If you, like me, enjoy learning about how Jewish geography extends to cool Jewish lady celebrities, you’ll enjoy the following tidbit: Mayim Bialik, of The Big Bang Theory (and this great video), and Rachel Bloom, better known as Rebecca Bunch on Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, are apparently buddies. Watered by some mayim, their friendship began to bloom last April, when Bialik interviewed Bloom for her website. A couple weeks ago, they had a coffee date, but it was interrupted by a fan who seemed more interested in Rachel than in Mayim. Personally, I’d like to tag along with both of them. What a squad.

Speaking of funny, outspoken Jewish feminist actresses, remember how Rachel Bloom used to be roommates with Broad City’s Ilana Glazer? Naturally, they take amazing selfies. Looking at them, I was reminded of the episode from last season of Girls when Hannah Horvath (Lena Dunham’s character) gets a visit from a college friend, played amazingly by Jenny Slate. What if the four of them were all friends?!

And in case you forgot, Ilana is (distantly) related to Abbi Jacobson in real life. Which makes the sexual nature of Abbi and Ilana’s friendship (mostly on Ilana’s side) on the show a little awkward.

But most Ashkenazi Jews are basically related to each other anyway (though unlike most Ashkenazi Jews, all six of these ladies competed in Jewcy‘s ongoing “Jewish Celebrity March Madness“). So I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before all these yiddishe mavens of comedy discover that I am their long-lost cousin and want to be best friends with me too.

Image via Instagram.

The post Jewish Geography: Celebs Do It, Too appeared first on Jewcy.

• Follow our friends at Tablet for the latest in what’s happening in Israel. [Tablet]

• The scene: Philip Roth, his iPhone, a Jewish deli on the Upper West Side, and a novel called Balls. [Paris Review]

• Christian Dior designer Raf Simons calls disgraced former Dior designer John Galliano’s designs no longer relevant. [Fashionista]

• We could watch GIFs of Bravo’s Andy Cohen and Anderson Cooper eating a gigantic gummy worm all day. [BuzzFeed]

• Tavi Gevinson, still teaching people how to do a proper bitchface. [Access Hollywood]

• Mayim Bialik, Call Me Maybe flash mob participant. [Vulture]

The post Daily Jewce: The Latest From Israel, Mayim Bialik’s ‘Call Me Maybe’ Flash Mob appeared first on Jewcy.

• Steven Spielberg’s cinematographer, the Polish-born Janusz Kaminski, discusses how he created the iconic Schindler’s List shot of the girl in the red jacket. [Vulture]

• There’s a Pita Nazi in Tel Aviv, people. [Tablet]

• Because no interview with Lena Dunham is complete without her Instagram photos. [Esquire]

• Our girl Mayim Bialik on the red carpet for the Breaking Dawn 2 premiere. [EW]

• Watch the latest teaser for Bret Easton Ellis’ The Canyons, starring Lindsay Lohan and James Deen—a porn star who happens to be Jewish. [New York Post]

The post Daily Jewce: Spielberg’s Cinematographer, Tel Aviv’s Pita Nazi appeared first on Jewcy.

Our friends at Tablet Magazine have put together a great list of Rosh Hashanah resolutions from a wide range of well-known Jewish figures. Each response offers advice for the coming year and some things for all of us to think about, and do, over the next 12 months.

Here are our five favorites—you can check out the rest over at Tablet.

Dr. Ruth, sex therapist

The one thing you must do in the New Year is pay greater attention to the humans next to you than the gadget in your hand. No matter how much you love your phone, it will never hold your hand or make your heart flutter. If you want to have a productive year, if you want to feel the warmth of human contact, if you want to marry or stay married, have children and get the most that life has to offer, put your gadgets down and connect to those around you with your mind, your arms, and your heart.

Mayim Bialik

The last time I was in Israel was two years ago. I’ve almost gone a few times since then but just have never gotten around to it. This past year has seen an increase in my Jewish learning, observance, and sense of connection to the State of Israel. I had a serious car accident a month ago, and since then I’ve felt a very strong pull to go back to Israel. I would go so far as to say I feel like I need to go to Israel this year to heal from the accident, to heal from a particularly rigorous year emotionally, and to put my feet back on the Land.

Jonathan Ornstein, director of the Jewish Community Center in Krakow, Poland

Go to Auschwitz. Feel sad. Feel angry. Contemplate the unimaginable loss. Weep for the souls of the victims. Say “Never Again.” Then go one hour down the road to Krakow and learn the real lesson of the Holocaust. Go meet a growing, vibrant, optimistic, pluralistic, forward-looking Jewish community that refuses to allow itself to be defined by tragedy—the one community in Europe where it is getting better, safer, and easier to be Jewish every single day. Learn the lesson of the Holocaust that the Krakow Jewish community has learned: The strength of the Jewish People lies in defining ourselves by what we do, not by what is done to us.

Emily Nussbaum, television critic for The New Yorker

My goal this year is to use the word “ham-handed” in a TV review. I also want to cook 4 percent more (I’m a terrible cook), wear eyeliner, buy a bunk bed for my two boys, go see more standup comedy, read something fancy like Montaigne, and convince my husband to grow a mustache. Plus, write notes to people when I admire something they wrote (like Nora Ephron and David Rakoff did) and gossip more.

Joshua Cohen

My New Year’s resolution is straight-ahead: Stop imposing Hallmark® goyisher narrischkeit on Jewish tradition. It isn’t New Year’s. It’s Rosh Hashanah.

Happy 5773, people.

(Photo by Larry Busacca/Getty Images)

What To Do in 5773 [Tablet Magazine]

The post Rosh Hashanah Resolutions from Mayim Bialik, Dr. Ruth, and more appeared first on Jewcy.

If you never tire of reading about your favorite vegan celebs (or vegan-cheating ones), then we have great news for you. All you plant-eating Jews who dreamed their favorite ‘90s sitcom star-turned-Ph.D. would write a cookbook, your wish has come true! (Ok, maybe that’s just me.)

That’s right, Mayim Bialik announced yesterday that she’s currently working on a family-friendly vegan cookbook with nutritionist Dr. Jay Gordon to be released next fall. (For a taste, check out her mini potato kugel recipe.) A regular contributor to Kveller and contributing editor at Tablet, (in 2009 Bialik wrote about how her Orthodox Jewish beliefs changed her style,) she decided to become a vegan after reading (yet another vegan-friendly Jewish celeb) Jonathan Safran Foer’s Eating Animals.

While you may be familiar with her parenting advice (breastfeeding three-year-old anyone?) from the book she published this past spring, this is Bialik’s first cookbook, so we thought we’d help her scope out her competition.

1. The other Jewish teen celebrity-turned-mother-turned-vegan-turned-cookbook-author: Alicia Silverstone

Silverstone “freakin’ loved gefilte fish,” but in the past few years has established herself as one of the most outspoken (and extreme) of vegan celebs. Bialik may breastfeed her 3-year-old, but does she pre-chew her son’s food? With her own vegan lifestyle blog, The Kind Life, and her vegan guidebook/cookbook which came out in 2009, Silverstone may be a tough act to follow in terms of exposure, but the jury is still out when it comes to the actual recipes.

2. The Oprah- and Ellen-approved famous Israeli chef: Tal Ronnen

Famous for his food, not his acting, Ronnen was chosen by both daytime TV queens to teach their staffs about veganism. In 2008, he helped Oprah’s crew survive a 21-day cleanse and in 2010 taught Ellen how to make meatless stew (he also catered her wedding to Portia de Rossi). His cookbook The Conscious Cook is the best kind of food porn. Bialik might get more attention, but it’ll be tough to beat Ronnen’s drool-inducing recipes.

3. One-half of the Post Punk duo behind the Vegan Bible: Isa Chandra Moskowitz

OK, outside of the vegan universe she may not be as famous, but anyone who’s ever cooked vegan has read her blog or owns at least one of her cookbooks, especially the Vegan Bible, aka Veganomicon. (Along with Terry Hope Romero, she co-hosted a vegan cooking show, The Post Punk Kitchen, from 2003-05 on community access television in Manhattan and Brooklyn.) Though she’s not religious, Moskowitz’s recipes are filled with Jewish inspiration (they include everything from latkes to borscht) and are much more approachable than Ronnen’s (re: simpler) for the everyday vegan cook, making her Bialik’s stiffest competition.

Have another favorite Jewish, vegan cookbook author? Let us know in the comments!

The post Mayim Bialik Is Writing a Vegan Family Cookbook appeared first on Jewcy.

• Mayim Bialik was badly injured when a car of tourists from Chile hit her Volvo yesterday. Her husband later posted on her Twitter account that she wouldn’t lose any fingers.

• Israeli physicists basically swept the 43rd Annual International Physics Olympiad in Estonia. Mazel!

• In the New York Times, Dwight Garner explains why book critics should be critical—and gives a nice shout out to Jewcy columnist Jacob Silverman

• Happy 89th birthday, Israeli President Shimon Peres.

• Jake Gyllenhaal will star as a down-on-his-luck gambler in the upcoming flick Mississippi Grind.

• Stephen Colbert gets some new interns, and one of them is Olympic gold medalist Aly Raisman.

The post Daily Jewce: Mayim Bialik Injured in Car Accident, Aly Raisman a Colbert Intern appeared first on Jewcy.

• Nas is a big fan of Lena Dunham’s show Girls

• Jewcy columnist Jacob Silverman wonders whether online book culture has gotten too chummy.

• Remembering the legendary Lenny Bruce, who died 46 years ago today.

• Jonah Lehrer, quote fabricator and… hottie?

• Is political hopeful Mindy Meyer taking a page from Real Housewives of New York’s Jill Zarin and Bethenny Frankel?

• Behold: the trailer for Season 2 of Homeland.

The post Daily Jewce: Rapper Nas Loves ‘Girls,’ Mindy Meyer’s Reality TV Predecessors appeared first on Jewcy.

• The Times reveals New York City’s best bialys, pastrami, and rye.

• In what sounds like a worse version of Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher are vacationing in Bali.

• The Big Bang Theory’s Mayim Bialik discusses walking the red carpet on Tisha B’Av.

• Spotted: Bar Refaeli and Shaun White in the stands watching swimmer Michael Phelps compete.

• According to Fran Lebowitz, “a toll-taker has a more exciting life than a pornographer.”

• While on Andy Cohen’s late-night Bravo talk show, Joan Rivers says “even as a Jew” she wouldn’t wear Princess Diana’s wedding ring:

The post Daily Jewce: NYC’s Best Pastrami and Rye, Mila and Ashton Vacation in Bali appeared first on Jewcy.

• Hallelujah: Brooklyn’s Mile End Deli will start making their own Montreal-style bagels.

• Lanvin’s newest ad campaign model? 62-year old Tziporah Salamon.

• Look inside the home of horror writer R.L. Stine on the 20th anniversary of his Goosebumps series—and learn why zombies make terrible characters.

• Mayim Bialik gives Kveller.com, where she blogs regularly, a shout out while assuring us that the red carpet is as awkward as we think it would be.

• Team Schmidt: Max Greenfield, who says we might get rules to New Girl’s made-up drinking game True American, on his Emmy nomination:

The post Daily Jewce: Brooklyn’s Montreal Bagels, Goosebumps’ 20th Anniversary appeared first on Jewcy.

Asked about the news, Dunham gave possibly the best answer we could have asked for:

You know that song they sing at Passover, “Dayenu,” which is, “It would have been enough.” If God had just taken us out of the desert, it would have been enough. If He’d give us a cow, it would have been enough. But he did all this other stuff. I feel like with everything that happens, Dayenu.

Mayim Bialik is up for best supporting actress for her role as Amy Farrah Fowler on The Big Bang Theory, which was also nominated for best comedy series. Larry David is in the running for best actor in a comedy series for his similarly-nominated Curb Your Enthusiasm. Most exciting of all, however, is Max Greenfield’s nod for best actor in a comedy series, for his absurdly spot-on performance as Schmidt in New Girl.

Homeland, based on the Israel show Hatufim, cleaned up nicely with 9 total nominations—a record number for a new series—with star Claire Danes up for best actress in a drama.

Mazel tov to all the nominees!

(Photo by Slaven Vlasic/Getty Images)

The post Emmy Nods for Lena Dunham, Mayim Bialik, and New Girls’ Schmidt appeared first on Jewcy.