Tribe Vibes with Ariel Elias and Olga Namer

GOLDA founder Stephanie Butnick, journalist Gabby Deutch, novelist Esther Chehebar, and Rabbi Diana Fersko talk mahjong, Deal Delights, and the old-school kind of influencing. 

Comedians Ariel Elias and Olga Namer join the show to talk about mining their personal experiences in their comedy (Ariel is from Kentucky and Olga is from Brooklyn’s Syrian community) and help a listener figure out the online dating scene for our Ask GOLDA segment. You can catch Ariel and Olga performing at Borscht Belt Fest 2026 on July 25 and 26 in the Catskills. 

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.)

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.

GOLDA Girls is a production of GOLDA Media. The show is executive produced by Ariel Shapiro and edited by POLDHU. 

Sponsors:

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You can listen to GOLDA Girls on:

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

Stay GOLDA. 

Transcript

Nu Reads

SPEAKER_02 0:00

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. A new box just arrived with the latest pick, Homebound by Portia Elon. I'll be talking to Portia about the book soon. Stay tuned for that special episode in your feed. With New Reads, you're not just getting books. You get access to exclusive experiences with authors and a community built on a shared passion for Jewish storytelling. New Reads is offering Golda Girls listeners 15% off of their subscription. Just use the code NUGOLDA at checkout. Visit Newreads.org. That's n-u-re-a-d-s.org to get started today. Welcome to GoldaGirls,

The Gang's All Here

SPEAKER_02 0:40

the podcast for Jewish women with a lot to say and everyone who loves us. I'm Stephanie Butnik. I'm the founder of the Jewish lifestyle newsletter Golda, and I'm back this week with all three of my co-hosts. I could not be more happy and excited to welcome you all back. Novelist Esther Shahebar. I love when I go first. Hi. You are first because you are you are the most present. Attendance has been best. Rabbi Diana Fersco. Shalom. So happy to be here. And journalist Gabby Deutsch. Baruch Hashem.

SPEAKER_03 1:07

The four Golda girls are back.

SPEAKER_02 1:09

By the way, at some point I will stop referring to all of you with the honorific at the beginning of your name. Because it's like Rabbi Diana Fersco. That's like a that's like a title. But I feel like I'd just call you journalist Gabby Deutsch.

unknown 1:18

Right.

SPEAKER_02 1:19

You could say journalist Miss Gabby Deutsch. Yes, Miss The Honorable. And novelist Esther Shea Bar and children's book author. Let's say that. You can call me whatever you want. I love that about you. So, okay, so we're back here. The two of you, Gabby and Diana, you went on big trips. I too, before I even let you talk about them, I do need to tell you what I did yesterday, which was drive to and from Montauk, which is quite literally the end of the world. It's the end. And the reason I did that was because we were doing a golden mahjong afternoon at this really fun place called Magic Montauk that one of the Soul Cycle founders started. It's like fitness in the morning, wellness in the afternoon. She said, Could you come in and do mahjong? I said, 100,000 percent. And it was really the most fun. I didn't actually see any of Montauk because we were just there and there and back. But it was really nice to get out into the world.

SPEAKER_03 2:04

To get out and do even more mah just in a different location. Yes. Did you have eyes on the ocean while you were there? Like whenever I go to Florida to visit my parents, I need to have eyes on the ocean, even if I don't touch the sand.

SPEAKER_02 2:14

I did not, but I there the energy was really, really good because there's there are these crystals in the space. So the space is actually the old Soul Cycle studio in Montauk. And the one of the co-founders who has sold the company, but took basically took over the lease when they were when the Soul Cycle was moving. And be and so it's the same exact space. It looks like a spin studio, it has the bones of it, but in it are now all these huge crystals as part of the decor. So I arranged the tables around this massive, beautiful pink crystal in the center of the room. And I was like, this energy is like, we're aligned. This it was like it was so fun.

SPEAKER_03 2:45

There was Majjong in in my recent travels as well, which is very exciting for me to even say the words because I'm a new Maj player. I, over the 4th of July holiday, was on vacation in Banff in Canada, which was amazing. And then I was in Colorado in Boulder, where I was celebrating my soon-to-be sister-in-law's bachelorette party. And it was an incredible weekend all around. I have known her my entire life. Our moms were college roommates at Michigan. It's an amazing, beautiful, fun story. And then she and my brother reconnected at college at the University of Texas and are now in love and getting married in September. The Bachelorette party was this past weekend, and multiple of the girls on the trip brought their travel mage sets. You guys are wild. Just out of control.

SPEAKER_00 3:34

This sounds exactly like my bachelorette. Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_03 3:37

This was not a party bachelorette weekend. I had the most to drink of anyone there. And over the course of three nights, I had three drinks. So just to give you a sense of the vibe of this weekend. I know, I know. We went to a concert Friday night at Red Rocks. We saw the Ava Brothers, who are my favorite band, which I will not go on a deep dive about, but suffice it to say, tears were shed. I had one beer at the concert. It was crazy of me.

SPEAKER_00 3:59

This keeps getting better and better.

SPEAKER_03 4:01

There was a Golden Girls run-in at the concert. So my mom and the mother of the bride were at the Bachelorette party. They are best. And she was so excited. So this was just our kind of random run-in at a concert venue in Colorado. So the Golden Girls excitement is everywhere. We lit Shabbat candles and had hala before we went to the concert.

SPEAKER_01 4:37

I mean, we assumed.

SPEAKER_03 4:38

Using, by the way, the little travel candlesticks that I once spoke about on this very show.

SPEAKER_02 4:43

Full circle. Can you imagine you and your best friend from college being like, one day, maybe we'll both have kids. It's all so far off, I feel like, in college, and then maybe they'll get married. I feel like that's I feel like when my college friends and I started having kids, we were like, oh, they're the same age, maybe they'll be the same year in college. But this actually happened. It happened.

SPEAKER_03 5:02

Yeah, it is living the dream, I think. And Ellie, the bride, is two years older than my brother. So when we were kids, no one really thought that saw them as being the two who would wind up together because if she's nine years old and he's seven and he's a boy, that's like a lifetime of difference. And then they got together after they had both graduated college and the time was right and dreams have been fulfilled. It's amazing. So cute.

SPEAKER_00 5:26

Yeah, I don't know. It's so funny because all of my friends and I, we all have, we all had kids together, basically, and we all grew up together. And these are not my college friends, these are like my womb friends that we were born within weeks of each other. And I always joke around with them. I'm like, I don't know if we'd want our kids to end up together. You know what I mean? It might be too close for comfort. And what if I'm like if it's my son and your daughter and I'm that mother-in-law, and I which I know I which I might be. I like to think I won't be, but I might be. I'm like notorious. There are worse things, but I'm known to be a little bit. I feel like with my daughter, I'm so much more go-free and be you. Maybe it's her personality that allows me to do that. But I'm like, I don't know if you'd want that, my friend. I'm like, I don't know if you'd want me as the consuegra, we call it. Is that I don't know, I think it's Spanish. Does anyone know the root of the word consueg in-law? Consuegra? No. No.

SPEAKER_01 6:21

I thought it was a machetonum. We discussed this. What?

SPEAKER_02 6:23

Well, that's so Ashkin normative of you. I think it was when you weren't here, Esther. We were talking about how Yiddish is probably the only language with a word for with machatunam, like the word for what your parents are to your in-laws.

SPEAKER_01 6:34

Consuegra. Right. So teach it to us. Consuegra.

SPEAKER_00 6:37

I don't know. Consuegra is the word. It sounds Spanish to me. I should know the root of this word, but what is it? It means exactly what machin is. It means machatunum. So it's like you. It is a funny word, Pastor. You can laugh. No, it's not funny. I love it. Machatunum. Okay, here's the thing.

SPEAKER_01 6:58

If you don't say it with a Yiddish inflection, it doesn't count.

SPEAKER_00 7:01

Okay. But don't make it Sephardi. Syrian tries to speak Yiddish. No, I can say Yiddish things. I'm just very niche.

SPEAKER_02 7:09

By the way, so Ashkenormative. I do love that word. I feel like it reached a saturation point. There is so many other languages in the Jewish universe. Let's bring them all in.

SPEAKER_01 7:17

And they have words too. There's a lot of slang. I was gonna ask Stephanie about Ashkenormative, the word itself. I feel like that's almost used as a negative.

SPEAKER_02 7:26

It's a calling out of someone like, why do you just assume, why do you assume bagels are what Jewish food is and not malawach?

SPEAKER_01 7:32

I'm very aware there are Sephardic people and Jews from all different places in the world. But also there's something to be said for just being a proud Ashkenazi. That's what I am. Of course, I'm here for the Ashkenazi of it all.

SPEAKER_00 7:44

By the way, I totally agree. Coming from a Sephardic Jew, I am I was literally just having this conversation with another writer about it, it was about the overcorrection in Jewish literature, wanting now to write, and also wanting to spotlight Mizrahi and Sephardic voices because those have been not shut out of the comp, but a lot of have been marginalized or not known as much, not as publicized. And I, my point was also, yes, we should totally spotlight more Mizrahi Sephardic voices. I would certainly benefit from that myself, but it doesn't have to be at the expense of Ashkenaz voices, right? There doesn't have to be that overcorrection there where now there's a deeper interest in these other Jewish voices that we shove the Ashkenazi voices to the side.

SPEAKER_02 8:30

No, I think you're exactly right. But I think there's like we've lost sight of the fact that two things can be true.

SPEAKER_00 8:36

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 8:36

Right? We need to expand what we think of when we think of Jewish voices. And it doesn't have to be like, okay, so we're not gonna read these other classic American Jewish literary works because we're now we need only to read these. And I think that in a lot of the discourse lately, it's like if you're pro this, then you're definitely anti this. And I feel like we feel that in the Jewish world, like how much do we, and I just feel like we need to hold many truths and just I think being more expansive in our understanding of like our own Jewish identities and then also with the broader culture, we need to figure out how to do that too.

SPEAKER_01 9:04

Yeah, I also think that like when we're celebrating, say, Sephardic culture as an example, it can't be done in a shallow or superficial way where it's tokenizing and honestly a little condescending. It has to be serious. And I feel like a lot of that work is happening where there's a recognition that it's not just celebrating Sephardic culture because we care about diversity, it's because Sephardic culture has held close many things that perhaps some of us have lost. Sephardic culture is really interesting because of its relationship with God, or the way Sephardic Jews tend to interact with religion, or the way they tend to hold family as such a high and central value. Have a lot of children. There are a lot of important life lessons that are very of the moment that I think people that aren't Sephardic can learn from the Sephardic community. And so as long as we're celebrating the diversity of our communities in a way that's serious and respectful, I'm all for it.

SPEAKER_03 9:58

I will give a shout out to Esther because I saw she posted on Instagram something yesterday that I was obsessed with about. You can say more, Esther, but it was a cookbook from the Syrian community and deal that was maybe out of print and is back in print. And the way to now order one is to text a phone number that showed up in this graphic, which I'm super intrigued by. And I definitely want to order one, but I was like obsessed with that.

SPEAKER_00 10:23

Wait, guys, this is really funny, and I'm so happy you brought this up because I actually think this that Instagram post was like it's a perfect distillation of everything that Diana was just speaking about. So basically, there is this cookbook with a lot of lore behind it. It's called, it's technically called Deal Delights, but the referring to Deal New Jersey.

SPEAKER_01 10:47

I was gonna say I thought it was called the Red Book.

SPEAKER_00 10:49

Yeah, there's a red one, there's a white one, the red one is the OG one. I wrote this whole article and tablet about how the cookbook was written by this group of 21-year-old Syrian Jewish moms living in Deal, New Jersey, where there was like 100 people in the entire Syrian Jewish community in Deal at the time. It might have been somewhere in the late 70s, early 80s. This cookbook has since gone out of print. But if you have a mother or grandmother, you are passed this cookbook down. And chances are that the pages are tattered, there's oil scenes everywhere, your mom's like chicken scratch annotations are all over the book. It's a Syrian Jewish cookbook, but it to me tells the story of the community's immigration to Brooklyn. And even looking back at some of the recipes now and how much has changed, tells us a lot about where we come from and how much we've grown in certain areas. When I wrote this article, so many people, Syrians and not alike, reached out and were like, where can I get this cookbook? They've heard about it. Either they're a Persian Jew from LA or people reach out from Mexico City that they've always wanted this book, but were never able to get one. And so someone from the PTA at my kids' school, the pro-s from the book originally went to the PTA for my kids' school, reached out to me and was like, hey, we decided to reprint the book. By the way, there's waiting lists for this book in every single Syrian Jewish store in Brooklyn and New Jersey. She was like, Can you post this on your Instagram? And I she sends me the graphic, and it's literally the Deal Delights cookbook with her number and two other women's numbers on it. And I was like, Is there a link? There's no link. They'll ship it to you if they'll drop it to your house or they'll ship it to you if need be. They'll run over to the post office. It's as it was in the early 80s, a very grassroots operation. But then I got literally close to a hundred messages being like, Do I just text the number? Can I I'm Ashkenaz? Can I have one? I have one. I was like, of course, but I had to text Ariana, one of the women, and be like, hey, just a heads up. You might be getting a lot of messages, which is great. But it just made me think that I don't know if they knew A, how big the interest would be like outside of their cohort of Syrian Jews. And B, it made me think about exactly what Diana was saying before, which is the Sephardic way of doing things is very much word of mouth. I see you in the grocery store and I tell you about something, and you tell X, Y, and Z. But it's it has a very grassroots non-professional feel for lack of a better. Wait, can I add another word to it? Yes, please. I'm grasping. Tribal. Tribal. Yeah. And by the way, I think I feel like tribal has a very negative connotation, but it's one of my life's not domain now. Yes.

SPEAKER_03 13:29

To normalize it.

SPEAKER_00 13:30

To normalize it. Yes, build the tribe. Come on.

SPEAKER_03 13:33

We all need a tribe. Well, it's anti-Semitic when someone who's not Jewish says it in like a oh, Jews are so tribal way. But when we're talking about ourselves, like we are tribal.

SPEAKER_01 13:42

Yeah, I like I love being an M O T. Nothing bad.

SPEAKER_02 13:45

Ooh, okay. I love that. There's something about that, all of those things you just mentioned, which is the direction we're all going in, right? Like people are like, I want to get this zine. Only 20 of them exist. Someone made it in their basement. It's 2026, and I'm gonna DM them on Instagram and Venmo them. We are craving a return to what feels like an interconnected universe where someone makes something by hand and then other people get it. I think it's amazing. First of all, can you please get one of these for us? I will Venmo whoever. I will please get it delivered to your house. That is the world we're all looking for right now, where you feel like something you sort of understand something start to finish. The idea of a recipe book from a specific community, of course, everyone wants that. It's like this is our community, this is what we make, this is what we like. And all of a sudden you're seeing the particular is universal, right? There's a reason everyone is finding that so appealing.

SPEAKER_03 14:31

This cookbook is something obviously specific to the Syrian community because that's what the recipes are and where it's coming from. It's of a proud tradition of Jewish communal cookbooks. My mom has one from the synagogue where she grew up in Canton, Ohio, called the Temple Israel Sisterhood Cookbook that must have been published in the 1970s. There's a lot of weird salads in there, all kinds of strange recipes. There's a chocolate chip banana bread bun cake recipe that we all still use. And similarly, exactly what you're saying, Esther, like the oil stains, the little notes that I can't read, the pages that are dog-eared because my mom cooks the recipes all the time. That's such like an amazing, specific experience to have. I don't think the Temple Israel of Canton, Ohio Sisterhood cookbook will be on the shelves anytime soon. But like I love that everyone has their own version.

SPEAKER_02 15:19

It might be. Post it. Guys, we're gonna make our own. And it doesn't have to be just cooking. I think it could be like the Golden Girls Guide to Something. It's gonna have that little binder thing in the corner, whatever's that ring binder thing. And that's the point. Someone once said that the closest thing their family had to heirlooms were their Passover hug at us. And I thought that was such an amazing insight. Cause it's like it's this thing you use every single year. It's stained, maybe it's dog-eared, maybe it's written on. And it's like we have in many creative ways made artifacts for ourselves, right? We've had all of these journeys, and these are the things that ground us. Of course, it's food, of course it's cooking, of course, it's home-based, right? Because that's like where traditions generate and get passed down.

SPEAKER_00 15:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:59

Build it, Steph. We will follow you. DM us, put a check in the mail. This is very feel good. I love it. I love catching

Clavicular in Israel

SPEAKER_02 16:10

up. I'm gonna say a bunch of words, Diana. I hope you don't know any of them. I'm saying words that I wish were not words. I'm saying a sentence that is made up of words that I can't even imagine is a sentence, but I'm gonna say that clavicular went to Israel. Clav. Israel, I know that one. Clav went to Israel and is basically live streaming and TikToking his whole experience there.

SPEAKER_00 16:30

Could we call him Braden Aaron Peters, which is his name? Don't you feel like that would piss him off so much? It's Brayden. Yeah, okay. I guess we have to start with who this guy is.

SPEAKER_03 16:37

Yeah, I'll jump in because I have been following this online saga a little bit. It just made me feel really old when I started seeing about him and this whole looks maxing thing. And I'm like, what are those words? And I had to do some Googling. Like a good journalist. You got down to the bottom of it. Because I'm more journalist than I am Gen Z. I'm not Gen Z. But this idea of looks maxing, it's not just he wants to be attractive and he buys a bunch of hair products like we all do. He is taking supplements. He is he's taking a hammer to his jaw to try to get his proportions better. And some of it's to try to impress women. A lot of it is to try to impress men and be like a cool dude. And it's all tied to this very nihilistic corner of the internet. And part of what was really controversial about his visit to Israel is not just he's this weird dude on the internet. He's been connected to a lot of anti-Semitic, horrible figures on the internet. Several months ago, he was at a nightclub in Miami with the worst people on the internet, including Nick Fuentes, who is an actual neo-Nazi, white supremacist, as sexist as they come. And they were spotted at this nightclub singing along to the Kanye West or Yay song, Hail Hitler. And now this guy, Clav, Braden Peters, whatever we want to call him, shows up in Israel. No one really knows why vibes to try to get attention. And this debate that's been happening online is why are there people in the sort of Jewish pro-Israel online ecosystem who are essentially helping him wander his reputation, try to get attention for themselves in the process? Is it good for the Jews that this guy who's got a lot of followers online is in Israel? That's really what the conversation has been this week.

SPEAKER_00 18:25

If you guys haven't watched Louis Thoreau's documentary, Inside the Manosphere on Netflix, I highly recommend it. It totally dives into this whole toxic masculinity looks-maxing subculture, I guess. It's a really hard watch, but I think an important one. I find it very hard to believe that Clive is an Israel for vibes. I think this was very clearly some sort of orchestrated PR stunt. I do think someone is paying for this trip. I don't know who, but I think that we should find out who. This is a conversation that we should have been having more broadly over a year ago over this question of who are we allowing inside of our tent? It shouldn't be everybody, and it should certainly not be despicable humans like clavicular, who is singing along to Hale Hitler and his troubling, disgusting comments about women. This is not someone who whom we should want to associate with or we should be platforming in any way whatsoever. This is a man who overdosed on live stream. He does things to his body and promotes them in ways that are extremely detrimental to the young men that follow him. And I think really, I think it pinpoints a real sickness in our society. And to see the head of the IDF's TikTok, I think it was, I know she's getting a ton of hate right now, and I don't go for that either, like the death threats and everything else that's being directed her way.

SPEAKER_02 19:52

I think that's part of this. Why does the idea of have TikTok is part of this whole discussion of the portrayal of and promotion of Israel and pro-Jewish causes on a medium that all this other stuff lives in? And so I can see someone saying, Oh, I want to show this guy who is so hateful and is so associated with hateful people, how amazing this place is. That kind of is the old Abe Foxman takes someone to a Holocaust museum, right? This idea of we can educate people. I think that there is an argument to be made that there are people outside the bounds of who we let in. But I do think there's something humiliating about all of this. And I think that's what a lot of people online have touched on, which is seeing people respond positively to Clav being in Israel and putting to fill in on him and saying he's a nice guy, is very degrading to us. It sort of exposes kind of a rift in the Jewish influencer ecosystem, which is like what kind of attention is bad attention and what kind of things are in bad faith? How desperate are we as Jews and as Jews online to accept someone and to basically say, please let me just show you Israel is good and Israel is beautiful and the people are kind, and then how much is just debasing ourselves the broader we for clout, right? That's what this is about.

SPEAKER_00 21:04

The very nature of influencing is to gain clout, right? There's no net positive from this. I don't know. That's my opinion on it.

SPEAKER_03 21:11

And clout, like very loosely defined of just followers and attention. I do want to add, there certainly are plenty of people in Israel who have been excited to have this opportunity to show him around and get in front of this guy's many followers, some of whom maybe are doing it because they think it will help Israel, some of whom are doing it because they just want attention for themselves in their own platforms, 100%. There's also lots of people who are like, what is going on? Why are we doing this? I was reading about this and he showed up to some beach club in Tel Aviv and word got around about who this guy is, and ultimately he was kicked out. So there is some sense of what are you doing here? What are your intentions? They're not good. But the fact that there are people who are just clamoring to like be in front of the camera, and I don't think that's necessarily that's not. Maybe there's a Haspera angle to it, but some of it is just this culture that we're living in where people just want to be in front of a bunch of followers.

SPEAKER_01 22:08

I want to zoom out a little bit. In the world of anti-Semitism studies, we talk about how Jews exist in a culture. And one of our roles in a culture is to be used. And that's how you get anti-Semitism, right? The main problems of a certain culture, whether they're economic or political, cultural, etc., whatever the problem is that's projected on us. So you see that right now in our day. His wasn't the only high-profile trip to Israel this week where someone was trying to score points off of the Jews. And you see politicians do it all the time. I'm distancing myself from the Jews as a way to score political points, or look, I'm standing next to a hostage as a way to show how noble I am. It can go both ways, but in the end of the day, Jews are often used. And I think this was another example of that. And there was this feeling of hope of rehabilitate somebody and showing them, educating them and showing they're wrong. But I think there was a real question here about who's using who. And it didn't feel good at the end of the day. It felt like this guy was having a laugh on us. He can say hateful things, do hateful things, and still show up in the club in Tel Aviv and get embraced. So I don't think it was a good for the Jews moment, but I also don't want to overstate it. This guy doesn't matter. He's gonna go away. He's not really important. What's more troubling is the culture Gabby's describing. And I worry about our children staring at a phone all day, thinking like that's myself worth instead of building a life of service. My worry from this story is more about the culture it represents rather than this specific ridiculous bad person.

SPEAKER_02 23:48

It's funny because so far today we've been talking about two different types of influencing. One with this story is the online, click-based, clout chasing that's being done, but also the online advocacy, let's say. Let's put that there. We've seen a lot of it post-10-7. There are people who have popped up, have huge followings, and they're purporting to be supporting Jewish, uh, Jewish identity and all of that. And then there's what Esther was talking about before with that cookbook, which is the original, I love this thing. Oh, here's this recipe I made. I think you'll really like it. Or I just got my hair cut at this place, I think you're gonna like it. And I think this form of influencing feels deeply unjuwish to us. And it feels very shallow and cheap. But I do think there's this other kind of old school influencing that we were just talking about before with Esther's cookbook, right? This word of mouth, trusted friend to friend. Oh, what should I make tonight? Oh, here's this recipe. I love that. And so I wonder if there's a way to sustain that and invest in that and broaden that reach and use our technological moment to do something more like that and something less that feels like uh debasing in some way, even if it's not posting pictures of Clav, it's sort of posting something to get somewhere in a system that's actually not ours.

SPEAKER_00 25:03

Stephanie, that makes me think of these videos that you sent. I don't know exactly who the influencers, I guess they are, their names, the names of the people that do this, but I've seen them a bunch. And I could pinpoint it as the one type of viral video that I actually enjoy seeing, which is when two Jews, maybe from different backgrounds, or maybe one Sephardic, maybe one's Ashkenaz, doesn't really matter, but they'll pop up in a public place on the couch or something and invite passerbys to come and sit down and have a conversation with them. I think there's a few, right? I saw Rabbi Ariel Stein do this once with a friend of hers, and I think she was like just in Central Park and invited people to come and have a conversation. She made a blessing on Hala on the subway. Yes, they are viral moments and they're taking advantage of social media's reach and appeal, but in a way that feels much more inviting, much more organic, not as hungry for clicks. I'm not saying that we should completely shun social media. I I know that's probably not realistic, but I am saying that there's a way to do it that actually invites normalcy and conversations with real people who have a shared sense of reality, although maybe sometimes it might not seem that way on the surface or at first. There's a way to do these things, right? That's not let me invite one of the most controversial, toxic, hateful men, literally in the US right now, to Israel and feed him chelin and dance with him at Shalbata. And my point is that I do think there are other ways, and frankly, better people better suited to do this sort of work inviting people into the tent than this. This just felt like the wrong move in every way.

SPEAKER_02 26:50

Well, this is actually a great place to be because this idea of throwback, a little bit retro community-based stuff is top of mind because the Borschtbelt Fest is coming up next week. It's in Ellenville, New York, up in the Catskills. It's a project of the Borschtbelt Museum, and they have a really fun lineup. And two of the comedians that will be appearing at the festival next weekend are our guests on today's show. So stick around for my conversation with comedians Ariel Elias and Olga Neymer.

Ask GOLDA with Ariel Elias and Olga Namer

SPEAKER_02 27:18

We are here with two of my favorite comedians and two of the funniest follows on Instagram, I have to say. Olga Neymer, Ariel Elias, welcome to Golden Girls. Hi.

SPEAKER_04 27:28

Hi, thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_02 27:30

Yes, thank you for having us. So you're both very funny, obviously. And a lot of what you talk about in your sets has to do with your own personal background. So I would love it if both of you could tell us where you come from and sort of like the Jewish piece of your identity as well.

SPEAKER_04 27:44

It's fun because we have such different backgrounds. But I grew up conservative Jewish in Kentucky. Both my parents are from the Northeast. And then my dad got a job after living in San Francisco for a while. They got he got a job in Lexington, Kentucky. So that's where I grew up in this very small, very tight-knit Jewish community, but very assimilated. And it meant that every Jew in Lexington knows each other, but it also meant that I was the only Jewish person all of my non-Jewish friends knew. So I feel like most of my knowledge about Judaism is not necessarily because we were so practicing, but it's because my friends would come to me with any of their questions, and I just had to know. So a lot of my comedy then comes from that, which is explaining what it means to be Jewish to non-Jews. And it's evolving a little bit now, but that's how I grew up.

SPEAKER_05 28:38

I'm a Syrian, modern, Orthodox Jew. I didn't know any non-Jews growing up because I went to yeshiva. I ended up getting married very young. Everyone gets married very young. And then I got divorced. And then after that, I took a different path than a lot of people.

SPEAKER_02 28:56

Well, it's so interesting because I feel like Judaism and like Jewishness features pretty prominently in both of your acts. Ariel, I saw you on the Upper West Side. I think it was Stand Up New York. I've seen you in a Jewish context because it's a comedy in New York, but I'm curious for both of you, like, how does that play differently when you're in different places? Ariel, you just by virtue of the fact where you grew up, you were always sort of like straddling these lines of who you are and what you say to who. And I'm curious how both of you present Jewishness to mainstream audiences, like outside New York City.

SPEAKER_04 29:27

It also was such a big part of my identity growing up because I was the one of my friend group. So much of comedy is explaining who you are to people and telling people, here's my identity and here's how here's the lens through which I see the world. So it felt very natural that that was the first stuff that I talked about. And I didn't start in New York, I started in New Orleans. We'd make our own tours. And so we'd go to Pensacola, Florida, and Nashville, Tennessee, and just anywhere that we could drive to that also didn't have huge Jewish populations. So I think I developed a lot of my jokes about being Jewish in front of audiences that weren't Jewish. And it is very difficult sometimes to straddle the line of, well, I can say this about my community, but I'm not trying to give permission to people. And it's interesting as it's evolved, as my comedy has evolved, so is my audience, right? I have a much more Jewish audience, which I love so much. Like there's a shorthand, right? I can tell a joke about Elijah without having to explain who Elijah is. So I'm performing at a lot of synagogues, and then also like a comedy club in the middle of nowhere, and trying to figure out the balance of can I just say something and then explain it? And how do I explain it in a funny way? That's also not putting down my own people.

SPEAKER_02 30:42

I mean, your comedy special is called a Jewish star. So you've really very much leaned into this sort of part of your persona, and people are responding.

SPEAKER_04 30:52

Totally. I wanted to have something out there that was also a moment of joy for us. I think it's very rare that a bunch of Jews gather together not to remember something awful, right? And so I did want it to be that. But also the joke that that's referencing in my special is about the girl in my class who saw me with a Jewish star necklace on and couldn't believe it. Like she it just didn't occur to her. She says, and it's a real thing that happened. She said, Does that mean that you're a real live Jew? I said, like, yeah, he didn't, he didn't get all of us. And then I say, like, but she wasn't saying it with hate. She was saying it as if she was like, I guess I only have two wishes left. Like that joke, which is very much like the title of here's who I am and here's who I want to be, and here's the people who I want to reach, but here's where it comes from. Like, that's why I'm seeking this out so desperately.

SPEAKER_02 31:40

And Olga, for you, you're really like translating a lot of the specificity of your experience to your audiences.

SPEAKER_05 31:46

I started in New York. Everyone knows Jews and knew a Jew. And I when I started, I would say I was raised orthodox. I never spoke about being Syrian. I didn't want to out my community if I said anything bad or whatever.

SPEAKER_02 31:59

Ariel, you talk about the sort of Chabad Jew that you encounter in New York. Yeah. Or that is just the standard.

SPEAKER_04 32:05

Yeah. And I was like, oh my God, this is crazy. Like I've never seen like somebody like that before. Oh, you talk about Chabad? I it's a I I I talk about like seeing a Hasidic guy for the first time. Oh, really? And I go, oh my gosh, it's my people. And then I was like, oh, it's not my people. It's a very different community.

SPEAKER_02 32:25

Yeah. The two of you will actually be like in an extremely Jewish context next weekend at Borschbelt Fest, which is a really, really fun festival up in the Catskills. It's presented by the Borschtbelt Museum. How does it feel? To me, I'm like, that must be like the dream in many ways. Live this Borsche Belt, Catskills, old school comedy. Do you feel like you're entering into that pantheon of that moment being up there?

SPEAKER_04 32:50

I'll be totally honest. I didn't grow up with Borsch Belt culture at all because I grew up in the South. The closest I came is I'm like, oh, I is it dirty dancing? I saw that. So for me, the excitement is not like, oh, I've always dreamed about this thing. For me, it's more this cultural touchstone that felt so far away from me growing up that didn't feel like it was mine, now gets to be mine. So I'm very excited, but not necessarily for the reason that my grandparents would have been excited for me.

SPEAKER_02 33:21

Yeah, it wasn't one of those families where everyone's being like, Jackie Mason got it. Like I feel like that was sort of like this whole thing, which is so funny.

SPEAKER_04 33:27

I did see him a couple of times at an Italian restaurant in my neighborhood in Queens, and I was like, oh, okay, I get it. That's cool.

SPEAKER_05 33:36

I guess because I grew up Syrian, comedy wasn't a thing. It really does feel like I grew up in a bubble. I don't know. Like if I told my mother Borschfeld, she'll be like, What are you what? Do you know what I mean? It's exciting because I love all the comedians that have been there and I love Joan Rivers. She did stuff there and Mel Brooks and like all these people that I respect. It's exciting.

SPEAKER_02 33:57

So, okay, there's a segment of our show. It's called Ask Golda, and it's when listeners write in with questions they have about Jewish ritual or culture, like something that they've encountered. And I have a question today, and I'm hoping the two of you can help me answer it.

unknown 34:09

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 34:10

Okay, this one comes in from Aviva in LA. She writes, I just broke up with my boyfriend of four years, and I'm trying to get back out there. I'm on the apps, but it's different than I remember. Specifically, I get a lot of weird DMs about being Jewish. I don't have anything political on my profile, but between my name and my face, it's she writes, it's dot dot dot. Pretty obvious. Do you have any tips for navigating the apps while Jewish? Should I do a Jewish-specific one? Is there something better than J Swipe? Help. I'm curious if either of you have any thoughts for Aviva. I feel like the two of you are publicly Jewish in this moment, and I feel like that's a little bit similar. So I'm curious what you have to say.

SPEAKER_04 34:44

I couldn't be a worse person to ask, but I've never been on an app for dating. I'm so sorry. Can we ask follow-up? What kind of stuff is she getting about being Jewish? What are people saying to her?

SPEAKER_02 34:55

I don't know. I have heard from people who are like, we talk a lot about on the show about this idea of bageling where you try to find out if someone's Jewish without saying it. And I have heard from people who are like, I don't put anything Jewish. I try to indicate subtly so that if someone sees it, they know I'm Jewish because I want them to. But then they also don't want to end up on a date with someone who does not want to be on a date with a Jewish person. And so it's weird to be like, hi, I'm Jewish on your profile picture, but you kind of want to send that out and see what happens.

SPEAKER_04 35:23

I gotcha. I mean, I think the closest I can relate to this is if guys are responding to you and talking about your Judaism in a way that you don't want them to be, I would just take that as a great way to filter out people who are not right for you. And you don't have to waste your time responding to them.

SPEAKER_05 35:40

I know that this guy, there's a comedian, and he said, I think he said, so he's on fields, which is a wild app, I guess. I heard. I'm not on it. Wait, which one is that? It's like this is it like a sex one?

SPEAKER_04 35:56

It's for people who have kinks, for specific kicks.

SPEAKER_05 35:59

Yeah. And he said that on fields, there's people that they write, no Zionists allowed. I will not be with a Zionist. He's like, so I can't be on fields anymore because it's most of fields. But what I'm saying is, I guess you can navigate it. Some people will put a Jewish star and let them know they're Jewish.

SPEAKER_04 36:20

So that if you don't want that situation, I can understand if you're on a dating app and you're maybe I'm being a little flippant by being like, ah, you don't want that person anyway. It's no, you're putting yourself out there. You're being vulnerable. That's a scary experience to have people then unsolicited ask you about geopolitics, where you're like, hey man, I'm just trying to, I'm just trying to get dinner in a movie. I think it speaks to this very intense moment that we live in and how divided we've become and how extreme we all are online. I really think a part of the solution is just get off the app and just go outside, join a kickball league or something. I don't know. It's just, I think when people see each other face to face, generally they're much less hostile, and people are able to look each other in the eye and generally see empathy.

SPEAKER_02 37:09

I love that. I'm so excited. That's beautiful.

SPEAKER_05 37:11

And no, and no, there's so many questions for Arya, but then it's not far. I want to know if you get any hate DMs. Could I ask her that or no?

SPEAKER_04 37:19

Oh, yeah. And the comments are terrible. But I'm just like, okay, you're okay, fine.

SPEAKER_05 37:24

I feel like some people, sorry, and I know you want to probably end, but I do feel that. But we have to talk about anti-Semitism. You can't just with this girl. I feel like this with this girl and the dating apps, it's hard because sometimes you're sheltered. You're not you a lot of people in my family, they would be shocked if they saw the DMs that I get. Shocked. They're still very much in their own, oh, everything's okay, blah, blah, blah. So when probably when this girl's on the apps and she has one comment or something bad, you see it, probably feels way more to her than if you're out there getting DMs like we get. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_02 38:07

Yes, it does. I'm so excited for the two of you to finally get to the Catskills and to have the Mrs. Mazel experience at Borschbelt Fest next weekend. Ariel Elias, Olga Neamer, thank you for being on Golden Girls. Thank you for having us.

SPEAKER_04 38:20

Thanks, Stephanie.

Good for the Jews

SPEAKER_02 38:23

All right, I'm back with the Golden Girls, and we are gonna close out the show with I have to say, my favorite segment, Good for the Jews. Each of us is gonna share something this week that is, in fact, good for the Jews. I'm gonna start, I'm gonna end the show the way I started it by talking about Mahjong, and I'm gonna make a very specific case for why Mahjong is good for the Jews. And it's not just that everyone is playing it. I get that, I love that, I love the stuff, I love the sets. We play with sets from the Mahjong line. They're beautiful, I love all of it. But what I like specifically about Mahjong and what I try to do at each of the events that that we host, the all the golden mahjong nights and afternoons and fun things like that. And what I like to start each Golden Mahjong event with is just a quick explanation. And I say, I'm so happy that you're all here with us, wherever we are, and to be in this beautiful space together. And I'm so glad that we're playing Mahjong. And the special thing about Mahjong is that, of course, it originates in China. It is a Chinese game. And a few different versions get brought over to the United States by people who are visiting China. And what ends up happening is that there's a lot of different versions that are being played in the United States, a little bit chaotic. And there's a group of people who sit down and say, We must fix this, we must organize this and make sure that we're all playing the same game and that we can all play with each other, because certain people would play different versions. And so it should not surprise you that this was a group of Jewish women in New York City who were basically saying, Let's make sense of this. And so let's get this organized. Yes, let's organize this. We could do this. And so what ultimately comes of this is the National Mahjong League, which is a nonprofit organization. And if you look on their website, so many of the charities that they support with the cards people purchase each year go to Jewish charities. And it's actually this incredibly like old school Hamish thing. And that is the game that we that is played in the United States right now is the nationalized version of American Mahjong is the one that these Jewish ladies set about at like someone's kitchen table. And of course, people in the United States play the Chinese version, play the Hong Kong version. I've someone was telling me they play the Filipino version and their kids are learning the American version. And what this all says to me is there's such a beautiful cultural history of this game. It is a shared cultural history. And so I like this idea of saying mahjong is for everyone. We know that. There's a Jewish piece of this story that I don't want to get written out. And I think it's really important to celebrate that. And so I love to basically say, I'm glad all of you are here. Our events aren't just for Jewish people, right? But it's to me, it's that spirit, it's that spirit of mahjong and that spirit of Jewish Jewishness that is welcoming and inviting and open to everyone. And so I don't know. I'm just like, I need to say that here because every time I say it, like I do feel very moved by like our part in this story.

SPEAKER_03 40:45

Incredible stuff. We will stretch mahjong into as many segments as we can. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:50

Yeah, of course. I thought it was gonna be all about bagels, but no, it's mahjong. It's taking a new cast. My mahjong Jewish. Yes, right. My mahjong's Jewish.

SPEAKER_03 40:58

I'll share something Jewish, as I often do. It's not quite new, but for me, my soundtrack of the summer has been the new Olivia Rodrigo album. You seem pretty sad for a girl so in love. I don't think that there is anything Jewish about that album, per se, unfortunately, beyond that I am Jewish and I adore it and have been singing along to it in the car and in the shower and all over the place. But Olivia Rodrigo, a couple weeks ago after releasing the album, shared something to her Instagram talking about how much she loves Regina Specter and Regina Specter being really someone, an artist who inspires her, who's been someone she's really looked up to in her career. And Regina Spector is, for those who don't know, an incredible Jewish musician, songwriter, singer, pianist, all kinds of things. She was born in the former Soviet Union and came to the US when she was young with her family. I think got into music maybe at some Jewish summer camp. I don't remember the exact story, and has very loudly and proudly worn her Jewishness, has spoken about it after October 7th, and has faced a lot of hate for it, including at her concerts where she's been heckled by some people. And so Olivia Rodrigo was not sharing this to say, I stand with Israel or I stand with the Jewish people, but I loved seeing that at a time when Regina Specter has faced some pushback. And I love that Olivia Rodrigo and I are listening to the same amazing artist. I love that.

SPEAKER_02 42:18

And I love Regina Specter.

SPEAKER_00 42:20

Come on, Golden Girls. I love both of those female musicians. Gabby, thanks for that. I haven't listened to the album yet, but that is what I'll be doing today on my walk. Okay, my good for the Jews, because I can't let an episode go by without either mentioning Sasha Barron Cohen or Adam Sandler, is Sasha Barron Cohen showing up as Ally G in the stands of Will Wimbledon yesterday. He looked good though. It's not the same because you can even tell that Sasha Barron Cohen had a glow up as Ally G, which is like Yeah, like Ally G got hot. Ally G. And I was like, is wait, is Ally G hot now? And the answer is maybe he was always hot. But also the answer is definitely yes, he is hot now. But he showed up as a ganja dealer, which Diana Ganja is slaying for. Stop this. Okay, like I just don't have social media.

SPEAKER_01 43:13

I am aware of the universe.

SPEAKER_00 43:15

I was not familiar with the term. It's rumored that Ali G is coming back. There's gonna be another film of some sort, maybe. And I think, like, what better possible thing could there be for the Jews in this moment than the return of Ali G on our screens? I'll take anything. I'll take Bora, I'll take Ali G. I'll take whoever Sasha Baron Cohn wants to throw out at us at this point. And yeah, what a pleasant surprise.

SPEAKER_03 43:39

These pictures are amazing, by the way. I just looked it up. He's wearing this like blinged out gold chain with a huge tennis ball that's made to look like it's covered in diamonds or something. It's so good.

SPEAKER_00 43:49

Incredible. And he said of Wimbledon, it's like the World Cup of something called tennis, which is like a crap version of ping pong. They say that tennis is better played on ground. Which is why I intend to sell as much of it while I'm here. So if you want some herbal remedies, get me got anything you want. What a perfect collision of my two loves. Tennis and LG. So good for the Jews.

SPEAKER_01 44:14

I feel like it's hard to make Wimbledon funny or Jewish, but he somehow managed to do both. A true artist. So my good for the Jews is as follows. As you know, I went on vacation and I went to nature. Okay. I don't know if any of you ladies have been to nature, but I went to nature in an amazing country called Costa Rica. Okay. And I sat something I like to do is sit quietly and contemplate things. I don't know if I'm the only one here, but this is one of my hobbies. So I got to sit quietly in the rainforest and I contemplated. And I sat there alone and I just looked out. And I started, the more I sat there, the more I saw. So I started to see it wasn't just miles and miles of green. There were so many shades of green. And actually, I wasn't alone. I saw a bird. Then I saw another bird. I heard the wind of the trees go by. And I really just sat there and admired all of the wonders of God's creation. And it was very spiritual. And it also reminded me of the magic, the majesty, and the complexity of the way God created human beings. And that's my good for the Jews this week. It's the wonder of God's creation. Thank you, God.

SPEAKER_03 45:44

I will just add to that when I was also visiting nature over my vacation, also in some mountains, although probably a little colder than where you were, Diana, I was having similar thoughts. Shaheyanu was said. It was beautiful. So we are clearly podcast soulmates. No, sisters.

SPEAKER_01 46:01

Podcast sisters.

SPEAKER_03 46:02

Yes. Podcast sisters. Sister soulmates, all the words. Sister pop. But sister pop. But I sound like sister wives. I love that. And it's fun that being Jewish gives us things to say and think about in those moments when we're experiencing beauty.

SPEAKER_00 46:14

That's beautiful. Diane, I kept expecting you to be like, and that's when God spoke to me.

SPEAKER_01 46:20

No, but I did think, okay, that didn't happen. But I did think of Yaakov's dream, right? He's running, running, running from his family. He falls asleep on a rock and he has his amazing dream with the angels ascending and descending on the ladder, and he wakes up and he said, God was in this place, and I did not know it. And I literally had that thought, Esther, when I was in the rainforest, which is, I'm not that familiar with nature. I live in New York City. It's not something I think about a lot. I guess I kind of do take it for granted. And it was just like taking the time and space to witness this profound and mysterious and massive creation. And I did feel a little bit like Jakov. God did not speak to me, but it reminded me of a time that God did speak to someone.

SPEAKER_02 47:02

You guys, you're like, you went out in the world.

SPEAKER_03 47:04

You guys literally touched grass. We touched, we touched grass. And as we're sitting on our computers, we want everyone to know.

SPEAKER_02 47:11

Before we close out the show, shout out one, a recent five-star review we got because it made me so happy. And the review said Jewess matzoball soup for the soul. What's not to like? Delightfully entertaining, informative, and deliciously Jewish. Like, can you even?

SPEAKER_01 47:26

I love it. And I feel obligated to share. There is an orchid in the rainforest that smells like matzobal soup, so I'm told. Yes. So that can be like maybe our icon. That can be. And then we'll sell that candle. Yes, we'll sell it as a candle.

SPEAKER_02 47:41

But nature orchid matzoball soup.

SPEAKER_01 47:43

Yes. But thank you for that review. That's so, so touching. I love that.

SPEAKER_02 47:46

I love that. And I just want to remind everyone that if you leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, we'll send you a gold sticker. So send a screenshot of your review to high at goldeguide.com. I have been mailing out a lot of stickers, which is so fun. Please keep reviewing us. That's a great way for other people to find out about our show. Send our show around to people who you love and who you think would love us. GoldaGirls is a production of Golden

Credits

SPEAKER_02 48:05

Media. The show is hosted by me, Stephanie Butnik with Gabby Deutsch, Diana Fersko, and Esther Shahabar. Ariel Shmiro is our executive producer, and we're edited by the team at Poldo. Get more Golda and subscribe to our newsletter at Goldeguide.com. Follow us on Instagram at GoldaGuide. And in our show notes, you can find links to sign up for Diana's newsletter, Modern Juess, and Gabby's Substack and how to get Esther's novel, Sisters of Fortune, and her children's book, I Share My Name. All of that and more, plus our upcoming events in the show notes. And a reminder to send us your Ask Golda questions so we can answer them on air. The best way to do it is to record a voice memo on your phone and email that to high equablyguide.com. Thanks for listening and stay golden.

SPEAKER_05 48:43

That's a golda podcast.