Jewish Girl Talk With Joan Rivers and Shiri Appleby

Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
Every week, Joan Rivers has a one night stand with the celebrity of her choice.
We’re talking, obviously, about “In Bed With Joan,” (what did you have in mind?) Rivers’ online talk show which shows her dishing with fellow entertainers between the sheets.
This week, Shiri Appleby (“Roswell,” “Girls,” Chicago Fire”) joined Joan for what we could only hope would be some Jewish girl talk.
Strangely, that’s exactly what happened.
Rivers opened the episode by commenting on how confused people must be by the spelling of Appleby’s first name (“So how many people have called you Sherry?”). Somehow, this led to a discussion about the Hebrew meaning of Joan — which according to River, means “whiner” — and Shiri, which means “my song.”
“My parents said I was like the song in their hearts,” Appleby explained. “Until I turned into a teenager.”
As it turns out, Appleby is quite the funny lady. Other gems include:
On not naming her child Ira: “You’re just not going to have sex with Ira Shook.”
On her fiancee: “We’re both Jews. He’s a very cute Jewish cook… One of our first meals, he came over to my house and taught my mom how to make latkes.”
For more on Shiri’s new baby, her Jewish background (her mom is a Hebrew teacher) and what Joan really thinks of Lena Dunham, check out the video below:
It’s our birthday and we’re still celebrating!
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news.
This week we celebrate 129 years of the Forward. We’re proud of our origins as a Yiddish print publication serving Jewish immigrants. And we’re just as proud of what we’ve become today: A trusted source of Jewish news and opinion, available digitally to anyone in the world without paywalls or subscriptions.
We’ve helped five generations of American Jews make sense of the news and the world around them — and we aren’t slowing down any time soon.
As a nonprofit newsroom, reader donations make it possible for us to do this work. Support independent, agenda-free Jewish journalism and our board will match your gift in honor of our birthday!
