Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Yiddish World

The Yiddishist side of upcoming ‘Jeopardy!’ guest host Mayim Bialik

Read this article in Yiddish.

Jewish actress, neuroscientist and newly-minted “Jeopardy!” host Mayim Bialik is not just talented and smart. She speaks Yiddish and has proved herself to be a wonderful Yiddish comedienne, too.

Bialik, who was recently announced as the host of a new series of “Jeopardy!” prime time specials, will also be guest hosting the first 15 episodes of the new season of the show. The show’s executive producer, Mike Richards, was slated to replace the late Alex Trebek as permanent host, but resigned last week amid outrage over inappropriate comments he had made on a podcast, including at least one that was offensive toward Jews.

In a 2015 interview with the Canadian Jewish News, Bialik, whose middle name is Chaya and who keeps Shabbos, spoke about her Yiddish background.

“I was raised speaking Yiddish, and I speak short sentences with my children,” she said. “When I was in college, I was taking Yiddish and reading and watching Yiddish movies and things like that for class. I wasn’t raised with full proper grammar, but with a very large vocabulary, which was part of normal speech, meaning we didn’t just whip it out when we needed to.”

In a 2012 interview with Haaretz, she said that she used to sing to her children in Yiddish when they were babies. “All of their body parts they learned first in Yiddish, just like I did when I was a kid,” she said.

Among Yiddishist audiences, Bialik is probably best known for her hilarious performance in a memorable episode of the subtitled Yiddish comedy “Yidlife Crisis.” In her appearance, during an episode titled “The Double Date,” she plays a no-nonsense Jewish woman on a date with two eligible bachelors. Although the skit could have been played in English, the absurd situation recalls the best of Yiddish comedy theater.

Bialik’s pride in her Yiddish background and her eagerness to transmit the language to her children can serve as an inspiration for all “Jeopardy!” viewers, no matter their background, curious about the language and culture of their immigrant ancestors.

And who knows… maybe one of these days, Bialik’s presence will lead the game writers to come up with a Daily Double question about Yiddish culture that will stump even the mavens among us!

A message from our CEO & publisher 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 during this critical time.

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

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.