GOLDA Girls

Mazel Tov, Taylor! with Jackie Tohn

• GOLDA Media • Episode 10

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GOLDA founder Stephanie Butnick and novelist Esther Chehebar are joined by guest host Mark Oppenheimer, Stephanie’s former co-host on Unorthodox and the author of Judy Blume: A Life, to break down how Jewish—or not—the mega-wedding of Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce was. Plus, Stephanie sits down with Nobody Wants This actress Jackie Tohn to discuss her new Jewish summer camp film, The Floaters.


Events:

Join GOLDA for an NYC opening weekend screening of The Floaters on Sunday, June 12 at 7 p.m. at Quad Cinema. After the screening Stephanie will be moderating a conversation with the film’s director Rachel Israel and producer Shai Korman. Get your tickets here: https://go.shopmy.us/p-69518036 .

Esther will be part of a Hadassah virtual panel on the Sephardic and Mizrahi experience in the United States on Thursday, July 16 at 7 p.m. Register here: https://go.shopmy.us/p-70548076


Send us your Ask GOLDA questions at hi@goldaguide.com (voicenotes are best; be sure to tell us who you are and where you’re calling from.)


This week’s Good for the Jews picks: 

Esther: The Jewish volunteer watch group Shomrim, who jumped into action during the floods in Monmouth County.

Stephanie: Audrey Gelman’s collaboration with the Wallach Project, which preserves lost German-Jewish textile making. 

Mark: Funny Business, an upcoming cultural history by Matt Singer of the Judd Apatow-era of comedy.


Subscribe to GOLDA at goldaguide.com and follow us on Instagram at @goldaguide.


Where you can find the GOLDA Girls:

Follow Gabby’s writing at jewishinsider.com/authors/gabby-deutch and subscribe to her Substack at gsdeutch.substack.com. 

Sign up for Diana’s print newsletter, Modern Jewess, at modern-jewess.com, and buy her book, We Need to Talk About Antisemitism, at rabbidianafersko.com/books.  

Get Esther’s novel Sisters of Fortune at bookshop.org/a/110357/9780593734544, and her children’s book I Share My Name, at bookshop.org/a/110357/9781532432187. 

Buy Stephanie’s book, The Newish Jewish Encyclopedia, at bookshop.org/a/110357/9781579658939.

Buy Mark’s biography of Judy Blume at https://bookshop.org/a/110357/9780593714447


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.


You can listen to GOLDA Girls on:


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


Stay GOLDA. 


Nu Reads

SPEAKER_01

Welcome to Golda Girls, the podcast for Jewish women with a lot to say. I'm Stephanie Butnik, the founder of the Jewish lifestyle newsletter Golda, and today I'm joined by only one of my three co-hosts. That's right, it's novelist Esther Shahebar. Welcome back. So happy to be here.

SPEAKER_02

Hi, Stephanie.

SPEAKER_01

Rabbi Diana Fersco, journalist Gabby Deutsch are off on vacation. We've been getting amazing pictures from them on our Golda Girls group chat. But don't worry, we brought in a ringer today. We have a very special guest host. It means a lot to me. It's like a real full circle moment. Like this one is for the OGs. We've got Mark Oppenheimer here with us on the show. Welcome to Golden Girls, Mark.

SPEAKER_00

Am I now officially a Golden Girl?

SPEAKER_01

You're a Golda guy. I mean, you can be a Golden Girl.

SPEAKER_00

You can be whatever you want. I feel like a Jewish woman with a lot to say. I feel like I

Intro + Guest Host Mark Oppenheimer

SPEAKER_00

fit the type.

SPEAKER_01

Yes. I love it. I love it for you. I love it for us.

SPEAKER_00

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01

We were for many years co-hosts on the hit podcast Unorthodox. It brings me not. It makes me so happy to be sitting here on a Zoom with you again. And I think the three of us are gonna have a really fun time.

SPEAKER_00

I can't wait. This is such an honor. And I'm sitting in the unorthodox air chair. This is the chair from which once we went remote in COVID, this is where the magic happened. The chair is still serving me well. And on some level, I knew that the next stage in my podcasting journey, or a next stage of my podcasting journey, was to be a guest on your podcast and to be a Golden Gal. Am I the first male co-host?

SPEAKER_01

You're not the first man on the show, but you're the first special guest host.

SPEAKER_00

First special guest.

SPEAKER_01

And you are the first man who has guested. And you're setting the bar high. And I have to tell you that later on the show, like if this isn't enough for you, first of all, I don't know what it is, but we have an amazing guest. I'll be talking to Jackie Tone from Nobody Wants This. She's the scene-sealing sister-in-law Esther. And this summer she's starring in Floaters, a hilarious and sweet movie about Jewish summer camp. We're actually doing a special screening of floaters this Sunday in New York City. It's a quad cinema, 7 p.m. There's gonna be a link in the show notes to get your tickets. My conversation with Jackie will be on in just a bit. But first, Mark Dienu. Like we have we all have a lot to catch up on here.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Last time I saw you, I was at five kids. There are three more now. I'm the father of eight. Four of them have graduated from Harvard. And two are married. I'm actually a grandfather now. I actually have six grandchildren.

SPEAKER_02

I actually can't tell if you're joking.

SPEAKER_00

No, I'm joking.

SPEAKER_01

Guess how many kids Mark has? This will be fun. How many kids do you think Mark has?

SPEAKER_02

Three. I'm gonna go with three.

SPEAKER_01

Six.

SPEAKER_02

I see that.

SPEAKER_00

That's crazy. I don't you motioned up a lot. You were like really No, there are five kids. Sit when you have five kids, six would be insane. What kind of freak would have six kids? That's like 14. Five is normal.

SPEAKER_02

I'm hoping for six. And I know many with six plus, also you have four plus one kids.

SPEAKER_00

The joke is however many you have, one more is like only a fucking crazy person would have that many more.

SPEAKER_02

I disagree. I think zero to one is the hardest transition.

SPEAKER_00

And no, I have five, and they're all marvelous.

SPEAKER_01

And you're like a real natalist. I feel like you're playing this down, Mark, but you love the fact that you have so many kids that you are a not super observant Jewish person with a lot of kids. I think that sets you apart. Like Elon Musk, basically. Except not.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, exactly. No, I'm this will be for a different episode, but it's I'm trying to figure out among my life projects after I've run the triathlon and whatever, learned Yiddish, which is to say this is never gonna happen, is to figure out how to reclaim natalism for the normal people. And Esther sounds like I we just met, but I feel like maybe you'll be on team normalcy with lots of kids.

SPEAKER_02

I feel the same. And you know what's funny? I was before having kids, I was totally one of those people, despite coming from a place where everybody has many kids. I was like, How are people bringing? I was one of those, how are we gonna bring a child into this world? And then one and then you bring them into the world and you're like, how was I not going to do this? And yeah, I agree. Listen, I don't think super religious people are not normal. I think they have their own version of normal, but I do think there is this stigma where if you have more than two or three kids, you are like uber religious living, you're in a cult or something. And I agree, we should destigmatize that and reclaim it.

SPEAKER_00

I think everyone has their magical number, and there are probably more people who should have zero, but there are probably more people who should have five or six. And I think the society we need a society that's welcome to all of those. The non-normal person I was referring to is not all of our orthodox friends, but of course the Elon Musk types who don't actually parent their kids, who don't even know where they live and name them symbols, not names. I'll just say that when people always said to me there are too many people in the world, I would just say, Yeah, but there aren't enough Oppenheimers. There's a simple answer to that.

SPEAKER_01

So And there's something truly optimistic about Optimistic. Oppenheimer to mystic about this. You've got kids in college now, I have two kids. I this we've we've grown, and you've been busy professionally as well, in addition to parenting your half soccer team. Just kidding, I don't know how many people are on the soccer team, but you relaunched this amazing journal, ARK, at Washiu's John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics. You host the ARC podcast, you wrote a book which I have right here on Judy Bloom. I'm matching. I don't know if you can see, but I wore a yellow shirt to match the yellow of your cover. You've been like you're all over the place.

SPEAKER_00

It's very aesthetic, as the kids would say.

SPEAKER_01

Yes, you once told me that kids say aesthetic wrong. What do they use?

SPEAKER_00

They say aesthetic to mean aesthetically pleasing. Like aesthetic is no longer about visual qualities. Aesthetic means it's aesthetically good. I have a daughter who'll say, Dad, your look today is really not very aesthetic.

SPEAKER_01

But like the way they're using it is an incorrect form of speech, right? Something is aesthetic as opposed to has an aesthetic.

SPEAKER_00

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01

Or they're using it as like an adjective.

SPEAKER_00

Correct. They're using it as an adjective. Go back to Jewish book tour, Stephanie.

SPEAKER_01

This is fun because you guys have both had books out recently. I feel like you've probably crisscrossed on the Jewish book circuit tour. You've been all over.

SPEAKER_00

I once did, it was a town in Indiana. I got like 25 people and it was lovely. There are Jews everywhere, and there are the Jewish adjacent everywhere, and they read books or at least buy them. And it's yeah, the circuit. How's the circuit been for you, Esther? You've been having fun?

SPEAKER_02

I've been having fun. I've just come off of a year of being on the circuit, which was exhausting, but was also fun in a lot of ways I didn't expect. As a young person growing up wanting to be a writer, I had the complete different picture of what doing a book tour would be like. You had the movie version? I had the total movie version. I'm sure Kate Hudson and an Rom-Com ruined it for me somewhere along the way. But I did get to visit cities that I probably never would have before. One of my favorites was St. Louis, Missouri. Oh, love St. Louis. It was awesome. I get to St. Louis and I'm there for literally 24 hours. I'm staying in a motel that's connected to an Applebee's, which I've stayed in three of these so far.

SPEAKER_01

Brilliant concept, by the way.

SPEAKER_02

Brilliant. And there's always a popcorn machine in the lobby, which is equally brilliant. And it's and there's always popcorn in it. And of course, my phone dies three seconds into venturing outside. And I just walked around Forest Park for like seven hours until I made my way home back to my Applebee's motel. The Jewish book circuit is fun. You meet a lot of different types of Jews, and you also meet a lot of people who are just really interested in Judaism. And for me, that was they were really interested in Serbian Jews. It's always interesting hearing people's questions and getting to answer them and not having my mother hover over my shoulder and monitor my answers. It was fun. What about you, Mark?

SPEAKER_00

Jews are Jews are so special. I mean, that we have this thing. The Jewish Book Council is this incredible group who pull together these tours for authors who write on Jewish themes. One day you're in Fort Wayne, then you're in Scottsdale, Arizona, then you're in West Palm Beach. It's completely amazing. I do have this joke with my wife where she's like, You got 24 hours in Fort Wayne. What are you gonna do? At which point, I do imagine one of those rom-com montages. I just watched the movie, the old Owen Wilson, Jason Sudegis movie Hall Pass, where the wives give the guys their like, okay, fine, fine. You want to check out other women all the time? You're always checking out their booty. You know what? You have a week off from marriage. Let's see how you do. I call her, I'm in Fort Wayne, Indiana. The next 12 hours are gonna be lit. I'm gonna be in the clubs till 2 a.m. Who knows which after party I'm gonna turn up at? But of course, what you do is you go back to the room, you hope the Wi-Fi works so you can stream something on your laptop and you eat the popcorn from the lobby popcorn machine, but you're fortified by these wonderful people you met who turned out to ask about your book. So it's great.

SPEAKER_01

I think it is. I always think about this because we did the Jewish Book Council, you and I, Mark, for our book, Newish Jewish Encyclopedia, way back when. I always think like, we're so lucky to have something called the Jewish Book Council. I don't know that there's like the Catholic Book Council or like the Sikh Book Council or like the Methodist Book Council. Like, I just feel like there is it's this really special thing. And the thing that I loved was like everywhere you go, someone picks you up from the airport. They're like, you're not gonna take an Uber. You're in our community. We are gonna pick you up. And it's always just like such a character. It's and you get the whole lay of the land. You're like, here's where your event is, here are the other places it could have been, here's why it's not there. You really go into the events, knowing everything about the place. And I just I love it so much. Okay, so we're talking about traveling all all over the country. The real news this past week did come from New York City. It was a sweltering July 4th weekend in New York City, and it seems like everyone who was anyone was at the American Royal Wedding, which was Taylor Swift, Travis Kelsey at Madison Square Garden, a multi-day affair. It feels like every every random celebrity you've you've ever heard of was there. My daughter Edith actually asked me why we weren't invited. And I was like, honestly, I actually don't know. And she was like, Oh, and you know what? I know why kids weren't invited. And I was like, sure, sure. We had we had a lot of, we had some good Jewish representation. We had the Heim sisters, we had Adam Sandler officiating. We're, I just feel like we were all following along. Or I don't know, Mark, maybe

Mazel Tov, Taylor!

SPEAKER_01

you were not following along as closely. What are we thinking about this wedding?

SPEAKER_00

Okay, I have daughters, and actually my son, David's, he takes up axie to nobody in his love of the artist I call Swifty Taylor. She's a B plus artist as far as I'm concerned. She's good. Stop. She's good. No, she's good. Look, I'm not, I don't get to talk about this stuff weekly anymore. So I'm gonna take my moment, okay? I'm gonna take my moment in the sun.

SPEAKER_01

But just don't disparage my girl.

SPEAKER_00

I think she's good. Long story short, my take on her is all of her songs are pretty good, but nobody ever feels like I've I have to hear blank space now. There's not, there's no one song of hers that's as good as any one of the 20 best Beatles songs or whatever. But that's okay. She's okay, she's doing fine. I wish her well. I was saddened, and I think she's a good egg. I think she seems to be a good egg, seems to be a good person. She's not doing the meth, she's not pushing open marriage on everyone. As far as Hollywood goes these days, she's again a good egg. But it saddens me when people have weddings that become more than just I don't think she's friends with all these people, right? And I don't understand why celebrities do unless it was that her publicist said get the Heim sisters. She was at the next one. But they're very good friends.

SPEAKER_01

They're actually I don't believe that.

SPEAKER_00

Here's what I'm gonna say. What not in the way that when you say somebody's a very good friend, Stephanie Butnik or Esther Shahibar, that you mean a very good friend, meaning if I got dumped, I would call them, meaning if something if my child were sick, I would call this person, they'd show up for me, they'd follow me.

SPEAKER_02

Well, they don't need friends in the same way, right? What is a friend?

SPEAKER_00

We all need friends.

SPEAKER_02

We do need friends, but not in the same way, I think. When you're like a mega celebrity, you want people who are loyal to you and who are gonna sign that NDA and also never leak anything to the press. Listen, I'm not saying she doesn't want to have fun with her friends. Taylor Swift has also built a persona around being a girl's girl. She has tried to what's that album? I'm not the biggest Swifty, but there is one album maybe. 1989 when with like The Crew. Was that 1989?

SPEAKER_01

The Bad Blood era?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, the Bad Blood era. Exactly. When all those women, yeah. That backfired because her idea was to get like all of her entourage around her to bolster this album and to project this image of girl power and girl group and whatever. And people really didn't like it. I think it came off very manufactured and fake. But she sort of built her reputation around having really good girlfriends. There was Blake Lively before they had that major falling out, the Haim sisters, them just now at the Nick game and those cringy coordinating t-shirts. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

No, look, my feeling about celebrities in general. I wasn't planning to get so wrong. To get so get off my lawn. My feeling about celebrities in general is I don't exempt them from the stuff that my expectation of people is that they be normal and that they should be and that there's virtue in it. Like Elon Musk, my question for him would be do you know who your kids' pediatricians are? If you don't, you're a fucked up dad. You suck. You don't get to offload if you have checked out of daily life, if you're not walking your own dog, if you don't know who your kid's dentist is, if you don't go to parent teacher conferences, if you're paying people to live your life, I think that's sad. I think you are sad. I think you're probably in some sort of despair. And I think that why are like, okay, maybe the Haim sisters are her best friends. Is Reese Witherspoon also? I had 60 people at my wedding. They were people I loved. Could I have gone to a hundred by inviting relatives? Yes, I think, and I love my relatives too, but I have big family. We didn't go very big. I under I was at Stephanie's wedding. Everyone there seemed to love Stephanie, know Stephanie and Ben. It was awesome.

SPEAKER_01

There were a lot of them, though.

SPEAKER_00

There were a lot of them, but you also, you and Ben.

SPEAKER_01

It still felt warm.

SPEAKER_00

It was, it felt incredibly warm. It didn't feel like anyone was there because they were Howard's business partner.

SPEAKER_01

It was an intimate 275, is what I like to call it. Esther was like, that's tiny.

SPEAKER_02

No, so I I routinely go to 1,000-person weddings and you know everyone.

SPEAKER_00

And that's fine. But my point is, people aren't invited because they're famous. They're invited because they're part of your extended community. And I just think when I see these people who lead these celebrity lives, and I guess people always say, Oh, Taylor's so real, she keeps it so real. And I look at this, and I want to believe that. I do want to believe that because I want to believe the best in people. And all, but honestly, if I'm just gonna be Jewish for a moment, my heart breaks when I see the Heim Sisters get conscripted into this because my vision of them is they're back home in Brentwood or Silver Lake or Echo Park or wherever they live in LA, and they're like chilling with their boyfriends or mom and dad who were in the movie with them and writing songs and ordering takeout. And that they do this celebrity thing, like, oh, we're gonna take the floor seats. It just breaks my heart. No, then like we wouldn't be friends. Because what it tells me is if you met me and I met you, we'd have no chance because you don't do normalcy, you do celebutons. And of course, Taylor's gonna have a prenup.

SPEAKER_02

There'd be no hall pass in Indiana with the high-you sisters. Yeah, no, I it's also it's also like Taylor Swift could have any type of wedding that she wanted, right? If she wanted to have a 60-person intimate affair and have nobody know about it on an island wherever in the world she wanted and have it be the most beautiful, intimate event in the history of weddings, she could have that. This is this is interesting. Yeah. No, I hear.

SPEAKER_00

You know what? And I'm gonna pivot to very and then I'll shut up, I promise. No, I love it. The way every soccer player in the World Cup has the same dumb haircut. Have you noticed they all have the weird side shave? There's no.

SPEAKER_02

I thought that was like because they ran faster with that haircut. No, it's like the swimmers with no body hair.

SPEAKER_00

That's to make them sleek and seal-like. But this is I said to Rebecca, my eldest daughter, who is a soccer player and follows World Cup and follows FIFA and all that. I was like, why do they all have the same damn haircut? No matter the country, whatever. They all have that weird zoop, like shaved up the sides over their ears. And she said, it's just the style, Dad. You don't have to be a hater on everything. Okay. But then I was like, how amazing would it be if Leonel Messi or Mbappe or one of the superstars was like, I'm gonna have a mustache or mutton chops. You'd make it a thing for the whole world. And that even people at the pinnacle of social influence and power don't think I'll do something original breaks my heart. And that's what I saw with this wedding. I was like, oh, really? Reese Witherspoon's gonna be your wedding? Adam Sandler's gonna officiate? Oh, that's original.

SPEAKER_02

That was the only original thing, right? Was Adam Sandler officiating the wedding? And listen, there are Swifties, like I'm whatever the equivalent to an Adam Sandler groupie is, like, that is me. And so to me, that was the thing where I was like, oh, really? But then I went back and I did a deep dive into Adam Sandler's past comments on Taylor Swift, and I'm now convinced that he did it for his daughters because they are huge Swifties. I want to know what he wore. If he didn't wear basketball shorts and a giant Hawaiian shirt, then it doesn't count. I feel like there was so like if she was really a fan, a sen, like a real Adam Sandler fan, she would have had him impersonate his wedding singer character.

SPEAKER_01

There would have been probably did, right? I don't think so. I don't know because okay, so there you know that video, it's like it's Adam Sandler's daughters singing Taylor Swift. There's a few videos out there, and they're like amazingly, they're like really have beautiful voices, they're talent, Sadie and Sonny. And you're right, he definitely did it for his kids. The thing that made me I forgot the caveats. I love Taylor Swift. I live in a Swifty household, driven primarily by my husband and my daughter, but I love her. I think what she's crafted is brilliant. I don't need to say whether or not she's better than the Beatles. She had Paul McCartney perform at her wedding. It's and I'm not here to, I'm not here to judge the choice. So she did go full-on Shabbatone. It felt like renting out the venue for the whole weekend and having all the events there, which respect, respect, taking a page from the book. But to me, this Adam Sandler thing was really interesting. Because I think we all have it's the Jewish thing you could do, right? He is ever he is everyone's Jewish uncle. But Taylor and Travis don't have that, right? They don't have the funny relative, the camp song leader. It's sort of like my bagel Jewish, right? Like they were importing this warmth, this Jewishness, this haymishness, it feels like, because to me, that's what Adam Sandler telegraphs. He telegraphs, like, I'm gonna make up a funny, silly song. I don't take myself so seriously. Yes, here I am at the celebrity wedding. And not only that, I'm the center of it, right? What I imagined was a hoop up, a wedding canopy, the way Martha Stewart describes it. I'm sure they had something, right? They were sort of borrowing these elements of Jewish wedding culture and of Jewish culture because of the feeling it it evokes and like the warmth and the welcoming and the community it creates.

SPEAKER_02

I love the idea of that, but I don't know if they were, I don't know if that was intentional. They have to sort of import it.

SPEAKER_00

I love that you're coming over to my side, that she's just basically an empty suit singing. Kind of what you just said, without meaning to say it. What you said is she's a sad, empty person. Whatever hometown she had, whatever community she had, whatever church she grew up with, they're all out the window. She called in the guy who literally played a wedding singer.

SPEAKER_01

Where do you fall on Adam Sandler? I love Adam Sandler. I think Adam Sandler because we're in the Sandler songs right now. He is like, he's everything right now.

SPEAKER_00

I'm pro-Adam Sandler. He look, he's a fellow New England Jew. We stick we we stick together, Robert Kraft, Adam Sandler, and I. Look, I officiated a wedding once. Has either of you ever officiated a wedding?

SPEAKER_01

I have with a flex. I have not. I did, but it wasn't an official wedding, so I wasn't certified.

SPEAKER_00

And by the way, I remember, Stephanie, when we hosted Unorthodox, we always thought we were gonna get requests to official weddings, and they never came. It surprised me, they never came. But I did one once. I take marriage seriously. And I said, I didn't know the couple particularly well, but I did say to them before we before I said yes, I said, I want to talk to you about your relationship. And I played clergy. I said, Have you thought about how many kids you're gonna have? Have you thought about where you're gonna live? Like, are you ready for this? Because I didn't want to help sacralize something that wasn't well thought through. As it happens, they're 20 years later, they're still married, two kids. It went great. No thanks to me. But the idea that Adam Sandler is just like, sure, I'll do your wedding, and they're like, sure, let's get Adam Sandler, that's it's just a big production. I mean, was God in the room at all? However, you construe God or just like the Knicks cheerleaders. I don't know. I don't know. I hope they flourish. I hope Kel, I hope there's a more Kelsey NFL stars, right? Him and his brother should have the next generation, the next gen should play for the whatever team, Chiefs, whatever.

SPEAKER_02

Listen, I don't know that much about Travis Kelsey and Taylor Swift, but I do know that her mom is a huge feature in her music and her hometown and where she's from, Pennsylvania, right? And Travis Kelsey with his brother and Mama Kelsey, as she's called, they do project these for all of their like celebrity status, they do project these very homegrown, hometown, wholesome family. And so I just don't think we know enough yet. And they're being very intentional about the way they're leaking things out to the press and confirming or not confirming what actually happens at the wedding. But yeah, I I hear your point that I do agree with your point that if I was a mega celebrity or on the level of Taylor Swift, would this be the thing that I decided to do? You're seeing all the AI photos leaking out of them getting married outside of a reconstructed Disney castle. It just seems it's I don't know. It just, I'm not getting celebrity envy in the way that I thought I would or that you should.

SPEAKER_00

What's your over-under for how long the marriage lasts?

SPEAKER_02

I think they're gonna have a kid pretty soon. I just feel like she's gone through so much. We know so much about her past boyfriends and her love life. And this is maybe a better question for Stephanie, but they might go the distance.

SPEAKER_01

I'm really excited for Taylor Swift to have a child. And I think that she's put into words things. It's funny, she's slightly younger than I am. So she I wasn't dealing with breakups when she was singing about them, but I was always impressed by her ability to capture uh emotions. And I'm very curious and excited to hear her put the emotions of becoming a mother into music. I just think that'll be really interesting for a whole generation of people. So I'm excited about that. I don't know. The other relationship I think about in this category is Benny Blanco and Selena Gomez, which I feel like I do feel strongly about that. I'm like, I love them. I want that, I want that for them. And I feel like I don't know. I don't like playing the like how long will it last game? Because I want to believe in love.

SPEAKER_00

You want to believe.

SPEAKER_01

If Taylor's just stopped me anything, is that we need to believe in love. Who's Andy Sandberg's wife? Joanna, something a harpist.

SPEAKER_00

The harpist. I'm rooting for them. They're my Betty Blanco and Selita Gomez.

SPEAKER_01

Yes, exactly.

SPEAKER_00

Joanna Newsome. Wasn't that her name?

SPEAKER_01

Joanna Newsome, yes. Oh, are they married?

unknown

Yes.

SPEAKER_01

Joanna Newsom and Andy Samberg. Wow.

SPEAKER_00

I believe that's right. And that's and I think that's a great one. That's that's true.

SPEAKER_01

So can we say Mazletub? I imagine Adam Sandler said Mazletub. I imagine he said Lahaim. I don't know that any glass was stomped on, but I do think he basically was a rabbi. He was their rabbi for the night.

SPEAKER_00

Do you think he did the Chevabrochus? You think there were seven blessings? Did she circle Mr. Kelsey?

SPEAKER_01

I think he circled her. We will be back in a bit with my interview with Jackie Tone, the star of Of this summer's movie, Floaters. Jackie Tone, welcome to Golder Girls.

SPEAKER_03

Wait a second. Thank you so much. Cute pink and green menorah. Did you have it special made to match the poster, or did you match the poster to the menorah?

SPEAKER_01

Okay, so we did a menorah painting night at the Susan Alexandra studio downtown, and she did that for me.

SPEAKER_03

I love her, and I'm still in the market for one of those little miniature black and white cookie necklaces. I might pull the trigger today. I think you should.

SPEAKER_01

I think you deserve it because you are in this amazing new movie, The Floaters, which I just felt like was so heartwarming and charming and good. It's such a good movie. It's good for the world, it's good for the Jews.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, thank you. I love this movie. And you sing in it. The movie opens

Interview with Jackie Tohn

SPEAKER_03

with you singing. That's right. I mean, it's a version of my singing. It's like this angry punk rock character singing through me. Yeah, that's right. I co-wrote that song with my buddy Dave, had to play the guitar and sing again. And it's nice when you can do a little soft shoe number at the top of a picture.

SPEAKER_01

When I last interviewed you, you had a really fun show on Netflix that was a leftovers cooking show. We talked about your role as Melrose on Glow. We had a lot to talk about. I want to say that we did end up talking about the Holocaust most of the interview.

SPEAKER_03

Well, yeah. I guess my when I first started dating my boyfriend who's not Jewish, it was shocking to him that I would casually bring up the Holocaust at a dinner party. And I was like, it's just in my life. It's not, I'm not sitting here crying in a corner about it and talking about arm tattoos, but it's oh yeah, my grand my grandparents were Holocaust. It's, I guess you don't realize how jarring it's gonna be for someone else, but I'm also like, think about how jarring if you think it's jarring for you. I'm so so sorry, this is a challenging experience for you.

SPEAKER_01

I feel like I had this very strange experience when one of my friends from college was visiting and one of my relatives, like my last living survivor relative, my dad's aunt, had the numbers, and my friend was so upset. And I was like, What is it so weird that I do not think this is weird? Of course, everyone has the liver spotted arms with tattoos. That's just what I grew up with. And to see someone else experience, I was like, I'm sorry this happened to you. I know, that's right.

SPEAKER_03

I'm so sorry for all you're going through. Yeah, yeah, it's wild. I have a fun story about leftovers. Please. And they're told the story. Okay, so it's perfect for two Jews yapping. I'm on a red carpet for an event, and my boyfriend is with me, and I put my purse down next to the photographer's feet because I'm like, I don't want this purse in the photos. And we're taking, we're posing, we're doing our thing, and somebody their head's down and they come running over to me with their purse, with my purse, and they're like, do not leave this on the floor. By the way, so Jewish. Do not leave this on the floor because the closer your bag is to the ground, metaphorically, like you lose your money. Don't keep your bag on the ground. And when she picks up her head, it's Anne Hathaway. And I'm like, oh my god, you are so Anne Hathaway right now. Thank you, Angel. You're so sweet. And she was like, um, and I also have to tell you, your leftovers show got me through COVID. Like, you do not understand. I watched it so many times, I was obsessed with it, and like, you're great, and I love the other things you do, and that's all, but thank you for your leftovers show. And I was like, Thank you, Anne Hathaway, for saving my purse.

SPEAKER_01

I love it. Because it was a show where people had to make food out of leftovers. I feel like we're not talking about this enough.

SPEAKER_03

Like it was like attempting to make high-end cuisine or just transforming leftovers into something else.

SPEAKER_01

I love it. You've been playing really, really amazing Jewish characters, I would say. You know, we had Melrose on Glow, then your Esther on Nobody. Is he okay?

SPEAKER_03

That's my dog Steven Spielberg. He's a gardener outside, and he's frankly pretty upset about it.

SPEAKER_01

And is it always Steven Spielberg or is it like ever a nickname?

SPEAKER_03

Sometimes it's very rarely it's Steve, Steven, but it's mostly Steven Spielberg. But it's Spielberg like that.

SPEAKER_01

I feel like you blast into the Jewish American discourse. I want to talk a little bit about nobody wants this. I feel like you went Jewish viral and the Jews could not stop talking about you. And I imagine that's a frightening place to be.

SPEAKER_03

For better or for worse, baby. They were mad at me at first, and then they were super thrilled about it. I've been on a journey with my Schwestis. My mom is in a group in her community in Florida called the Shvestus, which means sisters. I think in Yiddish, maybe not Hebrew. I speak Yiddish, not Hebrew, so I don't know. Now I always just say Shwestis when I'm talking about my Jewish sisters. But her group is the Daughters of Holocaust survivors. Speaking of, we can't escape it.

SPEAKER_01

Can't not stop a bit.

SPEAKER_03

So anyway, it's really fun. I think you'll love this piece of it. I got a DM from a brand called Yiddish Dad Hats. And they were like, We gotta send you our hats. And the hats just say schwitzing, quelling, schlepping. And I was like, Yeah. And when I posted about it, a good girlfriend of mine was like, Can you believe how deeply you're exactly where you're supposed to be? And I was like, Yeah, I think the Yiddish hat really did nail it home. Other like-minded, funny Jews reaching out to me, being like, yo, you're like us, and it's just it feels really right and good. And now I do comedy shows and speaking engagements and QA's and stuff all over the country, Jewish federations and all these places, and it's really delicious to be around all these cool Jewish women who are way too nice to me, and it's really nice and special, and all of them feeling so seen and it's cool.

SPEAKER_01

And I feel like this character of Nomi in the Floaters is the next logical step on this journey. I feel like we should also say that this starts with you playing Gilda Radner. That's under your belt as well. But your character in Floaters, Nomi. I guess I'll let you describe her because you are her, but just like this perfect encapsulation of another sort of like Jewish woman persona.

SPEAKER_03

What's interesting about Nomi is that I think in the trajectory of my career, it would make sense in my brain that like Nomi would come before Esther. Like she's the like little bit of a shit pig, she's a mess, she doesn't know, like she's 40, but she's like trying to act too young, and she's like exactly what I was probably 10 years ago, where I was everything was about getting attention. And not that I'm not about that now, but I'm so much more grounded and comfier in my body and in who I am and in what I'm putting out into the world. I think that just comes as a really lucky byproduct of being on a successful thing. And what's interesting about that is that I shot floaters before nobody wants this. Really? Yes. So we shot floaters when there were strikes, and we got some sort of, I think productions that we got an exemption to shoot during the strike for productions that were agreeing to follow all the SAG rules. And they were like, if you follow our rules, you can make your thing. And so our amazing producers were like, Great, we want to follow the SAG rules. And so we were able to shoot this movie during the strike, and it was in late 2023, and nobody wants this, it was in early 2024. But Back to Nomi, yes, I will explain her as an aspiring rock star whose eye is so on the prize that she can't see what's actually good for her. And so she has to go back, her band kicks her out, and she has to go back to camp. She calls her best friend and is like, yo, you need to help me. And her friend's like, Come to camp. She's like, Nama, coming to camp. Thank you, though. And her best friend runs the camp, and so she begrudgingly comes back to camp and it ends up changing her life and changing the lives of the campers who she ends up making art with.

SPEAKER_01

I imagine like being there on that set felt like camp too. Like you shot it at an actual camp. Yes. Where'd you go? I went to Point of Pines. What did you do? Of course, Laconda. Oh my god, Laconda. I have a Laconda lines shirt from an old boyfriend that I will never get back, a high school boyfriend. Makes sense. So, okay, so what was it like to be there in that setting with everyone?

SPEAKER_03

It was the best. Tell Yahuto, which is the camp we shot floaters at, was just down the road from in Port Jervis, literally in the same town upstate, up the road from where I went to Laconda. So the second you get there, you get out of the car and you're like, I'm here. It smells like camp, it looks like camp. I recognize the bunks, I recognize the fields and the social hall and the cafeteria, and it just was like blast from the past. Really easy to immerse myself in that life that I knew so well for so many years.

SPEAKER_01

And I feel we get to see it's sort of like Breakfast Club, there's dirty dancing, there's the parent trap. It's like you're in this contained environment where you can just like see people grow.

SPEAKER_03

Mm-hmm. It's really nice. And I think it's a journey for both the campers and the counselors, you know, for the kids and the grown-ups, which I think is a unique take. They all start not wanting to be there, but they all end up getting out of it exactly what they needed, even though they didn't know what that was at the start.

SPEAKER_01

The movie's so great and the role is so great because it takes Judaism seriously, right? It acknowledges that they're all different types of Jews, but there's an earnestness about just like being Jewish and it's not a joke, it's not shticky, it's taken seriously.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, absolutely. But it's also just like in a similar way that nobody wants this does, it's celebrating Jewish joy without shining such a light on it. We've also been through trauma. It's like we know, we know, and that's why we're funny, and it's why we are who we are. But I think that these this project in particular, that's not really what it's focusing on. It just happens to be, it's a summer camp movie, but all these people sort of figuring themselves out and learning who they are at varying stages of their lives, and it happens to be a Jewish summer camp.

SPEAKER_01

And I also feel like you could extrapolate that to you a little bit as well. You've really leaned into playing Jewish characters.

SPEAKER_03

I would have leaned into it sooner if I was getting hired. I love this idea that I've made this Jewish choice, but it's more really like the opportunities are there more now. And that's really cool. When I was a little kid, I was on the nanny, and that was the closest I could get to me being me, me being able to play something that made sense for me. And so yeah, it's nice that it's not that I'm a thousand, but this like later in life hit is very cool.

SPEAKER_01

Is there like a dream character you'd want to play?

SPEAKER_03

Joan River.

SPEAKER_01

Oh, yeah, Joan River.

SPEAKER_03

I want to play Joan and the biopic would be good. It would kill my voice. Play Barbara's daughter in something. Play there's all these many dreams.

SPEAKER_01

Amazing. Jackie Tone, congratulations on the floaters. It's so great to chat with you again. And thank you for what you're doing for like Jewish ladies.

SPEAKER_03

That's really nice. Thank you. It's a light lift, which is so funny. People always being like, Thank you so much, and da-da-da. And I'm like, I don't have any other modes, girls. This is what it is, but you're welcome. What makes me giggle? It's really nice.

SPEAKER_01

Okay, Mark, it's time for our final segment of the show. It's called Good for the Jews. You may remember on Unorthodox we had muzzle tubs. On Golden Girls, we have Good for the Jews. Nice way to end things off with just something this week or always that is good for the Jews. Esther, can I start with you? We're gonna show Mark how it's done.

SPEAKER_02

So, my Good for the Jews this week is the Jewish civilian volunteer group Shomre. We had a lot of rain and flooding here in New Jersey, where I am Monday, July 7th. But the Shamreem here in Mammoth County, where I am in New Jersey, were out with life crafts and jet skis in some scenarios, helping people out of

Good for the Jews

SPEAKER_02

their cars, out of flooded homes. They are often the first people that we call, often before the police, sometimes when someone is in a moment of crisis or in need. And again, they are completely volunteer-based. And I just think they're amazing. And I'm so grateful to have them. And it's nice to, it's not nice to be reminded of why we need them, but it's nice, it's nice to have these moments where we totally see the power of Jewish unity and community. And so I am so thankful for the Shamreem. And I hope we don't need them, but I'm thankful that they're there when we do.

SPEAKER_01

But can you say the thing about the jet skis?

SPEAKER_02

So there are a bunch of videos circulating showing the Shamreem on jet skis rescuing in the streets, in flooded streets. We've had a lot of flash flooding here. The town where I am is not exactly built for a hundred year storm. The drain systems can't exactly handle the level of rain that we've gotten, and we have a lot of hills and underpasses. And so there's literally videos showing the Shamreem on jet skis and in like lifeboats going out to rescue people. It's very hard to note because then there have been like AI videos that are being made, like payoffs swinging everywhere. So, like now it's hard to tell like what's real and what's AI, but the Shamreem have definitely been out on various flotation uh devices, mechanical and manual, rescuing people, saving people, answering the call. And they're amazing.

SPEAKER_01

That's amazing. We are lucky to have them. I'm gonna take things in a little bit of a different direction, in a more aesthetic direction, let's say. Just shout out to you, Mark, and how the kids speak these days. But Audrey Gellman, who runs the Six Bells, which is a houseware store and also an in-upstate, she just launched a collaboration with something called the Vollock Project. And basically, she was designing this in upstate, and it's very like cottage core bavarian is the Six Bells vibe. And she was looking through patterns and she found this pattern that was actually part of this Jewish textile house called that was the Volk family. And it was a business that was really successful and really an integral part she discovered of building Germanic style and popularized the durndl. And then the business gets seized by the Nazis. And what actually happens is that the grandchildren, the Volleck grandchildren, have been archiving these prints and basically doing this thing called the Volk project, where they are sharing these prints, really classic, traditional Germanic prints and showing the Jewish backstory behind them. And so what Audrey did is partnered with them, and she has a whole line of placemats and napkins and aprons and like a dog bed that are these seem like these classic German patterns, but they're actually these Jewish patterns. And so she they basically partnered. She's sort of reinventing these Volick patterns from a modern day. And I love this idea because, and she's she was featured in our newsletter this week, and we have a really fun video with her on Instagram, but she's taking something that I think we think of as so German and so Bavarian and not us, and showing that actually these were Jewish patterns, right? There was a Jewish family who was a really big part of the textile industry there. And I think it's a really powerful way of showing the Jewish history, the Jewish story through design, through textiles, and sharing that story with us. So anyway, I'm really excited about it. I'm gonna get myself some placemats from there. Some Jewish German placemats. Mark, what do you got? Show me, the Volic Project.

SPEAKER_00

Slightly different direction yet again. Just read an advanced copy of a forthcoming book by a guy named Matt Singer. I'm presuming a member of the tribe. It's the book is called Funny Business. It's the first kind of definitive history of the Judd Apateau movies that stuff produced by him, directed by him, written by him, but also by his whole crew: Seth Rogan, Jason Siegel, Ben Stiller, Adam McKay, some of the behind-the-scenes people, Evan Goldberg, who's Seth Rogan's co-writer. Basically, how that crew of people recreated R-rated big screen comedy from about 2000 to 2010. And then, of course, it was overtaken by blockbusters and by streaming. And that kind of mid-budget, adult, hilarious comedy doesn't get made anymore. He doesn't say this, but it was the last gasp of Jewish Hollywood as a collective expression of talent and of an ethnic sensibility. And it's really just a wonderful book. And it reminded me how much I love some of these movies, but it also gave me a list in the back of the ones you might have overlooked, which is why I saw Hall pass this week. You'll remember the scene perhaps from Wedding Crashers when Owen Wilson plays this Uber Wasp who is the ex-boyfriend of the woman that Ben Stiller is marrying. And so he has to meet this guy who his fiancee used to date, who's blonder and better looking and more talented and richer.

SPEAKER_01

Wait, this is in Wedding Crashers? Oh no, sorry, meet the parents. Okay, sorry. Oh, yes, of course.

SPEAKER_00

So Ben Stiller is something. Yeah. And Ben Stiller goes to visit. She's like, oh, come meet whatever Jack, I forget how to do it. The woodworker boyfriend. Oh my god. Woodworker who, of course, her dad always wanted her to marry.

SPEAKER_01

Yes.

SPEAKER_00

He has whittled them a, as he calls a wedding canopy, or as you might call it, a hoopa, Ben Stiller, uh Owen Wilson says, from a single block of wood that he says he rescued from an old seaman's chapel on Nantucket. So that's a great scene. What's hilarious is I was actually just on Nantucket speaking to Shirot Hayam, the Jewish congregation there, Song of the Sea. And they have been gifted as their permanent building. They've been renting space from the Unitarian Church, but they're gonna have a permanent building. It was purchased for them by David Gregory, the NBC News anchor, who I believe is a convert to Judaism, and he has donated it as the future home of Shirot Hayam. And it is, in fact, not an old Siemens chapel, but it was a rescue center.

SPEAKER_01

It was like where the Nantucket Shomrim, the Wasp of Shomrim.

SPEAKER_00

I love that. This is the place where Owen Wilson got the wood out of which he whittled the hoppa in Meet the Parents. So who's good for the Jews this week? Matt Singer for his book, Funny Business, but also David Gregory for rescuing an old Siemens chapel and turning it into a shul.

SPEAKER_01

That is amazing. And by the way, you are bringing it. You really, you just, that's like a mic drop. You understood the assignment. You came on board the girls, you did it.

SPEAKER_00

Ready to perform a celebrity wedding at MSG.

SPEAKER_01

Mark, this is really special. And I feel like this was, I feel like this was a nice crowd, a nice mix we got here.

SPEAKER_00

Loved it. Hope I can come back sometime.

SPEAKER_01

Isn't it that good for the Jews? You just earned yourself a repeat invite.

SPEAKER_00

Is there a t-shirt? Did I earn the t-shirt?

SPEAKER_01

There will be, and you will get one.

SPEAKER_00

Sweet, sweet, sweet. Thank you. Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_01

It was a blast. Golda Girls is a production of Golden Media. The show is hosted by me, Stephanie Butnik, and Esther Chehabar today. Our regular co-hosts are Gabby Deutsch and Diana Fersko, wherever they are having some nice, fun vacation. Today we are joined by the one and only Mark Oppenheimer. Check out markoppenheimer.com to find out everything about him, where you can see him on tour, where you can buy his amazing Judy Bloom books, everything. All of that will be in the show notes. And El Shapiro is our executive producer, and we're edited by the team at Poldoo. Get more Golda and subscribe to our newsletter at Goldaguide.com. Follow us on Instagram at Goldeguide. Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, and we will send you a Golda sticker. Send her a screenshot of your review at high at goldeguide.com. Also tell

Credits

SPEAKER_01

us your mailing address. And if you have burning questions about Jewish etiquette, Jewish life, Jewish tradition, you can send those questions ideally by voice note. Tell us who you are and where you're calling from. Send it all over to high at goldeguide.com. Thanks for listening and stay golden.

SPEAKER_00

That's a golda podcast.

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