Mayim Bialik’s Scary Ironic Biblical Cat

Image by Instagram

By Anne Cohen February 26, 2015

Mayim Bialik has a sense of humor.

The actress shared a picture of her cat on Instagram today with the caption: “My sleepy baby, Esau. (that’s an ironic Biblical name. Google it.)”

Once you recover from the sight of what is really a scary-looking hairless creature, the joke is pretty clever. Esau, in the Torah, is Isaac’s oldest son and Jacob’s twin brother. His name, in Hebrew, means “hairy” or “rough.”

This is how his birth is described in Genesis 25:25: “Now the first came forth, red all over like a hairy garment; and they named him Esau.”

Good one, Mayim.

Instagram/Mayim Bialik

Anne Cohen was the Forward’s deputy digital media editor. When she’s not looking for the secret Jewish history of Voodoo in New Orleans, or making lists about Ruth Bader Ginsburg, she writes for The Assimilator. She graduated from the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism with an M.S. magazine concentration in 2012.

A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism so that we can be prepared for whatever news 2025 brings.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO