GOLDA Girls

Good Hair, Good Books with Zibby Owens

• GOLDA Media • Episode 6

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GOLDA founder Stephanie Butnick and her co-hosts—journalist Gabby Deutch, novelist Esther Chehebar, and Rabbi Diana Fersko—untangle our Jewish relationship with our hair: from the flat-ironing to the chemical straightening and the embrace of natural curls. “Totally Booked” podcaster and publisher Zibby Owens joins the GOLDA Girls to share her summer reading picks and help answer a listener question.   


Zibby’s Summer Reading Picks: 

Forty Love, by Jane Costello https://go.shopmy.us/p-61258518 

The End of My Life Is Killing Me: The Unexpected Joys of a Cancer Slacker, by Annabelle Gurwitch https://go.shopmy.us/p-61258621 

Enormous Wings, by Laurie Frankel https://go.shopmy.us/p-61258692 

The Lost Mozart, by David K. Israel https://go.shopmy.us/p-61258845 

With Friends Like You, by Amy Chozick https://go.shopmy.us/p-61258983 

The Half Life, by Rachel Beanland https://go.shopmy.us/p-61259683 

Breathing Under Water, by Jacqueline Friedland https://go.shopmy.us/p-61259804 

(Zibby’s new book, Between Chapters: How I Started Over, Took Some Chances, and Found the Plot, will be out in September. You can preorder it here.)


GOLDA Girls’ Summer Reading Picks:

Stephanie: Like Wafers and Honey, by Leah Eskin https://go.shopmy.us/p-61259961 

Esther’s pick: Long Island Girls, by Gabrielle Korn https://go.shopmy.us/p-61260781 

Gabby: I Feel Bad About My Neck, by Nora Ephron https://go.shopmy.us/p-61260758 

Diana: The Book of Psalms (Check out the Jewish Publication Society’s 2002 translation or scholar Robert Alter’s 2009 translation with commentary) 

Jewish Book Council’s Pick: The World Between, by Zeeva Bukai (Kate Schmier, Director of Publishing Relations, Jewish Book Council)


Recommended by Esther: T Shirt Shoppe https://shoptshirtshoppe.com/

This week’s Good for the Jews picks: 

Stephanie: 90210 star Ian Ziering’s daughter’s bat mitzvah.

Gabby: The giant green pickle announcing the arrival of the U.K’s first Jewish culture month.

Esther: Tsion Cafe in Harlem, run by chef Beejhy Barhany.

Diana: New York City’s Israel Day Parade this weekend.


Sponsors:

GOLDA Girls is presented by Nu Reads, a new Jewish book subscription series curated by the Jewish Book Council that brings remarkable literature straight to your door. Use code NuGolda at checkout for 15% off your subscription. Visit NuReads.org to get started today.

This episode is also sponsored by: 

  • The Mindich Fellowship for Jewish Fiction, part of Miami Book Fair’s Emerging Writer Fellowship. If your novel or fiction project centers Jewish life, culture, or themes, this is an incredible year-long opportunity to develop that work in community. Apply by May 31, 2026 at miamibookfair.com/program/emerging-fellows/.
  • Joyva, a fourth generation family business that crafts tahini, halvah and confections in Brooklyn, NY. Get your deliciousness today.


GOLDA is a Jewish lifestyle destination built around one idea: making Jewish life bright, beautiful, and full of meaning. Subscribe to our newsletter at www.goldaguide.com and follow GOLDA on Instagram at @goldaguide.

GOLDA Girls is a production of GOLDA Media. Our executive producer is Ariel Shapiro. We’re edited by POLDHU. 


You can listen to GOLDA Girls on:

Leave us a review and we’ll send you a GOLDA sticker! Email a screenshot of your recoew to hi@goldaguide.com. 

Stay GOLDA. 

Intro

SPEAKER_02

Before we get to today's show, I want to tell you about our presenting sponsor. New Reads is a Jewish book subscription series that brings remarkable literature straight to your door. I'm still thinking about Porcupines, the latest pick from debut author Fren for Brisky. Check out her interview in the GoldenGirls feed. I can't wait to see what's arriving in my next New Reads box. It's all curated by our friends at the Jewish Book Council. With New Reads, you're not just getting books, you get exclusive access to experiences with authors and a community built on a shared passion for Jewish storytelling. Newreads is offering Golda Girls listeners 15% off their subscription. Just use the code NewGolda at checkout. Visit Newreads.org, that's n-u-re-a-d-s.org to get started today. Welcome to Golda Girls, the podcast for Jewish women with a lot to say. And it turns out the many people who love us. So welcome to all. I'm Stephanie Butnik, the founder of Golda, a Jewish lifestyle newsletter based on one idea that Jewish life should be bright, beautiful, and full of meaning. How novel! But I'm joined on Golden Girls This Week and always by three fabulous hosts. The Golden Girls are Jewish Insider Senior National Correspondent Gabby Deutsch. Hello, I'm so glad that there are many people who love us. We're also here with Rabbi Diana Fersko. Love my girls. And novelist Esther Chehabar. Hello, Steph. Hi, everybody. Today on the show we have writer, publisher, and podcaster extraordinaire Zibi Owens, who will be joining us in a bit to talk about the Jewish books of summer. We'll also be sharing our own reading recommendations and answering a listener question. And of course, getting to what's good for the Jews this week. But first, before we even get to the rest of the show, Gabby, I'm friends with your mom on Facebook. It's one of the great joys of my life seeing all her updates. But this weekend I saw something that made me sad for you, which is that it appears that your entire family is in France on vacation together without you. Do you know this?

SPEAKER_01

Stephanie, I know this. Thank you so much for noticing. I I'm I'm delighted that I have the Golden Girls to care for me and for my well-being while my parents, my sister and her husband, my brother and his fiancee are all together in Paris. But just so Was it like a home alone situation? Did they forget you or did they do it on purpose? So uh I want to clarify two things for our listeners. First, I I am an adult, I live by myself, and um, I don't just go wherever my parents tell me, even though it would be really nice to be in Paris right now. And second of all, there there are good reasons for this, even though I'm having a great deal of FOMO and angst. Essentially, my parents and my brother had plans to go to Paris for the wedding of one of my brother's closest friends. And then my sister and her husband were in Europe for a wedding in Portugal of a friend of theirs. So they're all at the wedding together. They're sending me a lot of texts reminding me that I am not forgotten. So my life continues, all is well.

SPEAKER_02

I'm glad to hear you're doing okay.

SPEAKER_01

But thank you for checking on me. Um, I feel loved, and I hope that all of you had a great long weekend and shuo to those who celebrate.

SPEAKER_00

I feel like there should be some sort of etiquette. Like I was gonna ask if your family was still spamming like the family group chat with photos, or if they were like holding back so that you don't feel bad. But it sounds like they're sending a lot of photos. So make me angry.

SPEAKER_01

Stephanie is not in the family group chat, unfortunately. She did she did just see this on Facebook where the photos were shared to the world. And one of these pictures was sent in our extended family group chat with my mom's two brothers and their kids. Oh, wow. And um, I responded and I said, just so everyone knows, yes, the rest of my family is in Paris without me. And then both of my parents quickly responded in all caps, like, we love you, we miss you. And I'm like, I know, it's all good. It there's reasons for it. I just have to make them feel a little bit bad for it in the meantime.

SPEAKER_02

This does make me think of the many family group chats I'm on, and I'd like to list them here because I I think there is something to be dissected. There is, um, there's the one that's me, my sister, and my parents. So, like the core, the yeah, the former core, but the core. There's one that's me, my mom, and my sister, um, which has like a funny name and my dad's not in. Um, there's also one with our husbands. It's much, much less used. That is for like if we're all trying to get to the same place and like need like the husbands need to be involved. It's logistical. Um, it's logistical, yes.

Embracing Jewish Hair

SPEAKER_02

So let's get into the things we can't stop thinking about. We will have Zivi Owens joining us in a bit, talking summer books. But the first thing that I can't stop thinking about started on my walk to the office this morning. Um, we had like a very rainy memorial day, but I think it's officially like it almost seems like summer now because I it's a sweltering day in New York City. There was only one thing I was thinking about on the walk to work today, which was my hair. I had done it in the morning, I'd blow dried it. I have an event tonight, and you better believe that I have a flat iron here with me because I knew there was no way whatever I did in the morning would hold to the evening with like the weather and the humidity. But I do feel like when I think about hair, it is for me very much wrapped up in Jewishness. Like when I was blow drying my hair this morning, I that smell of like blow drying hair brings me back to like the bunks at summer camp when we would get ready for socials with the boys. Like all of us would be straightening this like incredibly long hair and we'd blow the fuses. There's so much to discuss here. I'm throwing it out to you. I wonder like, is this resonating? Is this hitting on anything, or am I just obsessed with making things Jewish?

SPEAKER_00

No, it's it's too much. It's resonating too deeply.

SPEAKER_01

I knew you were gonna say the bunks at Suboy Camp. Like, that is the most important thing. You knew I was going there. Like smell, sound, everything about that. I I will also say, I think I probably have like the largest hair of the Golden Girls, um, thickest, craziest, currently in a bun. We've had days of rain here in Washington, DC as well. So my mom had once upon a time also large, curly, frizzy Jewish hair that over time has sort of mellowed out through a combination of all the different hair treatments and straightening and whatnot. Her life's mission was to help me figure out how to get control over my hair. And it was her life's mission because it took a really long time. And so when I was a kid, and I was I was a pretty self-conscious kid, I would say we would be out at like a restaurant and we'd see a waitress who had, you know, either she had good curls or maybe her hair was up and like a really cute messy bun. And my mom would say, Can you come over here? And what are you what do you do to your hair? Over, over and over again. Um, one time we were on an airplane and we landed and we were at baggage claim, and there were these women from our flight who had like great curly hair, and they I don't remember if they were holding their product or my mom just asked them about their hair. It turned out she just opened their suitcase. No, they pulled out this product called kosher curls, curls with a K. Uh, and I started using it. That's not the product I still use. My my current hair journey begins uh about almost 10 years ago when I was in college. I was home for winter break and we were at our synagogue in Boca, and there's this woman who has like gorgeous curls. And my mom goes up to her after the service and says, What do you do to your hair? What's your technique? She went to this salon called WeDad, and this is not paid advertising. I will promote them until the day I die. We Dad O U I D A D. It's a style of haircut, it's a type of product, it's a lifestyle, some might say. It's also actually a person, that's her name, WeDad. She is a Lebanese woman. And days later, I was at their salon in Fort Lauderdale. My dad drove me there. It was like a three-hour situation where, you know, they give us glasses of champagne. They ask me about what I do to my hair. But I will just say before stepping off of my hair soapbox, you know, I had this like huge hair, super frizzy. I grew up in Florida. It was so humid. I never knew what to do with it. And now I get people coming to me all the time who have straight hair who are like, oh my God, I'm dying to have hair like yours. And I feel a little bit of um it's a little bit like I'm getting my revenge hearing that from them. Um, but so much of it is just internalized. And Stephanie, you said this thing about being at camp and everyone blowing out their hair. And that's like so much a part of the Jewish culture, right? The the big hair, but then also trying to get it under control to tame it, right? There are these stereotypes.

SPEAKER_02

I feel like I want to hear from everyone. I just want to dive down into this idea of like good hair was straight. Like that, you you said that. Like there was there's like this weird way in which you were like we're aspiring to a standard. And I just want to complicate this because I do feel like there's a broader, like American beauty, conventional beauty standards. But then there's like this my favorite phrase on this podcast, this like intra-Jewish standard, where like I'm assuming all the girls in your camp bunk are Jewish, right? Um that's right, they're all doing their hair one way and like straighten your hair to appear more like everyone there. And so, like, I'm wondering, like, we're operating on two different planes here in terms of like expectations and standards.

SPEAKER_04

For me, the first time I really encountered this, and I agree with you, Steph, like about like the sort of like coveting of straight hair was in college. And that's when I first uh understood the smell of burnt hair, you know? And it was like holding the and oh, and by the way, shout out to all my college besties who listen to this podcast. I love you. Um it was basically, you know, they would hold the flat iron on their hair for like a really long time. And then we'd be watching friends, and it'd be a commercial break, and I would get up, blow dry my hair for five seconds, come back, it would be perfectly straight, and they were just like so exasperated at me. Like, oh my gosh, how dare you? This is so unfair, you know. Honestly, um so I totally get that. I do feel like though, like the whole curly hair thing, totally like there was some kind of revolution, and like it's no longer like that bell-shaped thing that used to happen when I was a kid. Now it's like curly hair is all the rage, and there's like devon, and there's like scrunching, and there are good products, and like you know, curly hair is kind of to me like a lot more acceptable and like admired than it was when we were kids, and I'm all for it.

SPEAKER_00

Diana, just harping back on something you said, I think one of the markers of like, you know, like flat art in your hair, I remember going into high school. So I think like I started all of this, like the treatments and like way earlier. Um, you waited into high school to start? I don't even know. So I think like we're all about that in middle school. From middle school, yeah, middle school. No, but like you would come to school and the girls instead of having hickeys on our neck, we'd have burn marks from the flat iron. Yep. From I vividly remember having a conversation with my mother saying, like, you cannot use a flat iron until you're 15. Like the same way like parents had rules around like drinking and or like driving or leaving that you're piercing. We had like you can't touch the flat iron until like I feel that you are ready to in Brooklyn on Avenue U. It was like the epicenter of Chinese hair salons, and you would go there and a blowout would be like $12, and you'd go there on Friday, and it would be packed. And I promise you, this smell of burned hair wafted out of it, it went miles and miles and miles. And like you wanted your hair to be burned, right? You wanted to get that like uber straight look. Um, and then of course, like we graduated to like the formaldehyde and all of the treatments that are definitely terrible for us, um, which most of my friends and everyone I know still does. But Gabby, something you said really resonated with me. I think like the level of commitment you had to like your hairstylist and like those products, like I see that with not just hair on your head, but I see it with like like my friends and like women with their eyebrows. Like you find somebody who can shape your eyebrows properly, whatever the technique might be for me. Does that hurt though? I'm so used to it. You sneeze a lot because there's so many nerves on your life.

SPEAKER_02

Oh my god, why is that?

SPEAKER_00

I always sneeze when I get my eyebrows waxed. It's the it's the nerves, it's like the tiny little nerve endings. But um, I've been told it hurts a lot, but I'm just I've been doing it since I'm like 14, so I'm I'm used to it. Um, but in my opinion, like the best way to shape your brows, but you stick to that person, you find that person, and you are committed. It's a marriage, right? It's for life.

SPEAKER_02

So I'm in a relationship right now with Narit on West 92nd Street. She's Israeli. I just, it's amazing, and she gets me and we chit-chat about it. I love being in this Israeli woman salon. So, Esther, you're talking about deep in Brooklyn on Fridays, women are girls and women are getting their hair done. This is for Shabbat, right? Like this is part like it's part of the ritual of going into like a Jewish weekend.

SPEAKER_00

There's a grooming aspect, right? That goes into preparing for the weekend. So if you come to Brooklyn on a Friday, that is your like as a woman, that is your grooming day. So like you're getting your manicure, you're doing your eyebrows, you're blowing out your hair. Um Stephanie, what you said. So I go to a Lebanese woman to do my um eyebrows. Her name is Rosie. Shout out to Rosie, she's the best. She works deep in Brooklyn on Avenue U, where I see a gold girls field trip in our future.

SPEAKER_04

Avenue U. Here we come.

SPEAKER_00

No, I don't go in the summer when it's vacated because you'll probably have a panic attack. She works in Avenue U and she is not Jewish. I believe she's Christian, she's Lebanese Christian, but you walk in there and she speaks Arabic. She has like three or four other women who work for her who are all speak Arabic. And a lot of people from my community also speak Arabic, and you walk into this place, and it's this just incredible to me. I think, especially now, just with how we view our relations with the Arab world as Jews. But I don't know, I was there the other weekend on a Friday, and I just had this profound sense of appreciation for like not the pettiness, but just the lightness of like walking into this space. I'm here to get my eyebrows done, I'm here to like gossip a little bit, I'm seeing you, I'm seeing you. Everyone's talking in Arabic, some people are talking in English, and everybody is from a different background, right? Um, and I think we're just all bonding over, wanting really good eyebrows.

SPEAKER_04

I once had a conversation with the wedding dress designer, Panina Tornay, who's Israeli, and she said the exact same thing, Esther. She was like, you know, I'm not saying I can achieve world peace through wedding dresses. She was like, but there is something there where just these rituals like transcend cultural barriers. We all want to look our best. Here's this cultural space where we can just like be ourselves and, you know, talk about our eyebrows and not feel pressure.

SPEAKER_02

I also think that this does bring us in concert with a lot of other types of women, right? Because curly hair transcends cultures. And I think what's so interesting is like along with the Renaissance in taking care of curly hair, the internet and Devachon making it much easier to care for curly hair, there also has been an embrace of natural hair across cultures. We are in a place where people are embracing, first of all, calling things Jewish, right? Saying, like, I love my Jewish nose, as opposed to like, I'm fixing my Jewish nose and keeping it, right? And I think curly hair is a part of that, like taking back of things that we were told we had to fix to fit in in America, to fit in as Jews. And I kind of love this idea that like we are part of the story of women saying, like, I don't want to keep doing these rituals anymore. I want to figure out how to wear my hair curly. I'm gonna stop trying to tame it into submission.

SPEAKER_04

I have to say, as a blonde-haired, blue-eyed Jewess, I totally agree with what you're saying, Stephanie. And I actually feel a little like envious sometimes. Like when I look at like Israelis with like that huge curly hair that's everywhere, and they're probably wearing like some crazy pair of pants, and they're probably like outside in nature being happy. Like, it makes me a little bit like, oh, I'm I'm actually like left out of like the freedom that's happening in the curly haired universe. But you know, I'll live.

Summer Reading with Zibby Owens

SPEAKER_02

We could talk about hair forever, but we do need to get to our next topic, and that is our summer reading list. All the books we need to be reading this summer. For this one, I brought in a ringer. Zibi Owens is the host of the podcast Totally Booked with Zivi Owens. She's the publisher of Zibi Books and runs Zibi Bookstore in Santa Monica. She's also the editor of the collection on Being Jewish Now and a great advocate for Jewish writers. Zibi Owens, welcome to Golden Girls.

SPEAKER_03

Thank you. I'm so excited to be here. This is awesome.

SPEAKER_02

It feels very natural that you're here. Like this is like a really, like a real synergy moment.

SPEAKER_03

And by the way, until you said that, I hadn't even thought about this as like the Golden Girls, but obviously that's the joke. So why it took me that long, I don't know.

SPEAKER_02

But anyway, perfect. So, Zibi, your like to be read pile is always huge, right? Like you are reading constantly, you're interviewing authors constantly. Like, what is your secret? How do you do it? Uh, I don't sleep very much.

SPEAKER_03

Um, so that's good. I don't know. I read some books really slowly and some books really quickly. Uh, I am always reading like five books at once, and I love it. It's like, how do you speed through all that music you listen to? Or like, I don't know, because you love it. You just do it. It's part of the day. So that's how I view reading. It's just part of what I do.

SPEAKER_02

So as a reader, and now as a publisher, like, what is it that for you that makes a good book? Is it like a moment that it hits you? Like, because imagine that's what a publisher does, right? You read manuscripts and you find those nuggets that you're like, this is it, I need to publish this. But that also is like something you must have cultivated as a reader long before you became a book publisher.

SPEAKER_03

I love stories that not only make you think and feel, but sort of help in some way, not in an overt, self-helpy way necessarily, and but more that by the time you finish reading them, they've connected to you on such an important, like, soulful level that like it take you take something with you when you leave, and it's your life is somehow better. I mean, that sounds very heavy-handed, and it could just be because you had a laugh or because you were thinking about something a little bit differently. So I feel like I'm always looking for books that have that extra little something that that make me feel deeply.

SPEAKER_04

I I can just like echo that because I've read a number of the books that you've published. And um, for me, it's like for many of them, I see shades of myself or people I know reflected in them, but also with like a challenge or like a thought piece, you know. It's like uh something that speaks to you because it reflects your actual life, but there's also something, you know, there's something substantive there. Thank you. You said that much better than I did.

SPEAKER_03

I'm just gonna take you with me on the road here. Well, I mean, that would be a joy. Let's do that.

SPEAKER_02

And Diana, are you in Zibby's collection on being Jewish now?

SPEAKER_04

Yes. So Queen Zibi has treated me to several opportunities, like she has for so many authors. And it's just like amazing to see you lifting up writers, especially mostly women writers. When I had my book out, and it came out just before October 7th, Zibby was one of the first to have me on her podcast. And then she came up with this idea to do an anthology called On Being Jewish Now, which became, you know, a bestseller for many, many, many weeks. And I was lucky enough to contribute an essay to it. And that's actually become its own sort of micro community of writers and creators. And that's, you know, besides the book itself, like that's been one of the most fun offshoots of the being in the collection.

SPEAKER_03

I'm so happy that you contributed. You were amazing. It was so funny that you had not funny, but just so timely to have a collection on let's talk about anti-Semitism right before everything happened. It's like, I you're like, I told you, this is what you should be talking about.

SPEAKER_04

I wrote it down for everyone. I tried.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, yeah. Zubi, I gave you sort of a tough task, which is to come to us with some summer reading selection. Summer reading can be anything, obviously. Um, it just something that feels right for the mood or is is new for the summer. Um that had sort of a Jewish twist in some way, right? Is there a Jewish author? Is there a Jewish storyline? And I know that's like a lot, that's like a lot to throw at you, but you delivered and you were here today to share the goods with us.

SPEAKER_03

Yes, it was a fun challenge, but I think about books all the time. So it was it was a joy. First, I'm gonna talk about two books that I published. And since I'm a Jewish person publishing, I feel like it counts, right? For sure. It counts. Our most recent book that just came out is called 40 Love by Jane Costello. She's a best-selling UK author, and this has all the things I was talking about. It's funny, it's immersive, entertaining, made me laugh, but also has a message, which is what do we do with the next chapter of our lives? It's about a woman who is a recent empty nester, and she decides to take up tennis at the local tennis club nearby where she promptly reunites with an old flame. Uh, you don't have to love tennis to love it. So, anyway, that's the first one. Um, and then before that, we published The End of My Life is Killing Me: The Unexpected Joys of a Cancer Slacker by Annabelle Gerwich. This is about Annabelle's experience with stage four cancer, but she is like a comedian and an actress, and it's about how she doesn't want to achieve all the bucket list stuff. And do we have to do cancer that way? And can't she just like go out and eat lots of bread and hang out with like her new boy toy and all of that? So, um, so that one I highly recommend short, funny essays, uh, but about something very serious. And then I have a bunch of books that will be coming on my podcast. One already came out in May called Enormous Wings. Wings by Lori Frankel. So clever. It's about a woman who's reluctantly moves into an old age home when she feels like she still has plenty of time left to live at home, but her kids are insistent that she go. And while she's there, she gets in a relationship with the man in the room next to hers and unexpectedly in her 80s becomes pregnant. And I didn't see it coming. It's so funny. Her kids are horrified. It becomes a media spectacle. And she has to decide sort of how to handle it and what to do. And what does it mean to give birth such so late in life? So it has a lot of um really interesting themes and topics and motherhood and family. Um I I adore Laura Priefle, by the way. Everyone should read all of her books. She's really uh one of my favorites. Uh okay, David K. Israel also contributed to On Being Jewish Now, and he wrote a book called The Lost Mozart. It's a novel about a man who loses his Mozart masterpiece and has to go on all these hilarious adventures to try to find it. It's really well written. Funny. But anyway, um if you like music, if you are interested in the lengths you'll go to get to something you want and not let obstacles get in your way, then this is a book for you. With Friends Like You by Amy Chosick. It is her first novel. And while she was pregnant, she got an assignment as a journalist to research some strip clubs and thought the intersection of being pregnant and like investigating sex workers was a really interesting intersection. So she ended up writing a novel about a woman whose best friend gets caught up in this and she has to go searching for her. Rachel Beenland, uh, who won the National Jewish Book Award for Florence Adler Swims Forever, and this is a new book of hers. Don't be intimidated. It's about a woman who moves with her military husband to Sardinia, gets embedded in the culture, and gets up to some interesting things. It's really about a coming of age for a young woman. And then the last one is Jackie Friedland's Breathing Underwater, a dual narrative about two women, but I'm running out of time.

SPEAKER_00

I was on Zippy's podcast. There was an instance where at the end you asked me if I was working on a second book, and I was like, at the time, just like floating ideas around in my head, but I'm also obsessed with tennis, as my Golden Girls know. And I had a premise of a book about tennis, and the title was not 40 Love, but it was Love 40. And Zivi was like, oh my god, like I'm releasing a book called 40 Love in May. So it had to change around the title a little bit. But now it's funny to hear you say that you also wrote a book, 40 Love, and I just think, like, hey, great title. Um, I'm so excited about it. Wait, what's your new title? It's called The Protege. So when I had my first book come out, I had not known another writer in a professional setting, seriously, at that point. And Zibby had myself along with a bunch of other writers or a most anticipated book author event. I remember like walking out of that event and feeling so full, so confident also, because I'd been so nervous and had I still have this extreme sense of imposter syndrome.

SPEAKER_03

But you may thank you for everything you do for first-time author, seasoned authors, your well, I loved having you there, and it's been so fun to watch your star just shine ever since.

SPEAKER_02

So, can I add one to the list? Because I love all of these, but there's a book that I've been reading that came out recently that I'm really obsessed with. It's called Like Wafers and Honey, and it's by Leah Eskin. She's a longtime Chicago Tribune food columnist. This is her first novel. It's like a dual-story novel, uh, one about like this town in Italy that used to be called Little Jerusalem. It's called Petigliano. So a story of like 1943, the Fortuna family, um, a Jewish family in the 1940s. We all sort of know where that story is going to end up. Creeping fascism, all that stuff, what they do, how they leave. And then it's intertwined with the story of a real life woman, Etta Servi Macklin. She wrote the classic cuisine of the Italian Jews. She really brought this idea of Jewish Italian food to the United States. And I'm like, this is the perfect, perfect book for summer. And it makes me hungry all the time. Gold gals, what do we want to add to Zibi's list?

SPEAKER_00

Okay, I am really excited about Gabrielle Korn's new book coming out in June called Long Island Girls. Ooh. A huge music buff, as you may have noticed. And this book is a coming-of-age story set against the early 2000s indie music scene. Um, sounds incredible. Gabrielle Korn knows her music. She was like previously an editor at Nylon magazine, and this is not her first book, but uh sounds really cool. So, and that's coming out next month, and I'm really excited for it. Oh, look at the cover. Oh my god, I can't wait to read this. The cover is amazing. Like the colors, it has like a euphoria feel to it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

I also love a book that's about like my dis like our the generic moment that you are part of, which is like early aughts. Like, and that doesn't happen often, but it's happening more and more, and I really love that. Um I'm gonna add that to my list.

SPEAKER_04

Um well, I think I maybe misunderstood the assignment a little bit because uh I thought I was supposed to say something I'm excited to read this summer. So I will I'm excited to read the book of Psalms. So this is my sincerity.

SPEAKER_02

I love you so much.

SPEAKER_01

Dan is holding her like little book of Tahilum, like walking.

SPEAKER_04

This is my sincerity. So unfortunately, it starts with a bad thing, which is somebody I know how to fall, and a member of their family organized a Tehillim WhatsApp group, which is where as a group you read a psalm and you put like what number psalm? So you're like 98, and then someone chimes in like 99 through 102, and you just keep going and going, going, because the psalms are traditionally used as a way to provide like comfort and healing to somebody in need. So because of that, I kind of like revisited the psalms a little bit. Like I got 89 and I was like, oh my gosh, 89, look at this thing. And then um I started leafing through it, and I was like, this I have to do another deep dive into the Psalms. So I'm not sure this is like a Zivi podcast um recommendation. Like I don't think you'll be featuring the book of Psalms. However, um, I do recommend that people take another look at it. They're short, they're powerful, they're subversive, they're angry, they're emotional, they're comforting. Um, so my summer wreck is the book of Psalms, and that's just what's happening.

SPEAKER_02

That's the most amazing, most Diana Pic ever. I love it. This is a dumb question. Can I buy the book of Psalms? Like that's just what it's called. I'd buy a book of Psalms.

SPEAKER_04

That is not a dumb question, and you can you can buy it in many different ways. You can buy just the Psalms, which are also called Tahilim or Tahilim, depending on where the heck you're from. And um, or you can buy a Tanakh, like the whole Bible, which has the book of Psalms in it.

SPEAKER_01

I don't I don't want to brag, but um, I'm opening my deskto right now. I was recently in LA and I passed a Chabad rabbi and he asked, well, he didn't even need to ask, Are you Jewish? Because of everything about me and like my Jewish star necklace. And um Well, he heard our conversation about your hair, so that's right. My hair, I was having a good hair day. Um, and he wanted to give me Shabbat candles, but he had run out. So he just hands me his book of Tehlim, the Chabad Rabbi's Tehilim. And it's been sitting in my in my desk uh drawers ever since then. There's no English in here, so it's not great for me. Um, but I have felt like special and a little holier since that interaction. Um, I'll add a book to the mix, also not a new book, but not quite as old as the one Diana said, which is I recently reread Nora Efron's iconic work of essays called I Feel Bad About My Neck, which is just one of the greatest works of nonfiction ever written. It's a bunch of short little essays and vignettes, um, a lot of it actually about beauty standards, a la, our earlier conversation. Um, it's not new. It came out 20 years ago. It is so fabulous, completely holds up. And um Zibby perhaps would not listen this way, but I listened to the audiobook, which Nora herself reads. So I just would highly recommend that while you are walking around your summer vacations.

SPEAKER_03

By the way, when I read that when it came out 20 years ago, I thought it was a joke. Like, of course, nobody feels bad about their neck, but now I'm like, oh yeah. Okay, okay. That wasn't a joke.

SPEAKER_02

Oh, this is like a perfect list. We're gonna write it out, we're gonna put it in the show notes. And Zivi, you have a book coming out soon too.

SPEAKER_03

I have a new book coming out September 22nd. It's called Between Chapters. How I started over, took some chances, and found the plot. And it's about the reinvention of my life in my 40s, and how I went from a married mom of four, stay-at-home mom on the Upper East Side, and ended up getting divorced, getting remarried, starting a whole book adjacent business, and ended up right here on this ship.

SPEAKER_02

Sounds amazing. I can't wait to read it. All right, we'll be back in a bit with Ask Golda, where we answer a listener question with Civi Owens.

Ask GOLDA

SPEAKER_02

Golda Gang, I've been telling you about the Mindish Fellowship for Jewish Fiction. It's part of the Miami Book Fairs Emerging Writer Fellowship. And the deadline to apply is this weekend. For all the writers out there, if your novel or fiction project centers Jewish life, culture, or themes, this is an incredible year-long opportunity to develop that work in community. And in Miami, what could be better? Fellows are offered a generous stipend, mentorship, and a year-long period of uninterrupted writing time, along with a literary community to assist fellows in completing their book length manuscripts. Apply by Sunday, May 31st at MiamiBookFair.com slash program slash emerging dash fellows. All right, today's question comes in from Naomi in Brooklyn. She writes, I was raised pretty secular, but I've been leaning more into my Jewish identity and practice lately. I've also been drawn to dressing more modestly. That was easy to do in the winter, but with summer coming, I'm wondering how observant Jewish women keep cool and comfortable. Um, I have to say that I'm not a good person to answer this question because I've always wondered the same thing. Um, but I also kind of want to say that I too, I'm not, I don't dress modestly, but I've as for for religious reasons, also been finding myself dressing more modestly lately. I don't know if it's because I'm always running around after kids or this or that, but I'm like, I kind of I get it and I see it, and I I just I don't know. I want to throw that to the group. What are we thinking?

SPEAKER_00

I've also been seeing this. A lot of people I know have been taking pledges to wear skirts on Shabbat specifically. So I think if you are inclined to dress more modestly or there's something you want to take on, I think baby steps is a good way to do it. So maybe you can like choose a day out of the week like Shabbat and say, I'm gonna wear a skirt today. I there is somebody I know who has her own line, of course, of very fashionable, easy, um, well-priced uh skirt. But if you are in Brooklyn, Iomie, I really recommend you check out the t-shirt shop, which is owned by two friends of mine. They don't only sell t-shirts, although they do have a lot of really great t-shirts, and they carry this line that I'm speaking about. But I think you just gotta keep it like easy and breezy in the summer, nothing too tight, cotton, light fabrics. But I love that. I think we are seeing like this resurgence of Jewish women's leaning in and like embracing their modesty.

SPEAKER_03

And I also do not do this for religious reasons, but I am almost always wearing a long skirt and often a long shirt. And it's as I've gotten older, I am learning how to cover up all sorts of different places. So basically it's just my nose that will be sticking out after a while, which I should also try to work on. But anyway, um, I think that there is nothing better than like a a silky or cotton long skirt in the summer with a pair of flip-fluffs and a jean jacket and a t-shirt, and go from there. And there's so many options. Okay, so we're going to cotton. Cotton. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04

I do think modesty is having a moment. I just got this like high-end fashion magazine for religious women that somebody sent to me, and it was all about like modest fashion with like capital F fashion. Like it was, it could have been in vogue, you know, that kind of thing. And I think that many women are like uh seeing or experimenting with modesty in a way that the the feminist movement of like the 1960s would be horrified by. And I think that juxtaposition and that tension is like very worthy of um Jewish analysis.

SPEAKER_02

I also think it kind of reflects our earlier conversation, which is like, what does it mean to want to wear your hair curly and to sort of take back these things that were put in a box of meaning something and saying, like, this doesn't mean what it meant when I was growing up or what you thought I thought it should mean. Um it's almost like people are finding new reasons to do things and new embraces of like older traditions that may have sort of seemed like they weren't for you. Aaron Powell Right.

SPEAKER_04

Like when I was in my 20s, it was like um I was so horrified by a rule that you had to wear a skirt on the beam in certain circumstances. And now I'm like, of course I only wear skirts on the beam. You know, like what what is that all about?

SPEAKER_01

I think there's also something um when looking at people who make a choice to dress modestly, which is not myself, but um that is almost um it Diana, what you said, it's it's sort of countercultural in some ways, but we look at or not we per se, but I I feel like often society or more secular Jews might look at people who are more religious, whether they're Jewish or Muslim or any faith tradition where women are more covered, and feel like it's regressive in some way, um, rather than it being a choice people are making and something they find meaningful. And one of my closest friends uh recently got married, and she is Shomer Shabbat, but she's not Orthodox. She wears pants, you know, will wear shorts and sleeveless shirts in the summer. But she decided after she got married that she was going to cover her hair on Shabbat in the kind of Jerusalem way where she'll wear like a headband or kind of wrap her hair. Um, it's something that is pretty unusual for our community and very much a choice that she made, and it stood out. People noticed it was different, and I felt I felt proud of her for doing that and doing something that was a little bit outside of the norm, um, and something that I don't think would necessarily resonate with me, but she found meaning in it and she just decided to do it, even if people were looking at her and a little differently.

SPEAKER_02

I love this. I feel like we've have we have some good tips for Naomi. I also feel like a lot of the women I see on the Upper West Side um are wearing like leggings and then those like sporty skirts. And I feel like there must be a place where they find those. And I feel like the internet I feel like, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

I have a list and I I need to share. Maybe there's like a way we can like incorporate this list that I'm going to. Let's let's put it in the show notes. Oh my god, this is great. I know somebody who makes this workout gear. Oh my god. I need to get the names because I do not wear skirts. So um, but I am I am in the world of of people that do.

SPEAKER_02

So I will I will work on this list and we'll have a list in the show notes of breathable wicking fabrics. We're gonna have links to all these great tips. Thanks for writing in Naomi. And and Zivi Owens, thank you for joining us. I feel like now we need to like get started reading to get through that list by the end of summer, but you've given us some great options. And as always, it's it's so great catching up with you. It's great catching you because I know you're incredibly busy and you have like a million things going on at any given moment. Is ZiviOwens.com the best way to find you?

SPEAKER_03

That is my sub stack, so you can definitely find me there. I have a weekly newsletter, and then Zivi Media is my company site, and I'm on Instagram at Zivi Owens. Amazing. Well, thank you for being an honorary Golden Girl for the day. I loved it. I love what you guys are doing. I was I am so excited about this whole brand and the fact that you are all collaborating is just amazing.

Good for the Jews

SPEAKER_02

All right, it's time for Good for the Jews, a sweet note to end the show on. Good for the Jews is sponsored by Joiva, a fourth generation family business that crafts tahini, halva, and confections in Brooklyn, New York. I love Joiva. I love this segment. Um, and I have to say, I'm gonna set the bar pretty high with my Good for the Jews selection this week. Um I was on Facebook and I saw a post from Ian Ziering, the 90210 actor. I do not follow him on Facebook, but I it just appeared on my feed. He posted a picture of him and his wife and wrote, could not have pulled off Penna May's bot mitzvah without the help of this beautiful woman. I love you, Kayla. So this was a post thanking his wife for putting together an amazing bot mitzvah for their daughter, Penna. Um, I loved it. I thought it was hilarious. And obviously the first thing I did, because this is 2026, was go to the comments. And I have to say the comments were wonderfully positive and very, very hilarious. There was a lot of like, Mazeltuff, this is amazing. And I do want to read you one comment that made me laugh. May the Lord bless you. You guys are amazing together. Happy Memorial Day. And I was like, okay, I think you missed the caption, but um, I'll take all blessings. I feel like we'll take all blessings from anyone who wants to offer them. Um, so yeah, Ian Zering's daughter getting bot mitzfut, I feel like is is good for the Jews.

SPEAKER_04

Would you be interested to know that he babysat for my husband as a child? Ian Zeering was your husband's babysitter.

SPEAKER_02

It's true.

SPEAKER_04

I don't know if this was an ongoing thing in New Jersey, the homeland. I love this. Was he an act? Was he like trying to make it at the time? Unclear because I think my husband was like eight years old, so he didn't ask a lot of probing questions. But I'm just saying, we've I mean, we've always loved him, Steve, 9-0. What could be bad?

SPEAKER_02

Steve Sanders was like kind of Jewish-coded, right? His character on 90210? No? Too blonde? Hello. Oh my gosh, you're right. I'm so sorry. Jews can be blonde.

SPEAKER_04

We just had this in the opening segment.

SPEAKER_02

I'm so glad that this show can dispel myths um and really like expand our notion of what Jews can be. They can be blonde.

SPEAKER_00

We are inclusive. Thank you. Diana, I have two blonde-haired, blue-eyed children, and I look like this. Um so it can happen. And my husband's looks like me, and we don't have blue eyes or blonde hair.

SPEAKER_04

So it happens.

SPEAKER_00

It happens, and then I I love it. It's great.

SPEAKER_01

All right, what else is good for the Jews this week? I'll go with something very different. And first of all, I will say I'm on Wikipedia right now reading about Ion Zering.

SPEAKER_02

Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_01

I know, I know. I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_02

You child they shouldn't leave you alone on location. This was home alone.

SPEAKER_01

Here's mine. It's from an article in The Guardian, and before I explain it, I'll say good for the Jews with a slight question mark, is a person dressed in a giant pickle costume. Here's the backstory. The headline from The Guardian last week is Giant Green Pickle tells us UK's Jewish culture month has begun. The inaugural festival is aimed at bringing, this is a quote, less oi and more joy has events that span food, fashion, music, and literature. It is an event across the UK, hosted by the main Jewish communal body in the UK, essentially doing all kinds of fun Jewish stuff in a community where there has been a great deal of anti-Semitism and a lot of challenges for the Jewish community. Um, apparently, more than 150 events across the country, food, music, comedy, architecture, fashion, film, and literature. What I'm saying is good for the Jews is this person. I wonder who this person is. If you're listening to Golda Girls Tell Us, who was tasked with riding the the underground in London dressed as a pickle and just like spreading Jewish cheer, I guess. Um, I just think it's really amazing. And um, hopefully they did not experience any anti-Semitism.

SPEAKER_00

I mean, how could you dress as a pickle? That's my seriously gossip.

SPEAKER_01

We can all agree.

SPEAKER_02

Pickle who wouldn't love a pickle. It is really a good way to like puncture that that moment of tension, like that there's a there is this like heightened risk right now of people, you know, visibly religious Jews who are like getting attacked in the streets, and then you come as a pickle and you're just like, well, what are you gonna do now? Um, it's kind of subversively potentially brilliant.

SPEAKER_04

I have to say, I love our ideas for fighting anti-Semitism, eyebrows, and pickles. These are creative, these are fresh, and um, I think they're what the public needs.

SPEAKER_00

So, speaking of combating anti-Semitism, My Grid for the Jews comes from a cat see Cafe Tian in Harlem, run by chef Bij Barhani, who is an Ethiopian Jew. Um her cafe has been open for I think uh over 13 years, and she recently shut down the dining room uh due to concerns over anti-Semitism and threats. So now the Tian Cafe is which by the way has transitioned to being a kosher vegan cafe. Previously wasn't, is now open for private events, and she hosts really amazing um dinners where she features different chefs from various Jewish communities uh all over the world and sort of highlights their c culinary traditions, and she, you know, brings together all different Jews from the diaspora through food and storytelling. Um, I recently had a conversation with her, and she is so warm and effusive. And her cookbook, her cookbook's name is Gersha, which came out last year, and I recently picked up a copy, and it is incredible. I highly recommend it. Um and I love what PJ is doing. Um, I have not been to Tsion yet, but we're we're in talks against a Syrian chef over there. It's really good.

SPEAKER_02

I went there I went there last year when her book came out and did a piece with her on Gersha. The title of her cookbook is The Act of Feeding Someone, like physically with your hand, which is like a really big part of Ethiopian cuisine. And first of all, I was pregnant, so she was just like, sit down. She literally fed me. Like she fed me the most delicious food. And I was just like, I am obsessed with you. Um and I love that, you know, it's obviously horrible that she's had to shut shut her down. I mean, it's really wild. Her her restaurant celebrates Ethiopian, Harlem, and Israeli cuisine and Jewish food. And it's like that she, it's horrible that she's sort of been pushed out of being able to run a restaurant that's open to the public, but it's amazing to see that that the community has supported her and like helped her make this new venture possible, like you know, work um for the space. Um that's that's really amazing.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, definitely. I mean, it makes you think like, I mean, if if if she's not safe and like this venture that's like so inclusive, um like it sort of makes you think like, well, then who is? I mean, but I think yes, it is unfortunate, but she's totally turned it around and like created this very special space. Um, and I think what she's doing is completely unique and incredible. So I can't wait to go. I'll meet you there. Not that far. Oh, let's do it. Next Golden Girls dinner. Oh, I love that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04

Um all right, Diana, what you got for us? Okay. My good for the Jews is something that's happening on Sunday in New York City, and that is the Israel Day Parade. Um, for those non-New Yorkers listening to this podcast, it is a huge parade right down Fifth Avenue, a massive celebration of community, joy, and love for Israel. It's like a sea of blue and white flags, music, people of all ages. And uh, can't wait to march and show my pride.

SPEAKER_02

That is amazing. I did make the mistake once of not throwing out my iced coffee before I got into the parade a few years ago. And there's not a single garbage can along that route. And I think that reflects, it didn't occur to me, but that is like one of the security measures that is taken before an event like that. Or maybe I don't know if it's all parades or just this one, but like I was holding that, like that, that empty cup for a long time.

SPEAKER_00

Yes, yes. I and I feel like I could do a deep dive into the Israeli Day Parade. I mean, growing up in Brooklyn, we were mandated to go, like, you know, with our school. Um, and as a kid, admittedly, like we would do anything we could. First of all, we were training for this parade from months in advance. We had we were like, we had Rikudim, which is dance. Um, and I'll never our Rikudim teacher was her name was Aura. And we were like, we were like, it was we were in the military. We knew these dances down path. You better get your steps right. We'd both get your steps right, like wear your colors. We had the shirts, we had the uniforms, but I'm embarrassed to admit this, but I would spend like each year, I'd beg my parents, like, we get a doctor's like I did not want to go.

SPEAKER_02

Um as part of the parade.

SPEAKER_00

You were performing in the parade, you had to be up early, and then there was like, you know, you'd like the cool girls would like ditch the parade and go to Candle 79, um, which was the vegan cafe. This is really um, this is really niche. That's where the fast girls went to the fast girls went to the vegan to get their Aztec salad and their vegan carrot cake. Not the Aztec salad. I mean, guys, it wasn't me. Um, but yes, I would beg, we I would beg my parents like for a doctor's note to get out of the parade. Um, they never gave me one. I always went. And um I I I recently attended uh for the past few years, I took my kids. Um and it, I mean, they're really innocent, they're young, and they had like they have no idea about, you know, all of the they understand their security in place, but they don't really understand why. Um, and they don't totally understand how much hate there is on on the other side. Um so to see them experience it and like through their eyes with the this innocence and joy, I highly recommend it. And it totally made me feel like an asshole for for for the way I viewed the parade in in my youth. You were a teenager. You would have hated anything. I was 10 and then 16, and yeah, and exactly. Thank you, Gabby.

SPEAKER_02

I well, this is a lot that's good for the Jews. Uh, I'm excited about all of it. This is an amazing episode. I had a lot of fun. Thank you guys. Thank you, girls, I should say. Golda Girls is a production of Golden Media. The show is hosted by me, Stephanie Butnik with Gabby Deutsch, Diana Firskco, and Esther Shahabar. Ariel Shapiro is our executive producer, and we're edited by the team at Poldu. Get more Golda and subscribe to our newsletter at Goldeguide.com. There you will find all of our recommendations from this and all episodes. Follow us on Instagram at Goldeguide, leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, and we will send you a Golda sticker. Send us a screenshot and your mailing address to high at goldeguide.com, and we will send a sticker your way. Stay Golda.

SPEAKER_03

That's a Golda podcast.

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Diana Fersko

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Esther Chehebar

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Gabby Deutch

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Stephanie Butnick

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