Big Bang Theory’s Mayim Bialik Talks About Her Wonderful Chanukah Traditions (and Food!)

Now that we’re into the holiday season with Thanksgiving this week, Family First is starting a sporadic series profiling different celebrities and their holiday traditions – both from when they were young and now with their own families.

Today is our first day and we start out with the wonderful actress Mayim Bialik, who is currently appearing on CBS’ “The Big Bang Theory.” You might remember her best from her title role as “Blossom.”

She gives us some wonderful insight into her life with her answers to our questions about holiday traditions.

Where did you grow up?

I grew up in Los Angeles, California, but my parents were very recent transplants from New York (The Bronx). 

Any traditions around preparation for holidays? Did you have any shopping rituals/church or temple rituals? Any specific activities like cookie baking, charity work or crafts and gift-giving?

We celebrate Chanukah which is a minor Jewish holiday but a festive one. Starting around a month before Chanukah begins (this varies year to year, since Judaism uses a lunar calendar), I take out our collection of dreidels for our sons to play with. We also take out a giant wooden Chanukiah which the boys practice putting wooden candles and wooden flames into. We sing the prayers and “Maoz Tzur” so they are ready for that when the time comes to light the candles and sing. We bake cookies for the service people in our lives, and that starts mid-December so we can thank our trash collectors and mailmen in time for Christmas. I make donations to charities for pediatricians, business people in our lives, and for our families as well.

For holiday dinners/celebrations was there a specific place you would go as a family when you were a child?  Have you continued that with your own family or do you have new traditions for these celebrations?

Chanukah is, like many Jewish holidays, a wonderful home holiday. The smell of my mother frying latkes when I was a child is not one I will ever forget- yum! We have continued this tradition for our boys of frying the perfect latke, no matter the mess or labor involved. We pride ourselves on consuming latkes every day of the holiday! I have perfected a sofganyot (fried doughnuts traditional for Chanukah) recipe and have made it vegan, and we usually host at least 2 “latke parties” so that our kids can eat vegan latkes with vegan sour cream and finish it off with vegan sofganyot!

Was it casual with paper plates and plastic cups or was it formal with nice china and sterling silver?

As a kid, my mom loved paper plates, cups, and napkins with dreydls and chanukiot. As a green mama, I use regular dishes (plain white) and take out the fancier silverware bits and piece my Grandmother left me. The magic is in the oil, not the presentation!

Any unique guests or funny events that occurred at any of these celebrations?

Oh goodness, every holiday was full of unique guests and funny events in my family; Chanukah was no exception! We always like to invite non-Jewish guests to our parties to share the rituals and foods we cherish without some of the restrictions that our other holidays (like Pesach, Rosh Hashanah and Sukkot) have. On Chanukah, we can take pictures, use the phone, and use the stove, so it’s a great holiday to share with people who are new to understanding Judaism.

What’s your favorite holiday dish? Any dishes you have that are unique/strange/noteworthy?

You cannot beat fried potatoes and onions: enter the latke! We even make variations of the latke throughout the year. My vegan sofganyot are a huge hit, and it’s so nice to have a fun dessert for the vegans we invite over!

What’s the strangest tradition your family either had when you were a child or has now?

Well, when my mother was a child, her parents, who were Orthodox immigrants from Hungary and Poland , would fling a dead chicken over her head around Yom Kippur. This is called shlug kapuris in Yiddish, and the chicken was thought to absorb the sins of the past year. Does it get any stranger than that!?

Any traditions from childhood you miss either because the things don’t exist, same people are gone, or you live in a different place and can’t continue?

We were never big on gifts for Chanukah, since that’s not traditionally part of the holiday, but I would get new pajamas, a wall calendar for the following year, and a few pencils and a new dreydl almost every year without fail. I miss the simplicity of those gifts, and the innocent desire I had for those sweet items that my parents lovingly gathered for me every year.

What’s the most important part of the holidays for you?

Making everyone feel good about what they do/don’t do. My father-in-law and his wife celebrate Christmas, and even though it’s not “our” holiday, they are my in-laws and my sons’ loving wonderful grandparents. We spend the day with them and enjoy their holiday with them without it threatening our identity or traditions.

What new projects are you working on that you would like the readers to know about?

Besides working on raising my sons which is the hardest and best job I know of, I can be seen throughout this season on CBS’ The Big Bang Theory as Sheldon’s sort of love interest, Amy Farrah Fowler. I am currently editing my book on Attachment and Holistic Parenting (Simon & Schuster release Spring 2012), and I write weekly for Kveller.com.