Mayim Hoya Bialik is best known for her lead role as Blossom Russo in the early-1990s NBC television sitcom “Blossom” and now appears regularly on the #1 comedy in America, CBS' “The Big Bang Theory” playing neurobiologist Amy Farrah Fowler, a role for which she was recently Emmy-nominated.  Bialik was born in San Diego, California to first generation Jewish American parents, documentary film makers and teachers. She played the young Bette Midler in “Beaches” and also has had guest roles on some of television’s most beloved shows of the 1980s and 1990s, such as “MacGuyver,” “Webster,” “Facts of Life,” and “Murphy Brown.” She also appeared in Woody Allen’s “Don’t Drink the Water” in 1994, HBO’s “Fat Actress,” "The Secret Life of the American Teenager" as Counselor Bink, and in the HBO comedy series “Curb Your Enthusiasm.” 
 
Bialik earned a BS from UCLA in 2000 in Neuroscience and Hebrew and Jewish Studies, and went on to the Ph.D. program in Neuroscience, also at UCLA. She completed her doctorate in the Fall of 2007, which examined Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder in adolescents with Prader-Willi syndrome. Bialik was a dedicated student leader at UCLA Hillel, leading and starting a Women’s Rosh Chodesh group, chanting and blowing shofar for High Holiday services, and conducting and writing music for UCLA’s Jewish a cappella group.
 
She gave birth to her first son in 2005, and her second son (born at home, largely unassisted) in 2008. Bialik is an avid student of all things Jewish, studies weekly with several partners, and speaks all over the country for a variety of Jewish and academic organizations. 

She is devoted to a lifestyle of homeschooling, natural family living and vegan cooking. Her book about Attachment Parenting, Beyond the Sling, was published in  March 2012 (Simon and Schuster). She writes regularly for the Jewish parenting site Kveller.com and is proud to be one of the only prominent observant voices in the industry she so loves to be a part of.

 

I began the interview by asking Mayim to give me an idea of how she grew up Jewishly.

 

I grew up in a Reform house with parents who were the children of immigrants. My mom's father was Orthodox, but my dad grew up in a Reform home on Long Island. There were remnants of Orthodoxy in my home, but we mostly defined our Judaism as doing the right thing and working for social action.

 

I then asked how her observance grew.

 

I took on observance during college.  You know, Blossom never taped on Fridays, but if it had, I don't think I would have noticed in those days.  I didn't have an awareness of Shabbat.

 

How does your observance affect your career? Have you had any bad experiences being an observant Jew in Hollywood?

 

While Hollywood is certainly a place where most Jews don't observe, I haven't been the victim of any overt anti-observance prejudice.  The big issues have been calendar and tzniyas issues. (Tzniyas are the laws of modesty in Judaism.  They dictate how one is supposed to dress and also govern certain aspects of interaction between the sexes.)  

 

For example, I have been asked to wear pants on the Big Bang Theory, but we have always been able to work around it. A friend said some rabbis rule that if you wear pants but have a shirt over it that covers your bottom, it can be considered not as bad as if your bottom was not covered, so I wore a long shirt that came over my bottom but still had to wear pants as the script required. 

 

I think the industry, like many aspects of our society, has little concentration on religion. Many of the people are spritual, without being religious. They are politically liberal and socially liberal and that does not always jive with being traditionally religious.

 

You know, I resist the term Modern Orthodox because there are things I  won't do. For example, I do kiss and hold hands with Jim Parsons on the show. One Orthodox rabbi told me that this was okay because it was part of my job, but I still say that I'm on a journey, and do not refer to myself as an Orthodox Jew.

 

Have there been any complaints by people in the Jewish community about the fact that you are on a show which has an intermarriage between the characters of Wolowitz and Bernadette, and so many Jewish jokes?

 

Not about Wolowitz and Bernie (and the irony is that both actors are Jewish) but some people have been upset about the stereotype of Wolowitz and his mother.

 

Do you have any fears about finding work after "The Big Bang Theory" given your religious observance?

 

No, I don't worry about that. I think there will always be roles for me, and if there isn't, I still wouldn't change anything.