The Jewish Broadway Queen: From Golda Meir to Nobody Wants This - Tovah Feldshuh On Israel's Future

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Whether you like Netanyahu or not, Israel still stands for democracy in the free world

We have to survive this

That was the other thing Golda said

We have one great advantage, we have no place else to go

Right

It is absolutely essential that the State of Israel survives

This is not some kind of a aberration where we're gonna go back to being all diaspora Jews

So, and also, those of you who are listening, when has appeasement worked for the Jewish community? When? Never

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What up, what up? And welcome to Being Jewish, your home for deeply candid conversations on Jewish identity, culture, and current events

I'm your host, Jonah Platt, and my guest today is a classic grande dame of the stage and screen

A two-time Emmy nominee, four-time Tony nominee, she's played basically every iconic Jewish role in the canon: Golda Meir, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Dr

Ruth Westheimer, the OG Yentl, and most recently, the controversial Bina Rockloff on Netflix's hit comedy, Nobody Wants This

Most actors change their names to sound less Jewish

She went the other way, and has been reaping the rewards ever since, Baruch Hashem

From Broadway baby to Broadway bubbe, please welcome Ms

Tovah Feldshuh

Thank you, Jonah

That was spectacular

Oh, thank you

It's such a pleasure to have you on

We've been talking about this a while, and it's, it's wonderful to have you here in the chair

The chair

The chair

Makes me think of the Rosenbergs

Oh, it's a different chair

Different chair

Let's jump right into Nobody Wants This, which is a show that has come up on this show many times

I had your co-cast member Jackie Tone on one of my very first episodes, and in that episode, I gave a long, impassioned diatribe of how great I think the show is, not just on its own merits, but for the Jewish community

And we discussed some of the negative criticisms that the show has received, which I'm sure you have heard, most of which focuses on the portrayal of Jewish women, and it tends to be mostly on Jackie's character and on your character

People say that it's, "Oh, it's a nasty stereotype of a Jewish woman, too controlling, too insular

" And, and I feel if there's anyone who should have a say on what this role is about, it should not only be the actress playing it, but the woman who has played probably more Jewish women and Jewish mother figures, not just the ones that I mentioned, but Naomi Bunch on Crazy, My Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, Mrs

Brice in Funny Girl, Marla Horowitz in Tuner, just so many characters

So you of all people should weigh in

So I would love for you, if you would, to, to respond to that comment that people have i- in how they think your role in particular is portrayed on the show

If you're an actor, the first thing you wanna do is to affiliate with the character you're playing

You're on the… You're not even on a tennis court

You're on the tennis court with your fellow actors when you're batting around a story, and that's a give and take

But inside the, a desire to inhabit another soul has to come the reason to do it, whether it's Leona Helmsley, who is not prototypically a heroine at all, I also played her

Mm-hmm

Or Bina Rockwell

What, what is great about Bina Rockler is that she represents the old values

The values, why are they cliched? Because they worked That's why they're clich- they're cliched

She also represents, for me, what I call the advantage of cellular coincidence

I think, I'm married almost 50 years- Mazel tov not, thank you, not dissimilar to your marvelous parents

Thank you

And the greatest thing that Andy and I have is this moment of cellular coincidence

His mother was a concert-level classical pianist

My mother was a classical pianist

I was a classical pianist

Before I was an actor, I was a pianist

And because I couldn't win concertos at National Music Camp, I went out for plays with music

In all events, when Andy and I listen to Chopin, and it's through the entire apartment in Manhattan, we're not listening to Chopin, we're with our mothers

Mm-hmm

And that's cellular coincidence, and that is what Beena Rockler is fighting for, for Adam

Preserve and protect those we love

What does he have in common with this shiksa? With this blonde and blue person? Particularly, it's Kristen Bell

So Kristen Bell is, what we would call in our parlance, a gantsa mensch

She's just one of the great souls

Oh, yeah

Another one I worked with is Andrew Lincoln

Andrew Lincoln would arrive at the set of Walking, of The Walking Dead to thank the gardeners for mowing the lawn

I mean, he was that kind of a guy

He would show up when he wasn't working just to watch other people's work

Hmm

And he would come to watch me work

I was honored

But likewise, Kristen Bell is just this wonderful Midwest kid who has her feet on the ground- Yeah … and is a big acknowledger, is, never walks the dog

So of course, who wouldn't wanna marry Kris- If I were s- if, if I, if I weren't straight, I'd wanna marry Kristen Bell

Yeah

Be a little old for her

But anyway- Charming as hell, Kristen Bell

Yes

Charming as hell, Kristen Bell

But it shows the, what's great about the series is it alr- already shows the problems and the challenges, and this wonderful, um, thing with Seth Rogen being that far-out, airy-fairy, you know, up in the hills other congregation

So I love playing her

I don't read reviews

Um, I just stay in the tunnel of Beena

My job is to, uh, become Beena, and naturally, if I am to become her, I must defend her

And it's not like… I bear her no judgment

She is carrying the flag of what it means to go l'dor vador- Mm-hmm … from generation to generation

And she's not just talking out of the desire to control

That's just, it's level one

She's talking out of the desire to preserve and protect her young

And to perpetuate the phenomenal fabulousness of Jewish values

What I love about being Jewish is that you don't have to be a deist

I feel that the core of Judaism is not deism

It isn't Hashem, even though that's a big deal, monotheism and what it did for the planet

The core of our religion is the mitzvah, is the deed of loving kindness

And we're in a tradition that says the highest mitzvah is a chesed kedoshim, that to administer to the corpse and make sure it has a dignified burial is the highest mitzvah because the corpse, the dead body cannot thank you, and you do it just because it's the right thing to do

The other thing is, because of the epigenetics of trying to survive from generation to generation, because we're only 15

8 million people and we have not yet recuperated from, uh, the Holocaust, we also are still reeling with PTSD as a global community because of October 7

Because of these things, the Jewish critical sense has been highly developed

You don't just walk in a room to fin- find out what's wanted and needed in the room, which is what I taught my children

You also walk in the room to gauge the room

You walk down a dark hallway to gauge that hallway before you go

So Bina is perceptive

Bina is the warning sign

What I also love about her in a commercial way is Bina's the obstacle

That, that's what I always come back to

If they succeed, you don't have a series

You have to have something pushing against them besides their own interior problems

Exactly

Of course

Otherwise, there's no show

It'd be over in episode one

And so I, I, you know, that's something Jackie and I spoke about was, you know, if you remove Bina, what, what is there other than, as you said, their own internal obstacle? And, and I, in hearing you speak, I think what also I'm realizing is that when people don't respond well to some of these characters or the characteristics, it's more how that they're not responding well to a person who might be like that in real life more than it is the character in this show

It's, "Well, I don't agree with a, a mother who isn't immediately embracing this Kristen Bell character

" It's not, "Oh, that's a bad portrayal or not a good character

" And I think they're confusing the two

I think it's just they, if it was them, they would wanna give Kristen Bell a big old hug like we're talking about, and that's what they respond to

I think so, and even if she converts and becomes a committed Jew, there's still Christmas at Grandma and Grandpa's

Yeah

And there will be a tree

I know this personally

We celebrate Christmas every year

Do you? Yeah, my wife converted

Right

Yeah

The arrangement we've made is that we celebrate Christmas at Grandma and Grandpa's, and in our house we have, like, wintry wonderland Hanukkah decorations

So we don't have a Christmas tree 'cause it, it, it felt too Christmassy for me, but we, like, found our happy medium, and it's, it's silver and gold and white and winter and Hanukkah ornaments and stuff like that

So she doesn't feel lonely, but it isn't the iconography

Exactly

I was never brought up with any iconography that was not Jewish, and we weren't That Jewish

I was brought up in the '50s

You know, people were busy assimilating

There were no Japanese cars, there were no German cars

There was no entry into Bonnie Briar, uh, Country Club, Scarsdale Country Club, Bronxville, Darien, Greenwich

And the Jews, of course, didn't care

Nobody said anything

I never heard an anti-Semitic comment

And then once I became Tova, 'cause I fell in love with a Christian boy named Michael Fairchild, who didn't like the name Terry Sue, he thought it was ridiculous for me, and at 18 it is, was ridiculous for me

You know? I was this, uh, sophisticated New York, uh, girl with beautiful long hair, and he goes, "God, were you called anything else?" And I said I was called Tova in Sunday school because I was embarrassed to say Tova in Hebrew school, but I was in Hebrew school eight hours a week

So my mother must have been very Reform, 'cause her mother was British and my grandfather was Russian

My father was German Jewish, German Austrian

Right

And they must have been Orthodox, and they met in the middle at the Suzuki approach to Judaism or the Conservative movement, where you can pray anywhere in the world

You may not be able to read… I was in Copenhagen for Yontif, couldn't read the Danish, but I could read the tefillah

There you go

I could read the Hebrew

Also, in the beginning of my career, uh, 50 years ago, actually 1973, I made my debut with Christopher Plummer in the musical of Cyrano at the Palace Theatre

In the beginning, an actor was expected to be able to do everything, and I did

You know, my nominations are for two Catholic, two Catholic, uh, characters

Now people tend to silo you

You touched on so many things that I wanna touch on in this, in this conversation, but I wanna just put the, the pin on the, the nobody wants it of it all before we move on

I do wanna ask you about the, the, the one pivotal moment in season one, the, the pork in the garbage can moment

How did that feel doing that and, and knowing, you know, that that was sort of like the thing that she, she got you on? First of all, let me just backtrack

We had no idea, a, a, a Jewish boy marrying a Christian girl, as we say, the shiksa goddess, is as old as Mi- I mean, it's an old story

It's, like, back there

I mean, Abraham and Hagar

I mean, it's back- Oh, yeah … it's back there

So this worship of me- And even when I was a child they would say, "Oh, that Terry Sue, she's so pretty like a shiksa

" Mm

So it was reverse prejudice

Right

That if you were, if you were beautiful, it's 'cause I had the Kaplan pug You were beautiful

You didn't look Jewish

That's right

You looked, I looked Irish until people learned my name as, when I got older

I wasn't brought up kosher, so I learned, when I was sent to Europe to study, I learned to, of course, love prosciutto and cheese and wine

It was quite a combo

Sure

Uh, did, I make no moral judgments on this series

If I were asked to play a terrorist wanting to kill a Jew, I would refuse the role

Of course I would

Mm

And I do, I do feel there are two types of anti-Semites, the ignorant and the evil, and, um, I'm very grateful that I don't have to be so nuanced in that field of my life

I know who I am

I know who you are, and I, I, I've been quoted many times, "I'm a practical woman

If you wanna kill me, I object

" Back to this, the prosciutto, they wrote it in

I thought it was hilarious

My mommy, Lillian Kaplan Felchu, used to make three ham sha- sandwiches on Friday for Marsha Altschul, who was the kosher, who had a kosher home, for Terry Sue Felchu

Um, it was Wonder Bread with mayonnaise, lettuce, and ham, and Maggie Legg, whose parents didn't make her many sandwiches, and I would take the three sandwiches to school, and I'd give it to two other people

So my mother was a mitzvah machine from the beginning

So you actually lived a version of giving the, the ham to the kosher person? I did, in reverse

That's right

That's so funny

And they were kosher for Mr

Altschul's, for Milton Altschul's, uh, mother

But what a wonderful thing, to be, to be that respectful

So, uh, I, and as Christian says in the documentary, the prop department w- was really worried that they'd run out of prosciutto 'cause I was so committed to eating it

You know, she comes in, and I have my- Yeah … mouth stuffed with it, which was my choice

I just thought it was hilarious and, and the, and the, you know, the hypocrisy of it, too, to get rid of the shiksa, to judge her bad, uh, values of not understanding Uh, there, there are many incidents like that

Uh, we were once given a wreath for, uh, Hanukkah- Mm-hmm … by a non-Jewish friend of ours, and, uh, that person called it Wreath Gate because I looked at this wreath and I said, "Are you aware that this symbolizes the crown of thorns for Jesus Christ?" Right

And you could sort of… the face drop 'cause she thought it was just a lovely high-end decoration to give people she loved

Yeah

And God bless her for that

Um, but I did say that as opposed to just saying thank you

Maybe I would've just said thank you at this age

So, uh, yes, it was a, a turning point moment that has to do with the, um, the sloppiness of, and the raggedness of being a human being, and the contradictions of being a human being

Well said

Let's talk about some of your other Jewish roles

Let's start with what I think you would probably also say sort of the crown jewel of, of your career, which is Golda in Golda's Balcony

Tony nomination, longest running one-woman show in Broadway history, role of a lifetime

What have you, Tovah, taken from what you learned from embodying Golda? The thing I loved about her is she too was a practical woman

They asked her in eighth… She graduated valedictorian from the Fourth Street School in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and her parents asked her not to go on to high school, but to work in the cam- in their little store

And in the middle of the night, she escaped by train to Denver, Colorado to live with her firebrand of a political, her older sister, Sarah, and h- and h- and her husband

And they had moved to Denver because they all got tuberculosis

Not Golda- Mm … but her older sister

And these tubercular utopian socialist Jews would meet around the kitchen table to discuss the global Jewish situation, and Golda was allowed to stay up and listen because she would wash the tubercular cups with ammonia and water to make sure they were disinfected, and she never got sick

I loved her hardiness

It was in Denver that she fell in love with the concept of, of having a postage stamp of land called Israel where Jews could live safely, the irony of that

My fa- my mother had, uh, you know, Frank Sinatra, and Golda Meir had Ben-Gurion

She just i- i- idolized his fervor and his principles

She also was… She's the one who said, "It's hard to negotiate with people who wanna kill you

" And that sentence sadly reverberates very, uh, literally now

Yeah

I'm also amazed at people being afraid to speak

Maybe I have a smaller amygdala than other people

I don't think that's it

And I'm also amazed at some of our colleagues, uh, I, I guess it would be inelegant to name them, but there are a few colleagues who are so outspoken about the river to the sea without any, any notion of, uh- Of what would happen to the Jewish people

It's, uh, it's, it's absolutely astonishm- astonishing

Or a big movie star who after this happened on October 8th said, "They got what they deserved

" For that, I will never forgive that person

I'll never forgive him

What about the flip side? What about folks in the industry who didn't say anything negative, but have refrained from saying anything supportive? Either they're frightened or it's chic

Listen, if when Brandon, our d- beloved Brandon, my son, went to Harvard, uh, he then got accepted at Oxford and Cambridge

He went to Oxford for a master's in financial economics, and he was at where? Said Business School

That's was the name of that school

And in those years, he's 43, so he would say, "Wow, isn't this wonderful that Qatar and these very wealthy Ara- uh, I- Islamist states are funding education in the free world? How marvelous

" Well, we didn't understand, and now they're starting to see the contracts

We're starting to have, uh, part of our laws in Americas is to be able to… Some of the judges are, are, um, putting down decisions where we can see the contracts between, uh, UFP and the Arab world, between MIT and the Arab world, between Harvard, shame on you, Harvard- Yeah and the Arab world

And it was a brilliant idea of the people from Qatar

You give them money, you seed the faculty with people that share your point of view, which is the world caliphate, and, uh, globalization of Islam, and the conquest, the conquest of the planet Earth

I wish I sounded crazy

I wish you could say, "Hey, you should be institutionalized

" Right

But that is the object of this game, and the idea is it's a 100-year plan where they will outlast us, and the free world will get fatigued

And if you don't believe me, just watch the UK

Just watch what's going on

And in fact, if, if, uh, particularly my city, New York, if New York is only 24 to 36 months, as some people say, behind the situation that's happening in the UK, woe unto us

Woe unto us

So this, um, idea of immigration, pro- immigration, propagation, infiltration into the city councils, domination of the city councils, with the final desire for conquest, is an astonishing, horrific thing that we are up against

And they do feel, with over two billion people of that religion, that they can outlast us and outwait us

And I'm not just talking about the Jews

The other favorite sentence of mine is what they said, which is, "We will start with Saturday, and we will end with Sunday

" And I say that to my Christian friends

I said, "You think you're, you're immune to this?" So we haven't had a minority group, which is quickly trying to become a majority, come into this country to conquer it for 250 years

We weren't so great

I mean, the English did come, took it from the Dutch, and committed partial genocide against the Native American

But that is the object of this game

I don't know that it entails murder, but it certainly entails our latest mayor of New York City refusing to take the o- oath on the Bible, only on the Quran, which is how he came into office

So it is of concern

I love my country

I love the free world, and I feel that Israel, whether you like Netanyahu or not, Israel still stands for democracy in the free world

We have to survive this

That was the other thing Golda said

We have one great advantage; we have no place else to go

Right

It is absolutely essential that the state of Israel survives

This is not some kind of a aberration where we're going to go back to being all diaspora Jews

So… And also, those of you who are listening, when has appeasement worked for the Jewish community? When? Never

Never So that's what I have to say You're very clear, obviously

You have- Yeah … I mean, which I appreciate, and I know that m- So I'm at peace many people appreciate that as well

Like, w- why do you think there's such a struggle? Is it just fear for the people who know what you're saying and still can't bring themselves to, to, you know- I think there's a- … stand up? There's, there's another thing, which is that the publicity department of Qatar and the, and, and certain Arab concerns, I shouldn't say Arab, Muslim concerns, radical Muslim, is phenomenal

They, th- by seating people like Mamdani's father on a faculty at Columbia and, and the like, by seating this kind of cogent, relentless antisemitism cloaked in Zionism

Now we're cloaked in Zionism

You know, ages ago we poi- poi- poison the water, medieval times, then we didn't believe in Jesus Christ

So it's what Rabbi Sacks says

It's like a cancer that transmogrifies, uh, over the, over the years as a, as a, an easy excuse

Um, I think that some of it might be fear because they have seeds of doubt from this unbelievable publicity campaign, and with the help of The New York Times and the pictures of Gaza always being devastated

It's the old adage, if the Houthis, Hezbollah, and Hamas put down their arms tomorrow, I do believe there would be peace

Yeah

And if Israel put down, put down, puts down its arms tomorrow, there would be a genocide- Right … the obliteration of the state

Have you had any difficult conversations with colleagues who either have spoken up against Israel or who have not spoken up for it, uh, in the past couple years? I, I have had the beginning of one, and I put a stop to it- Mm … because we have to go forward with the work

And my job is to, my job is still to love everybody

I'm not going to, you know, uh, and I haven't had the opportunity to speak to the arch- arch-antisemites, o- of whom I think of at least three or four Coming out of other countries besides ourselves, and of course, coming out of Hollywood to a certain degree

It's so fashionable to be pro-Palestinian

Yeah

It's so fashionable

A made-up word by the Romans to say F you to the Jewish community because they, the, the original name of Israel was Israel or Judea

They even have proofs from the steles, you know, the, these carved stones

By 1200 BC, there was a defeat of the Israelites, and it was written about

It was- Wow … and the same king, and they talked about the king of the Jews being Ahab, I believe

And two different kingdoms, one close to Jordan and one close to Egypt, reported these battles where they defeated the Israelites, and this is long before Christ and way, way, way long before Muhammad was born in 570 AD

Yeah

If our beloved Mexicans came across the border and murdered 1,400 people in Texas and took 250 hostages whom they raped or beheaded and burned their babies, Mexico would be a nuclear minefield

And people expect the Jews not to defend their very existence

It's ridiculous

Certainly agree

To bring it back to Golda and this October 7th moment, um, you, right after October 7th, suggested, "Hey, we should remount this show

This is an important time for this

" Yeah

And you were rebuffed

So why did you feel like it was the right moment, and why did it not happen? Somebody's gotta speak up

Your mother, Julie, understands that

Your mother Julie asked me to open this huge meeting of the Jewish community in Washington, DC

It was like a month after this tragedy, and I said to her, I even said, I said, "What happened? You couldn't get anybody else?" 'Cause I thought for sure she'd go for a bigger, more international brand, a bigger, big movie star

You know, Broadway people were marvelous but were local talent

And she said, "No, no, no

Whatever

Uh, for your mother and for myself, uh, we showed up, we expected 60,000 people, and there were 300,000 people

" Actually, to be accurate, 280,000

There were 20,000 stuck at the airport because the bus drivers refused to drive them- That's right … to the demonstration

You're talking about this big rally in Washington, DC- The big rally … that happened right after

The big rally

Biggest rally of Jewish people in American history

I think so

Mm-hmm

In American history

And your, your be- beloved, beloved extraordinary common sense

That's the other thing

It's common sense to fight antisemitism, even for the Judeo-Christian world

It is true, whenever you start with the Jews, you never end with the Jews

Yeah

It never ends with the Jews

No

We're just the, the canary, what do they call it? The canary in the coal mine

The canary in the coal mine

Yeah

Again, to bring it back, why Golda, and why did they, whoever said no, why did they say no? They were frightened They were fright- you know, I had a guard with a gun in Golda, would walk me to the car

My driver packed a weapon, and in Yentl my driver packed a weapon

In Yentl? Yentl

In the '70s

1972 was Munich

Mm-hmm

1974 was Yentl, which would then go to Broadway in 1975

In both cases, I think I got one piece of hate mail

For, one ran for the season, about eight, nine months, and the other one ran 16 months, and I never got any hate mail

I'm not going to go with the fashion about, um Being pro-Palestinian

I don't want anybody to die

I'm a mother, I'm a grandmother

But don't try to kill us

Don't mess with us

And I, I understand, uh, Israel's tough policy

If, if you wanna violate us, you're, you're out of here

We will find you

A- a- and it's taken a lot, Israel's taken a lot of bullets over a lot of wars to get to this point

Mm-hmm

And they're there

I think, you know, you speak about not getting any hate mail

I think what you are really such a beautiful example of is somebody who knows who they are, and I find that in general, but certainly within entertainment, people respect people who respect themselves

And I, and I think- Interesting you know, the way that you carry yourself and the way you always have been, I mean, and we'll get to it, your name, I'm like, you leaned into it very early on and said, "Hi, I'm Tovah

" Um, it, it's hard, y- you don't bully people like that

You, you bully, you bully the, the people who are afraid

I mean, think about a bully on the playground

You don't bully the confident person, the person who knows who they are

That's interesting, Jonah

That's very perceptive

You know what else? I've never been seduced in my career, even in my salad days

Seduced by? Uh, well, in those days

Do you mean by individuals or by, like, fame and opportunity? No, by men

By men

Yeah

By men at the audition

Hmm

Yeah

They're not gonna try it

By people, the people trying to advise me not to be so, uh, eh, representative of my intellect rather than my sexuality, and I'm very sexual to this day, and, uh, very, you know

It's just that, uh, it's, it's just interesting to me that nobody, nobody came onto me

I, I think it's very much the same thing

Yeah

Yeah

You go where, you go where you think there's gonna be, uh, well, that kind of a person preys on those where there's not gonna be a pushback

That's right

The path of least resistance

That's right

Not somebody who is strong and, and confident

And also, I think something else that you do well is you're, you're very loud in support of Israel, of Jewish causes, and other causes and things that are important to you and, and, like, it can be both

Gay, gay marriage, I was, I… Gay marriage, the gay community

You have the, the Feldshuh Fund for Women's Health

I do

So I mean, a- again, I think that's a great model

I think people feel like they, they're not able to do both, or that coming out in support of Jewish causes or Israeli causes, like, pigeonholes you in some way, and you're just, you're doing all the things that are important to you

Right, because the core of my belief system is still the, the mitzvah, the deed of loving kindness

I think one of the big fears around Saying anything today is, "Oh, it's gonna, it's gonna kill my career," right? "I'm gonna get black balled," blah, blah, blah

And then like here you are, have, you've made a whole career of playing amazing Jewish women all the time by being the person who's not afraid to own their Jewish identity

It's had you get incredible role and opportunity after role and opportunity

Was that ever a, a thought in your mind, like, "Oh, I hope I start getting Jewish roles or something because, like, I'm, I'm coming out here as Tovah Feldshuh," or it was just, "That's who I am and we'll see what happens"? Well, you know, Shakespeare says, "What's in a name? A rose by any other name would smell as sweet, so Romeo would, were he not Romeo called," from Romeo and Juliet

The truth is, uh, Jonah, at this point in our development as a society, everything's in a name

People are, are abbreviating everything

Mm-hmm

Everything

So a Tovah Feldshuh is different than a Bobby De Niro, but it's very clear who they are

Right

Or a Dustin Hoffman

Everything is in a name

So though I played Juliet for Jack O'Brien, Isabella in Measure for Measure, uh, Celia opposite D- Dame, uh, Eileen Atkins in, uh, As You Like It, et cetera, et cetera, what started to happen is that, as I said, people started to get siloed

So though I got Emmy nominations and Tony nominations for different ethnic groups, basically in my career, my breakthrough roles have still been Yentl and Helena Slomova in Holocaust and Golda, and then from that came Ruth

And of course, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, I got to play the Supreme Court justice

Yeah

It was a thrill

I was in chambers with her 'cause she was so kind and allowed me to, to meet her

I, I wrote her, and it had to be FedEx delivered and, you know, and it said, "I'm, I'm about to play you i- in this marvelous, uh, play by Jonathan Shapiro called Sisters-in-Law, and is there any way I could Zoom with you or…" And she said, "Zoom?" She said, "Be in my chambers

" And I flew immediately to Washington, and I said, "Madam Justice, how do you wanna be remembered? How do you wanna be thought of? Because I'm gonna be your theatrical voice out in the universe in this premiere of this play

" And she said I want them to know I'm funny

I said, I said, "Okay, babe, you're in great hands

" It was a riot

She was hysterical

In the summer of 2008, I went on my Birthright trip to Israel, a free 10-day excursion to the Holy Land with a bunch of excited fellow college kids

You think it's gonna be a standard vacation, soaking in the Dead Sea, parties in Tel Aviv, and it was that

But what I didn't realize was how on top of having a great time, it could actually change your life

There's an indescribable comfort of being in a place that's for us, our Jewish family from all over the world, and the magic of seeing thriving Jews living peacefully alongside other Israelis of all races and religions

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Now back to the show

You mentioned Holocaust

I wanna talk about this, this 1978 miniseries

You played a, a, a resistance fighter, Helena Slotova, uh, Emmy nominated for the role

And you know, I learned about this film not from researching your career, but I learned about it from a book called Revenge of the Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell

Ah

Have you heard about this- Yes … feature? So th- what Malcolm introduces is the notion that essentially this miniseries is what brought not just the word Holocaust into the lexicon, but the whole idea of it

Like up until the '70s, it wasn't really being spoken about, the, it wasn't being taught

It, there weren't all these museums

You know, it's something that people of my generation and even the one above me take for granted 'cause it's, since I've been born, these things have been around

Schindler's List came out in the '90s, whatever

But it really was not talked about so much in the 20 years following the war until this miniseries, which really cracked it wide open for everybody

H- how much of that impact were you aware of at the time? I mean, could you feel or hear or sense that- awakening happening, or it's only with a lot of distance of, of hindsight that you can see the impact? It's a wonderful question

In general, when you're doing a project, you don't know if you have a hit or a miss

Well, certainly on set you got no idea what you got

Just, just to back- backtrack, if you think that we thought Nobody Wants Us was gonna be number one in comedy, you're out of your mind

It's an old story

It's not a new idea, but it was so personal to Eron Foster, 'cause it was her life marrying Simon Tickman, and her mother-in-law is Russian

Mm

Much, much kinder, not with such a, an edge as I have, and not with so much fear

She's more lovely than I am

Anyway, but, uh, so we, we didn't know when you're in it

Same thing with Holocaust

We started to film it in the Vienna Woods, uh, uh, and we made that look like Czechoslovakia, various parts of Vienna

My family happens to be from Praterstrasse, so that was an emotional thing

And then the first two days of film were ruined in the labs

Mm

Yeah

So then we sent the film not to a Viennese lab, not to Austria

Not that we don't love Iowa, it's just more countrified

Sure

We sent it to Berlin and, and the film was properly developed

We didn't know what we had, and then it exploded

It was the second miniseries in the history of television, the first being Roots

And Marvin Chomsky directed Roots, and Marvin Chomsky directed Holocaust

Second miniseries ever? Yeah

Wow

Second grand minister, 15, 16 hours

Right

And, um, I remember I was, I had starred in Yentl

It was my first marquee, and I was packageable

I didn't even know what that meant, but they just handed me the role 'cause Meryl, Blanche Baker, myself, George Rose, I don't know if it was Jimmy Woods as well, but we were all with Milton Goldman and with ICM

Mm

And we were packaged

And Ed Limato, Ed Limato

We didn't know what we had, and then all of a sudden they changed the textbooks in Germany

That was the biggest thing, that, that Holocaust studies started to exist in Germany

And- How, how immediately after this coming on the air did you start to feel and see these changes and that impact? We were on the press junket for it

You know, we all went to New Orleans

We went to other places to promote it, but we didn't me- need much promotion

It was kinda like promoting The Lion King, you know what I mean? Yeah

People loved it

And when, when it came to… I remember being in Spain and people wanting to touch me and wanting to be with me, that it was an international event

Wow

My cousins in England, whom I didn't know existed, watched Holocaust, and they knew they were related to me, and that's how they started to close that gap

So it was a fantastic experience, and it was a big tikkun

I mean, Holocaust did a lot of good in the world

I mean, major

Yeah

Really, really rare to be part of something that truly moves the needle in such a meaningful way

Elie Wiesel came up to me

Uh, I, I had the honor of being a friend of his, or a fond acquaintance

And I remember it came out in '78

We filmed it in '77, 18 days after my honeymoon with Andrew

That's a- Went from, I went- … shift

I went from holding bouquets of roses to holding a rifle, and from a beautiful wedding gown at The Plaza to a, these fatigues

But he came up to me and he went, "Tova

" How could you do this? How could you do this? You, you, you reduced the Holocaust to a, to a soap opera

There is no language

I said, "Ellie, Ellie, listen to me

We're not doing this for you

We're doing this for the people in Wyoming that think that the Holocaust is the hora

" Right

We're doing it for people that don't even know what the word means

I said, "It's very important what this has happened, and I apologize, 'cause I know that it doesn't compare with Night and the books you wrote based on your actual experience

It doesn't compare with living in the sewers like Roman Polanski did to survive, but it's something

" And I agree with you, and I agree with Malcolm Gladwell, whom I love

Move the needle

I, I think s- sort of that dynamic that you just described happens a lot with Jewish content

I'm sure it happens with other people's content too, but I have, I see it on the Jewish side, where the Jews who know it intimately get upset about it

That's right

But it's not for them, as you said

It's, it's w- we're trying to reach a lot of people here, and so we have to start in elementary school, and, and I think a- people miss the, the point on that a lot

And if we've ever had a teacher who's taught us to start early, it's the Islamist radicals

You have one mother who says, "If you're not good, I'll throw you to the Jews," and you've lost the kid

Hm

So that's what they have, and they start with them at three years old, two years old

And they're in a patriarchal society where if certain women don't toe the line, they get beaten or stoned to death

Yeah

Sometimes, uh, on false accusations We're really up against it

The barbarians are at the gates and something has to be I don't know what we should do

Well, I will say, you know, as I've been beginning to film the first few episodes for this season, this topic has come up a lot

I mean, there are a lot of people who are voicing these concerns in a way that they've not before, which I think speaks to the urgency that people are feeling in this moment, because it really organically is coming up in pretty much every conversation

I also think that the American Christian society has awakened, I do feel, particularly in, in Texas where there are 150 mosques and whatnot, and, uh, places where the, the elbow room for the Judeo-Christian traditions are getting, um, squeezed

Mm-hmm

Getting squeezed

Before we move off of Holocaust entirely, I want, I wanna tie it to you in one other way

I, I learned that your father, Sidney, was one of the German-speaking Jewish GIs who interrogated captured SS men after World War II

After World War II, he interrogated the SS and the Wehrmacht to decide who went to Nuremberg

He was one of probably a few lawyers, and this was done on purpose by his general, Dwight David Eisenhower

Besides the fact that Dwight David Eisenhower said, "Film this because people will never believe this," in the liberation of the camps, "and they will deny it

Film it

" So we have the footage

But my father expected to come home at the end of the war, and he was kept till 19- into 1946

He was kept an extra six, seven months, and he chose his German-speaking, in my father's case, Harvard boys, Harvard lawyers, to interrogate these men

My father's German fluency in another language saved his life, so I speak four languages fluently because the message was, step inside the culture of other people

Speak their language

Speak their language

What are your four languages? French, Spanish, Italian, English, and then just my fifth is prayer book Hebrew

I'm not very good at conversational Hebrew

Yeah, that's a tough one

I lived at the old pond

That idea about being a global person was very Early inculcated in myself and in my brother, Dr

David Feldshuh, who's a PhD, was the head of theater at Cornell, and is an MD, emergency room expert, and wrote Miss Evers' Boys, which is an African American play about, um, the Tuskegee experiments, which got 12 Emmy nominations and won about six of them with Alfre Woodard and Larry Fishburne, and he's a pu- he's a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize

That's my older brother

My goodness

Yes

What a family

Just, just, just driven toward excellence, driven on a meritocracy and the idea that America offers everything to the, to, to an American, no matter what your religion is, as long as you wanna be American, wanna be in the United States

So we've talked a little bit about your dad, and we'll talk a little bit about your mom, Lily, who, uh, about whom you wrote a memoir- I did Lily Biddle

Uh, you said if she had told you she loved you a million times, maybe you wouldn't have gotten into theater

Do you still feel that way? My mother and I were like two trees a, a couple of acres apart

Her love language was very different than mine, so I thought she didn't love me

Mm

So I finally asked her when I was 18, and I entered Sarah Lawrence at 17, so 18 would've been my sophomore year, or at least the end of my freshman year

And I said, "Do you love me?" "Do I love you? What do you mean, do I love you? Who took you to all your lessons? Who took you to Rita Chase and at the veterans, uh, thing for you to do your, your modern dance? And who took you to Madame Olga Eisner at the Hotel Ansonia, lug you into New York? And who buys your clothes at Lord & Taylor's and Saks Fifth Avenue? We only go to Alexander's for underwear, remember that

" So my mother was a deed doer

She manifested her affection through deeds, and she was always there

The Friday ham sandwiches were always there

And I was more verbal

I had a father who would say, "Lily, she's arriving

She's arriving

She's walking in the house

" Aw

"She's walking in the hou- there she is

There's my angel cake

There's my angel cake

" So when I'm with my five grandchildren, I love them the way my father loved me

Mm

I just, they just have a home plate with their grandmother to take the abundance of love with them out into the world so that they have excess to give, to give to other people

That's beautiful

So as we've mentioned a little bit, but now we'll dig into, you were born Terry Sue

I was born Terry Sue

And then you decided to go by Tovah, and your mother said, "We didn't come to this country for you to call yourself Tovah

" That's right

W- what do you hear in that, and, and why go by Tovah? The idea, and of course my father said, "Lily, Lily

" He said, "Shh, shh, it's all right

It's, it's gonna be all right, Lily

It'll be all right

" Um, what I hear is the, the, my mother was one of four sisters, Rose, Nancy, Lillian, and May

And when I was going to name Brandon Benjamin, Benjamin Levy was going to be his name, "You're not calling that baby Benjamin

You know that, that putz of a cousin you've got in Brooklyn? The kid's gonna sound like he sells dungarees off of Flatbush Avenue

Forget it

Just forget it

There's gotta be another B word that will, that, that…" So we called him Brandon

Anyway, uh, my mother loved being American, and she was brought up in an era where she had to be Lillian Kay at the Bowery Savings at 72nd and Amsterdam, 'cause she earned her way through NYU

She worked and put herself through college, uh, where she took away the Hebraic sound of Kaplan- Mm … and became Lillian Kay

And then she did not go to work on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, and they did replace her

Wow

And her mother said, "Well, what did you do that for?" She was British

Mm

"Why did you do that?" She said, "Mom, I, I'd never even… Mama," they called her Mama, "It never had occurred to me not to abide by the Jewish holidays

" Which brings me to Golda

She said, "If they had attacked on Rosh Hashanah, we would've had a mess, but they attacked on Yom Kippur, and every Jew, no matter how non-religious, we know where they are on Yom Kippur

They're not at the beach

They're in the synagogue

" That's what happened I love that

Although I don't know how true that is today in Israel

A lot, you got a lot of… There's now a whole thing everybody's riding bikes on Yom Kippur

It's, uh, it's like the custom

Wild

Yeah

'Cause it's so, so many secular Jews there now

So many, yeah

Yeah

Just to close the loop on the Tovah of it all, why did you make that choice? The, which is so, so beautiful

It's literally the opposite of every other story you hear, which is, "How do I sound less Jewish?" You were like, "How do I sound more Jewish?" Well, Michael Fairchild loved the name and, and he made a meal out of that word

He went, "Tovah

" I mean, he practically ate the vowels of the O and the A

And also it meant good, so it gave me something to live up to

Terry was a bisexual name, which was not my thing

Mm-hmm

I mean… And also in French class there was no Terry

It was a man's name

So I was Thérèse

In Spanish class there was no Tere, so I was Teresa

I, the name never fit with anything

Hmm

And, um, when I became Tovah, it happens also to be a Danish name

So I got a fellowship to the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where the Scandinavians live, and they thought Tovah Feldshuh- … was a, was a local girl

You know what I'm saying? De-hi-de-hi-de-ho, de-hi-de-hi-de- T-O-V-E with like, and, and F-J with a slash and an E-D-S-H-U-H

And they just thought I was local

And, um, I didn't realize that the state of Israel would fall on my head when I got to New York, but it immediately brought me luck

And I think somehow the name Tovah for the love of Michael Fairchild, for love, not for religia, somehow must have been right in the center of the center of the core of who I was, ready to be born, reborn and, um, expressed

They were doing a piece called Dreyfus in Rehearsal with Ruth Gordon and Sam Levine, directed by Garson Kanin

And by that time, David Merrick really had- was a great fan of my work and asked me to be the standby for Bernadette Peters in Mack & Mabel, and I said, "Sir, I love you

" He also asked me to change my name

I said, "You probably asked Streisand to change her nose

" I remember we had lunch at Sardi's

Hmm

I said, "I love you, sir, but I'm not ever understudying or standing by ever again for my entire career," 'cause I did it for two years at the Guthrie, never went on, and you had to overprepare to go with something that would never happen

And if you made a mistake, you would be blamed for it

Hmm

I think it's the hardest show in bus- the hardest job on- Oh, yeah … in show business, the hardest job

And I, I don't wanna do it, you know? I already left piano 'cause I felt I was an also-ran, that I couldn't win concertos at National Music Camp

I'd get to the finals, and I couldn't win concertos

I said, "You gotta get out of here because you can't stand your own mediocrity

Go where you may not be mediocre

" And that's been a very driving force, I think, for my brother, David, and for me

This Dreyfus in Rehearsal, there's an actor in it named Miriam Poladnek who plays Lucy Dreyfus

It's about a Polish acting troupe

And I had said to Merrick, "If you give me a part, I will just, I will say yes

I'll be honored, but I'm not understudying

" David Merrick went to Garson Kanin, 'cause he was producing Dreyfus in Rehearsal, and said, "I got this kid, and I really believe in her, Tovah Feldshuh

Why don't you see her for the part of Miriam Poladnek? And Garson-- And why don't you audition her?" he said

And Garson said, "Tovah Feldshuh? Miriam Poladnek? With a name like that, she's gotta be right

" And he didn't audition me

He just gave me the part

Come on

He gave me the part

I met with him

I remember I wore Jessica Tandy's high-necked blouse from Three Sisters from the Guthrie that one of the costume mistresses had given me when I left that theater company in '73

And I, I met him, and he gave me that role of Lucy Dreyfus, and then from there, that, that show closed in two weeks at the Ethel Barrymore

It was my dramatic debut

Two scripts were given to me

I had an offer to be opposite Raul Julia in Where's Charley?, to be Amy

Once in love with Amy, always in love with Amy

And I said, "Well, of course, that, it's, uh, British, and it's WASPy

" And this script called Yentl the Yeshiva Boy came to the same backstage

Maybe somebody saw me in, in Dreyfus

And I was returning that script to my agent, Stark Hesseltine, at 119 West 57th Street on the 104 bus

I lived at 71st and Broadway

And when I got to his office, I said, "Is this part still open?" I couldn't put the script down

He said, "You gotta, you gotta get over there

You gotta get to Brooklyn and audition for this at the Brooklyn Academy

" And I said, "But what do we do? We've accepted Ted Mann in playing Amy

" He said, "I'll take care of it

You need, you need to go

" I said, "I feel dishonorable

" He said, "This happens all the time

" I remember I felt very nervous about accepting something and then backing out

And I went, and I got it

I got Yentl

I remember I wore a yellow robe and combat boots

I, I don't know, and a Fiddler cap that I, I don't even know where I got this stuff from

And I took my hair It was, you know, down my back at that time, but I put it up and then put, put the payos in

And we got that role, and Ruth came to me, Ruth Gordon, she was from Boston originally, she said, "Tova, darling, listen to me

Take Amy

You got… You know, take Amy, because you can do all these different things

And, you know, you wanna do My Fair Lady, and you wanna do all these different parts

And don't, don't, don't take Yentl

You just finished Miriam Polodnik

" And one agent, Marge Fields, was my commercial agent, he s- she said, "Tova, listen to me

Yentl is your show

Where's Charley? is Raul Julia's show

" Hmm

"You'd be the leading lady

" I said, "Yeah, well, but…" "Take Yentl

You never know what could happen to it

" So Yentl opens Off-Broadway in, in the black box of the Chelsea Theater at the time, and goes through the roof, and you couldn't get in

Cheryl Crawford, Victor Potamkin, and Mo Septa get involved

They take it to Broadway

And Where's Charley? was a revival

It ran a limited run, uh, at the Circle in the Square

And Yentl went through the roof

And, and that is my theory even about doing Golda's Balcony again, which I, I would do it

I would do it

I'm sure whoever it is will protect me, and that will be fine

And I'm sure the mayor will come up to the, um, to the standard, uh, of protecting every New Yorker in our fair city of New York

I would do it because the Jews are dying for this dialogue to happen in a theater Whether it's Liberation or Prayer for the French Republic, these various wonderful plays produced by Daryl and the Manhattan Theater Club, Daryl Roth

I think people are hungry for their truth to be expressed

I'll mention it quickly

You mentioned that, that kind of content

There's a play that's a- about to open on Broadway that I'm, I'm involved with behind the scenes called Here There Are Blueberries, which is a fabulous- I saw it … Holocaust play

You saw it? I saw it

Well, it's coming to Broadway

That's right

It's a limited run

It's fantastic

It's really great

So New Yorkers, make sure you catch that one

You've already taken us there

We're talking about Golda, we're talking about Yentl

You've played many amazing Jewish women, many who have moved history, and I wanna get into all of those

But before we do, let me remind you all to join the Kehillah, my insider community, because that's the only place you're gonna find this next part of my conversation with Tovah

You get weekly exclusive content like this, exclusive merch and discounts, free tickets to my live appearances, personal time with me, and a whole lot more

So after the episode, head to beingjewishpodcast

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Here comes a transition

Another big project that you have out now is a documentary about you and your life and career, Tovah, with French director David Serrero

You have all kinds of amazing people speaking about you, Oscar Isaac, Dustin Hoffman, Patti LuPone, Kristen Bell, my mother

Where did this film come from? Why is it coming out now? And, and who is it for? This man came up to me and he said, "Tovah, I want to make a documentary of your life and your work and what you do

" And I said Are you talking to me? Are you talking to me? Yes

I think you have a, you know, this is very, very interesting, and I just did this on Elie Tahari, and, uh, I'm from France, but, uh, you know, uh, if you could help me, I, it'd be wonderful

He didn't ever, never asked me for a dime

Has paid for my, you know, has taken care of, he and Sinai Temple, where the documentary will de- debut here in Los Angeles, have taken care of, of course, all my expenses and stuff

And he made this documentary based on my 50 years on Broadway, my love of philanthropy, the Felchu Fund for Women's Health, and the Felchu Broadway Ticket Fund at Sarah Lawrence

And my piece is about resilience and the ability, the most important thing, to stay the course, stay on the field of play, whether it's in marriage, or the role you're doing, or the philanthropy

You know, you start the Felchu Fund

I, I did, I didn't, I don't have inherited wealth

I'm completely self-made, as is Andy

And when you, you start these funds, you start out with $20,000

You don't expect to get $300,000, which for me is a lot of money

Yeah

So that can diagnose for free any woman in our business above, below, behind the scenes, on the stage, um, stagehands, anybody here in film and television

We have an OBGYN, uh, free examination to, uh, catch any kind of ovarian or reproductive cancer, God forbid, early

Amazing

And we pay for the C125 test

And most importantly, we can pay for those who are not insured

We can, I can pay that original $500, that deductible that they need to get into an insurance

Mm

And we have the advisors at the Friedman Health Center at 49th and 7th Avenue under the Entertainment Fund, you know, An- Annette Bening is, was the head of it, is the head of it now, actually, to advise, advise people

So he did this documentary, and like anything else, I didn't know what we had

And we've been invited to about 20 cities

I've been to Annapolis with the sailors

Wonderful

And of course, we're going to Charlotte

We're going to Palm Beach Gardens

We're here in Los Angeles

Uh, we're going all over the place

Arizona, perhaps Minneapolis, Columbus, Ohio- Wow … Rochester, New York

And I go with David whenever I can

I can't always go, but I go, and we, we show the documentary, then we have a Q&A, and then people love to buy Lilyville because it's, it's what you, it's, it's like your special half hour for the k- for your kehillah

That's how it was- Yeah, there you go

Right, right, right

Mm-hmm

It's the bonus content

It's the bonus content

It's the bonus if you wanna spend more time with me

So it's been a thrill because it's very hard to think badly about yourself after you see a documentary of this nature

Mm

You know? And I'm amazed with all my strong points of view I'm not really controversial in the sense that i- it's what you say

I don't get a lot of F you for my point of view about wanting to live, wanting to live as an American, and believing that the state of Israel has a right to exist

Where can people find the documentary? Well, at the moment, they can find it at these various festivals, which I will post

Do you have that on your website, like the calendar? Or how do people- Yes, you know what? … figure it out? I'm gonna put it on my website

There you go

Just go to tovafeltshuh

com, and where it says contact us, it, it, and you write me, it comes right into my personal email

Though the personal email isn't on the website, it will come

And I promise you, like I sign every fan letter and every eight by 10 that's sent to me, to get back to somebody who believes in my work

I will respond

You're gonna get a lot of requests f- for where is this documentary that I can go see

I'm telling you

Get, get your inbox ready

Okay

Thank you

Oh, yeah

It's ca- it's called Tova

Shocker

Oh, yeah, really

Yeah, a good name

I wonder what it's about

Yeah

My last question for you, and then we're gonna play a little game to finish things off

All right

Is there a Jewish story left that you still wanna tell? Well, I said to Scott Schwartz, one of my favorite directors, Steven's child- Mm-hmm … and the one who directed me in Golda's Balcony, Arsenic and Old Lace, The Prompter

I said I wanted to play a monarch, so we'd have to find, hopefully we'd have to find a woman

It'd be a little tough

Jewish female monarch

Yeah, it's rough

It's rough

All right

But it could happen

Writers get writing

When the Spirit says

Yeah, right

I would love to, if I knew how to write a pilot, I would love to write the pilot Lilyville

And I could play my mother because she was hysterically funny

Uh, I don't know if I told you this, but she was going deaf, and she came to every show I ever did

Wait a minute, Tova, I'm not gonna come see you in the Virginia monologues

I can't say the word

But four women in front of four music stands in black dresses talking about their tchotchkes, forget it

So if you're pretty in this movement and this color, give me a ring

So I took her to the actors benefit matinee of Hair starring Will Swenson

And at the end of act one, which I had forgotten, I saw it when I was a kid, you know, with Diane Keaton way back in the day

Mm

I think I was younger than even the, it was in Scarsdale High

At the end of act one, the cast comes out to the audience, and they straddle the armrests of various people, and they straddled, Will Swenson straddled my mother's armrest in his loincloth

He was over my mother like the Arch of St

Louis

And my mother's in this little St

John suit with a double strand of pearls and the, and the matching purse and the Ferragamo heels, and she's under his crotch, and she looks up, and she looks down, and she looks up

She looks down, and the house lights come up

I go, "Mommy?" "How did you like act one?" She said, "Like it? I haven't had sex like this since Daddy died

" And she was 100 years old

I mean, she was a pip

What a hoot

So I, I would love… That's one Jewish role I would love to do

I would love to play my mother in the series Lilyville, and I just have to find the right writer who's interested in coupling with me and, and doing it

Hopefully this was a good, uh- Thank you … a good little teaser trailer for, for some writer out there to come up with to get her

Thank, thank you for asking

All right, so we're gonna finish with a little game here

I usually like to end with a lightning round

And I wanna do them with you, but I, I would love for the various characters for which you're known to answer some of these questions, if that's all right

All right, I'll try

Okay

Beena, what's the most important Jewish holiday? The most important Jewish holiday to me, for me, Purim, because I could dress as a monarch

Your true self

Yes

Dr

Ruth, what's the key to a great night out with your spouse? The key to a great night out with your spouse, of course, is to end it with sex

So simple

Yeah, it's very simple

Justice Ginsburg, what is your go-to deli order? A Reuben sandwich

My mother loved it

Very lean corned beef, and the sauerkraut, and the melted cheese

Sure

And the Levy's Jewish rye

And when I was jumping from Ruth, roof to roof, when Ruth was jumping from roof to roof as a child, I remember my mother used to make those sandwiches

They were like jungles

They were like jungles

I really loved it, and I much prefer it to Judge Scalia's roadkill

Yentl, what's the most important lesson from the Talmud? Remember that, the Bubba Mitzvah

The most important message from the Talmud

Wow

Well, let me say, as a revolutionary, let me say that, that the women have to be entitled to Talmud scholarship equal to the men

Amen

Amen

Lena, I'm a Jew going to visit France

What precautions should I take? Well, of course I will, I will pack, uh- My weapons

We check them

Nobody bothers with me

They're in the belly of the, of the plane, if I'm in a public plane

But just a few things

Mm, little poison, little stiletto, maybe a very small gun

I'm a great shot

Golda, what would you like to say to the Israeli people in these trying times? Don't ever give up, because you can kill a person, but you cannot kill the spirit of man

And in life, you know, some people love you, and some people love you and show up

Israel shows up, and that makes all the difference

Tova, thank you so much

This has been fantastic

I'm so, so appreciative of your time and everything that you have done and are doing for the Jewish people, both through your work on screen, on stage, and off

Thank you so much

An honor to be here

Catch season three of Nobody Wants This on Netflix, season one of MIA on Peacock, and keep an eye out for a screening of Tova in your town

And if you wanna hear us talk about what MIA is and all of Tova's other iconic roles, don't forget to join my kehila over at beingjewishpodcast

com/support

All the cool kids are doing it

All right, that's it for me

I'll see you right back here for the next balcony-worthy episode of Being Jewish with me, Jonah Platt