), is a Jewish grandmother celebrity. Born in Budapest, she moved to France after the war after surviving both the Holocaust and Communism. She now lives in Paris and is very close with her photographer grandson, Sacha.

Her fame began when Sacha asked her to model for some photographs, hoping to cheer her up during a bout of post-retirement depression. He soon realized his grandmother had star potential. A very popular Facebook page and several books later, Mamika, now 97, is an internet sensation and inspiration to many. Their collaborative photoshoots, which have now been going on for years, feature Mamika, usually in costume and always in absurdist situations. The photos are charming and wonderfully bizarre.

Armed with sub-par French and too much American enthusiasm, I met Mamika and Sacha in Mamika’s apartment in Paris. It was just a few months after the November 2015 terrorist attacks, and I noticed the heavily armed guards patrolling the synagogue down the street.

I didn’t conduct the interview as much as play third wheel to Sacha and Mamika, whose close bond is equal parts loving and hilarious. It reads like a Beckett play. Hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Interview translated from French by Kelsey Westphal. Edited and condensed by moi.

The players:

Sacha: The cool French photographer

Mamika:  His grandmother, the superstar

Sarah:  The bumbling American

We start our discussion the French way — that is to say, with kissing:

Sacha: So, Sarah has a blog of grandmas giving advice about life. She wants to ask you some questions — because you aren’t only an international star, you’re also a grandma.

Mamika: I’m not a star. I’m a grandma.

Sacha: Can she ask you some questions? Like, for example: how does one make-out?

Mamika: What?

Sacha: Kiss with the tongue.

Sarah (finally getting it — remember, this was in French): French kissing!

Sacha: Yes, French kissing.

Mamika: I don’t know.

Sacha: You were married four times.

Mamika: Three times.

Sacha: Four times. And you have two children. You must have kissed your husbands at some point.

Mamika: Yes… But they didn’t kiss like Frenchmen.

Sacha: For example, which direction should the tongue go?

Mamika: You don’t notice the tongue.

Sacha: You don’t know which way it goes?

Mamika: Non.

Sacha: So, if you start to notice which way it goes, it means he’s a bad kisser?

Mamika: Yes… Or that I’m a bad kisser.

Sacha: But if you don’t notice, it means the kiss was good.

Mamika: Yeah. I never noticed.

Sacha (to Sarah): So, we don’t know which way the tongue goes.

Sarah: But we know that it was used!

Sacha: Yeah well, in the U.S. there’s no tongue.

Sarah There is! We call it a French kiss.

Sacha: In the U.S. you have to kiss French people to learn how to use tongue!

Sarah: Oui oui.

Mamika: You’re such jokers!

Sacha: Us?

Mamika: You two.

Sacha: Not at all.

Mamika: You are!

Sacha: Sarah, what’s your first question?

My first question:

Sarah: Since we’re talking about kissing, I’ll start by asking if you have any advice about love or marriage, seeing as you have been married several times. Do you have any tips? Your grandson said you had four husbands — or was it three?

Mamika: Three!

Sacha: Four. [He then listed four French (slash maybe Hungarian?) names, including Georges and Louis, which should be French enough to satisfy you.]

Mamika: I don’t know.

Sacha: So that makes four! Plus all the marriages we don’t know about!

Mamika: That’s true.

Sacha: And we’ll never know.

Mamika: You’ll never know.

Sacha: I don’t want to know. Four is enough.

Mamika: Yes, it’s quite a lot…

Sacha: So, do you have any marriage advice? For example, how do you choose a good spouse?

Mamika: You have to consider whether they are good or bad. Good or evil.

Sarah: What do you mean by good? Friendly? Kind?

Mamika: Yes, kind.

Sacha: You said to me, “Your grandfather was short and fat but he was funny, he was very considerate, he always made sure I was happy, he always made me laugh, and he was a bon coup — very good in bed.” Is that important to you?

Mamika: I never said that!

Sacha: You said you learned a lot from him. And you always gave me this advice: you told me [he puts on a Hungarian accent in French] “In life, love is 70% sexuality and 30% intellect.” And you said it’s better if he’s really good in bed and less good intellectually, because over time it flips. You said that!

Mamika: And I stand by it.

Sacha: And you told me that the first time I was with a girl, you asked, “How was she in bed?” and I said it was okay. And you said, “Remember 70-30! Because later it switches!” Meaning that the more time passes living with someone, the less important sex becomes, and the more the intellect becomes central — jokes, humor, getting along — until sex takes up 30% and the intellectual relationship 70%.

Mamika: Yes. I stand by it.

Sacha: It’s good advice. You gave me so much advice. Like you always said to be with someone you can have fun with.

Mamika: So you don’t get bored, it’s terrible to be bored by your partner.

Sarah: And if you get bored after awhile, what do you do?

Mamika: You suffer.

Sacha: And then bounce, right?

Mamika: No. For a few years you stay.

Sarah: What is the Jewish grandmother stereotype?

Mamika: Trying to understand her grandson!

Sacha: That’s not it. The problem is that Mamika is so different from others, she doesn’t fit the cliché.

Sarah: How?

Sacha: Do you know a lot of grandmas who have modeled in a whole book of photography, who have been married four times, who have survived the Nazis, Communism?

Mamika: I was married three times.

Sacha: Maybe three and a half. Her last husband was ten years younger. She’s a cougar!

Mamika: First of all, he was only five years younger than me.

Sacha: He was a playboy! A BIG playboy.

Sarah: Really?

Sacha: Oo la la, remember the story, Mamika? You were at the beach with your husband at the time, Georges. I love this story, I learned it not long ago. So there you were with your husband and your two daughters, who must have been around 18 at the time. The playboy comes around and starts chatting up your daughters, and everyone thinks he’s flirting with them… But actually he’s doing it to impress you. He came to flirt with you, and you ended up having an affair for a few months. One day you noticed there was a private detective following you. So, since you don’t let people push you around, you managed to corner him and ask him what he wanted. He said, your husband hired me to follow you, what can I do? And you went off and divorced Georges.

Mamika: I divorced him?

Sacha: You did. And then you went off with Louis, even though he was broke at the time, and you went boating and had picnics next to rivers all over the world. Do you remember that?

Mamika: I do.

Mamika survived the war and helped others survive as well:

Sacha: Her little brother was put in a concentration camp and left behind his wife and a son. So she and my grandpa saved them by hiding them in different places.

Sarah: How did you escape the war?

Mamika: Sacha, you tell her.

Sacha: She hid a lot. In Budapest, where she was born, she had to wear the armband — but she took it off. Then they started hiding, moving from one place to another, and helped hide other people too. There was an explosion and she was wounded — she still has the scar. They were in a cave for weeks without anything to eat or drink. I think it was the Levy family’s cave? There was wine, and Grandpa wanted to drink some just to have something in his stomach, and Mamika said, “Don’t touch it. We have to leave it in case the Levy’s come back, they might need it to survive.”

Mamika: I didn’t let him touch it.

Sacha: But finally, you didn’t have a choice, and you drank it.

On a Jewish sense of humor:

Mamika: There is a Jewish humor.

Sacha: Where does it come from?

Mamika: I think from the ghettos.

Sacha: You think when people were bored out of their minds in the ghettos, they told each other stories to escape the situation? The more funny you are, the better you are able to survive and get past pain and hardship. If you laugh when the worst possible things happen, that’s a way to survive.

Mamika: Yes… Except you don’t laugh.

Sacha: That’s not exactly true. The worst things have happened to you and you were always able to laugh at it.

Mamika: I used humor to move onto other things.

Sarah: Do you practice Judaism now?

Sacha: I do but she doesn’t.

Sarah: How come?

Mamika: We don’t have time.

Sacha: Oh, as if! For many reasons. First of all, because you’re angry with the consistory of Budapest because they deported your father and his brothers to the concentration camp.

Mamika: Yes.

Sacha: And after that, you said, “I want nothing to do with Judaism.” And you felt that you always wanted to hide being Jewish, because there had been enough problems associated with it and it was time to just stop.

Mamika: I said that?

Sacha: Yes, but you also said the opposite. When I was a teenager, I came over wearing a Star of David, and you told me to take it off right away. Then five years later you told me that you had never told me this, but you’re very proud that I would wear a Star of David. So there’s a certain contradiction there.

Mamika: Yes, I see the contradiction.

On being young at heart:

Sacha: What age do you feel like?

Mamika: Forty.

Merci beaucoup, Mamika et Sacha!

Sarah Rosen is a writer and actress living in Brooklyn. You can read more amazing interviews with with bubbes at bubbeknowsbest.com.

Photos courtesy of Sacha Goldberger.

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I want to find the Jewish angle here, but I’m gonna be straight up with you (pun intended): there isn’t one. As far as I can tell, Paula, Dorothea, and Deirdre aren’t MOTs, but we here at Jewcy appreciate bubbes of all backgrounds, so I see no reason to discriminate against those of the WASPy, Washington state persuasion, particularly when there’s an excellent viral video to be shared.

Without further ado, then, here are three grandmas getting stoned for the first time in honor of the legalization of marijuana in their home state.

What Would Bubbe Do?

Related: When Bubbe is a Bridesmaid
Watch Three Grandmothers Read the Lyrics to “Drunk in Love”
Jewish Grandmother Leaves Most Adorable Voicemail Ever For Gay Grandson

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Deadline reports that IFC has commissioned a presentation for a comedy series called “Gigi’s Bucket List,” based on the fictional weather-forecasting Bubbe played by NUMB3RS actor David Krumholtz. The show will follow Gigi as she fulfills her dreams with the fortune she discovers secreted away in her dead husband’s bank account.

Some of you may remember Gigi from Weatherfrom.com, where she provides visitors with randomized weather forecasts and unsolicited advice, like, “When God gives you hail, it’s like free ice. So put it in your drink, so you don’t use up all the good ice.” The fictional 72-year-old Floridian was inspired by Krumholtz’s own grandmother, “a very frisky lady who had a lot to say about a lot of things and was always touting her own accomplishments.”

“I had always done this impression of my grandmother that my friend Ricky Mabe really loved,” Krumholtz explained to VH1.com in June. “He was doing this website where he created this old Jewish lady character, and he asked me if I wanted to do my impression and I said yes. And before you know it I’m in four and a half hours’ worth of prosthetic makeup and I looked like my grandma and I got to sort of make my homage to her. It was a lot, a lot of fun.”

The show will be produced by Krumholtz, Mabe, and brothers Dan and Ben Newmark. If all goes well, it should appear on our TV screens in 2015 (shooting is slated for later this year).

http://youtu.be/p5yNxS5Z7mY

Related: Weatherfrom.com: Sassy Weather Forecasts From Your Bubbe

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Have you checked the weather yet this morning? You might want to check again. Weatherfrom.com provides hilarious weather forecasts from a senior citizen called Gigi, who—with her golden hair, gigantic diamante ring, and sassy attitude—is the quintessential Jewish-American bubbe. (To wit: “You know when God gives you hail, it’s like free ice. So put it in your drink, so you don’t use up all the good ice.”)

Here’s how it works: you go to the website, enter in your location, and receive one of 35 auto-generated weather videos, each about a minute long. Gigi—who is actually NUMB3RS actor David Krumholtz in mesmerizing drag—then tells you exactly how miserable you’re going to be that day, rain or shine. Sure, it’s the sort of borscht belty bubbe-schtick we’ve seen before, but Krumholtz executes it to perfection, right down to Gigi’s shaky hands and subtle eye-rolls. A thoroughly entertaining morning diversion.

http://youtu.be/p5yNxS5Z7mY

Related: Watch Three Bubbes Read the Lyrics to Beyonce’s ‘Drunk in Love’

Image: Weatherfrom.com

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Oh, don’t mind us, we’re just crying happy tears into our afternoon coffee over this ridiculously charming New York Times video of three bubbes who were bridesmaids at their granddaughters’ weddings.

Yep, it’s the hot new old trend: grandma as the Maid of Honor. According to Ariel Meadow Stallings, the founder of Offbeat Bride, couples are increasingly seeking out non-traditional wedding roles for family members. “For a lot of couples and their families, there’s friction between the traditional role that families play in weddings and the couple’s concerns about where those traditions come from and the feeling that they don’t reflect their lives,” she explained.

Enter: the bubbe bridesmaid, the perfect role for grand dames not content with front-row seats at the chuppah.

Dorothy Shapiro, 95, says it was “one of the biggest honors that a grandmother could have. That she chose me! An old lady!” 88-year-old Lila Leblang, who runs an annuity sales firm and can do 40 push-ups (check out her reps at 00:12, solid), told the Times that granddaughter Jenny Illes Wood was sending ” a wonderful message… it’s O.K. to deal with people who are a little older than the typical bridesmaids.” And Sylvia Helfen, who was 89 at her granddaughter’s 2011 wedding, said with tears in her eyes, “It makes my heart feel good that she feels that close to me.”

Is there a word for grandchildren schepping nachas from their grandparents? Meta-nachas?

Image: Eric Stephenson Weddings (via New York Times YouTube)

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Is this for real or scripted? I don’t know, and I don’t care—either way, it’s amazing.

In this video, which you should watch right now—right now—three grandmothers read the lyrics to Beyonce’s suuuuppper sexy “Drunk in Love.” (It’s the Kanye West remix, which features a nice little “Bound 2” shout-out. Even better!)

From their effusive snacking to their horrified facial expressions to their gleeful disdain, these women are a joy to watch. They ask some very pertinent questions, like “Why did you even put this out for me to see?” and “We never talked when we had sex, what’s with all this talking?” Collectively, they are a three-headed Ur-Bubbe.

If Baz Luhrmann ever decides to wreak havoc on Macbeth and set it in Boca Raton (PLEASE GOD), I want these grandmothers cast as the witches.

Not sure if I agree with their final verdict on the song (that’s a whole other essay someone’s probably already written for Jezebel), but it would be great if this became a regular series. Working title: Grumpy old Rap Geniuses.

The post Watch Three Grandmothers Read the Lyrics to “Drunk in Love” appeared first on Jewcy.

This is the voicemail to end all voicemails, you guys: concerned Bubbe reads about Putin’s draconian anti-gay policies in newspaper, calls gay grandson to warn him not to travel to Russia on impending vacation, tells him she loves him.

This is the best thing on the internet today, I promise. (But this is a close second.)

“Don’t go near Russia. Don’t go there at all. I know it’s the Olympics… but DON’T. GO.”

The post Jewish Grandmother Leaves Most Adorable Voicemail Ever For Gay Grandson appeared first on Jewcy.

In what he calls “the most electrifying performance of my career,” rapper Action Bronson took to the rec room at St. Hilda’s East Community Centre in London to do some of that rap stuff for the residents. “This is about to be popping,” he tells the camera. “I don’t care about Coachella, anywhere in New York; the Garden, it don’t matter.”

He was up against brass cleaning in Room 2 (and right before naptime), but the Jewish rapper from Queens got a pretty big turnout nonethless—though not many of the audience members seemed to particularly like his style of music. What they did like, though, was his beard.

The whole thing is strangely adorable.

(Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images for Coachella)

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There’s a reason that US News and World Report named the Hebrew Home at Riverdale one of the best nursing homes in the country. While the rankings are said to be based on “quality indicators, staffing ratios and annual survey inspections,” it’s clear those barometers are just fancy, bureaucratic talk. Let’s be real—it’s about the sex.

The Hebrew Home, which opened its sexually liberated doors in 1917, has a policy to encourage intimacy among its residents, Bloomberg reports:

In 1995, the home adopted a four-page policy — considered the first of its kind — stating that residents “have the right to seek out and engage in sexual expression,” including “words, gestures, movements or activities which appear motivated by the desire for sexual gratification.”

Pop culture promotes an image in which our sexual desires expire just as our hands begin to wrinkle. Luckily, this is not the case. While the frequency of sexual intercourse may decrease with age, the craving certainly does not. And the Hebrew Home works to ensure that its residents’ desires aren’t stifled because of a lack of privacy or the concerns of family members. They do, however, monitor each relationship in order to prevent a situation where the intimacy is unhealthy or unrequited.

For instance, disruptions in eating, sleeping or bathroom patterns could prompt a nurse to ask a resident whether she or he is unhappy in a relationship. Where a relationship seems unwanted, the home can take steps to help end it, from counseling an overly aggressive resident to moving one to a different floor.

Evelyn Tenenbaum, a professor at Albany Law School who’s written about sex at nursing homes, thinks that other nursing homes should follow the Hebrew Home’s lead.

She wrote in the Indiana Law Review that elderly care facilities could provide “do not disturb” signs; set policies to discourage the spread of sexually transmitted diseases; make condoms, vaginal lubricants and Viagra readily available; and provide beauty salons and other cosmetic services to help residents feel physically and sexually attractive.

Like Springsteen said, put your makeup on, fix your hair up pretty, and meet me tonight at the Hebrew Home at Riverdale.

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When I called Ari Seth Cohen for our phone interview, he was at a friend’s house. This friend wasn’t a similarly-aged companion, but instead a 68-year-old woman named Debra who lives on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. I asked if I should call back another time, but Cohen said it was alright, that most of his older female friends don’t mind when he does some press at their homes—after all, what better place to discuss Advanced Style, his street style photography blog, than from the home of one of its subjects.

Although Cohen, 31, was always interested in art and fashion, the inspiration to start photographing older women came from his grandmother, who he calls his best friend. After her death, he decided to pick up a camera as a way to connect with fashionable older people he encountered across New York City. Although Cohen’s photography started as an odd attraction, his dedication to displaying the enthusiasm and vitality of his subjects is incredibly heartfelt. His subject pool includes men and women above 50, but women tend to get the focus thanks to their flair for fashion and makeup.

He has a book out and is producing a documentary about his experience, both called Advanced Style. “Don’t worry about getting older,” one woman explains in the trailer for the film, “every era builds character.”

Did your interest in photography come before your interest in older women or vice versa?

I was always into art; I studied art history in college, but I only started taking pictures five years ago when I moved to New York City. I started with my roommate’s Nikon Coolpix, and then I taught myself how to take better pictures and developed my skill. But photography was just a way for me to connect with older people. I wasn’t planning on being a photographer, it just happened because of the project I was working on.

So there was never a thought to photograph another type of subject?

No. Only older people.

Why?

Well, I grew up in San Diego and my grandmothers were my best friends. I always had a very positive idea of what it’s like to get older because of how fun and interesting they were. One of my grandmothers went to graduate school at Columbia University and she would tell me as a little kid to move to New York if I wanted to be creative.

I finally moved here in 2008 and I approached the city through my grandmother’s eyes. I wanted to meet older people because she had passed away, and then I began meeting all of these incredibly interesting, active old people. At first I wanted to interview them for my own project, which I wasn’t planning on sharing with people. Then I decided I had good material and I started my blog.

What’s a day in the life of Ari Seth Cohen like?

Well, today I woke up and posted on my blog. Then I met up with my friend Debra Rapoport on the Upper East Side, she’s putting together a website for all the hats she makes. After this I plan to walk around the city—I walk everywhere—taking pictures of older men and older women, and hopefully I’ll be able to make connections to interview them and share their stories with other people.

Do the older ladies cook for you, grandma style? Have you recruited recipes?

I do want to work on a blog post of recipes but I haven’t yet. Debra always cooks, and she’s a good cook, but it’s not really a grandmother/grandson relationship between these ladies and me. They are more like my friends. We walk around and go to galleries and museums.

Tomorrow I’m traveling with this 80-year-old woman to a conference in Michigan on elder abuse. We’re going to speak there about the work we do together, which is hopefully changing people’s ideas of what it means to grow old.

What’s the biggest misunderstanding about old people?

I think that people neglect, forget, or ignore older people and don’t realize their worth. They don’t realize that they still want to be heard and that they still have a lot to offer. Oftentimes you look at someone who’s older and you may think they don’t have the same understanding of the world, but all the people I meet are so aware and present.

On your website it says you’re working on an Advanced Style documentary due out this year. What’s the focus of the film?

There are six ladies that my friend and I have been following for the last five years since I first met them on the street. A lot of them have found new careers in modeling and acting all from being exposed on the blog, so it follows their story and the story of the blog.

Where’s the best place to find interesting older people?

Oh definitely uptown, that’s where I spend most of my time.

What’s your favorite part about your job?

First of all, it’s being able to spend time with such incredible people. But over the course of the past two years I’ve also come out with my book and I’ve been invited all over the world to speak and meet more interesting older people in different communities. It’s been incredible to hear their stories, travel, and be able to document it and share it with the world. It’s amazing when an older person emails me after seeing the blog and tells me how it has impacted their life and how they feel about themselves. Or even a younger person saying they feel less afraid of getting older.

How have younger people—and your friends—reacted to your interest in older people?

My friends totally get that this is the perfect thing for me to be doing; I’ve always spoken so much about my grandmother. I haven’t found much disapproval. When I go on dates people are a little surprised, but it is a quirky interest.

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Alex Karpovsky, Actor, Writer, Director, and Producer

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