Being Jewish with Jonah Platt

[00:00:00] Jonah Platt: Welcome to this very special episode of Being Jewish with me, Jonah Platt, for the first time recorded in front of a live studio audience. Yeah! We're here at the iconic CBS Television City, home to so many classic game shows and TV series like The Price is Right, All in the Family, The Carol Burnett Show, and most importantly, the Survivor live season finales.

[00:00:55] Jonah Platt: And with all that showbiz spirit inhabiting these walls, we wanted to make sure to bring you a [00:01:00] truly spectacular trio of some of Hollywood's finest actors for tonight's episode. Should I introduce the guests? My first guest tonight is a man whose voice alone is instantly recognizable for millions of fans around the world.

[00:01:15] Jonah Platt: He's a Tony nominee, two time Annie Award winner, children's book author, Jewish comic book writer, and has a new book of personal essays he calls a tell some coming out next month. Please welcome the hilarious Josh Gad, my man. Thank you for having me.

[00:01:38] Jonah Platt: Get comfortable. My second guest hails from Memphis, Tennessee, where she was both baptized and bat mitzvahed before fully reclaiming her Jewish identity as an adult. She's played a Mormon wife, a fairy tale princess, and a rabbit cop, though today you're most likely to see her playing the role of leader, [00:02:00] advocating for Jews at numerous public events and all over social media.

[00:02:04] Jonah Platt: Please welcome the enchanting Jennifer Goodwin.

[00:02:15] Jonah Platt: Oh, we love to see it. And last, but certainly not least, she is an Oscar winning powerhouse who broke barriers as the youngest and first deaf actor to receive the award at just 21 years old. She's got four kids, four Emmy noms, 18 tattoos, and one upcoming PBS documentary all about her. Please welcome the one and only Marlee Matlin

[00:02:43] Jonah Platt: and her fabulous interpreter Jack.

[00:02:49] Jonah Platt: 19 tattoos as of today. Oh, as of today? I want to start with that. What's the 19th tattoo?

[00:02:56] Jack for Marlee Matlin: It says, it's my granddaughter's name.

[00:02:58] Jonah Platt: That's beautiful. [00:03:00] Thanks for being here, you guys. This is so awesome. I'm so psyched to have all three of you. Uh, I thought it would be fun to kind of structure this a little bit like a movie or a pilot, something with which you are all familiar.

[00:03:10] Jonah Platt: So we're going to do a little in media res. I'm going to start at the climax and then we're going to jump back to the beginning of the story. So I'm going to start with October 7th, which was no doubt a turning point for so many Jewish people in so many different ways and certainly for all of you. How has each of your connections to being Jewish changed since October 7th?

[00:03:33] Jonah Platt: And how? If at all has the way you spend your time changed since October 7th. Josh, why don't we start with you?

[00:03:40] Josh Gad: I was hoping you would start with a soft, easy question like this one. We only have 90 minutes. I got to get all three, you know, I was like, it's either going to be the Holocaust or October 7th.

[00:03:50] Josh Gad: It's like Colnagel with microphones. Um,

[00:03:57] Josh Gad: Jesus Christ. Jonah. Does your cold not have [00:04:00] microphones? All right. Well, October 7th. Uh, I was on Broadway doing a show called Gutenberg, the musical. And thank you very much. Um, and we were, um, you know, part of the opening of the show, Andrew Rannells, my co star and I had this joke about, you know, how every.

[00:04:26] Josh Gad: Big show. Every big musical has an important issue. And our important issue was the Holocaust. And it got a big laugh and everybody was, you know, laughing. It was much funnier when you went to the show, and we did this. I come home and I see that, um, oh, I forgot it was opening night of October 7th was night was opening night.

[00:04:50] Josh Gad: Wow. Suffice it to say, there was no laughter the next day. Um, I wasn't sure if I wanted to [00:05:00] go on stage. I had to play a character named little Nazi girl in it, which again, you know, it was really funny 24 hours before. And suddenly really difficult to figure out how to navigate this comedy where we were, you know, um, able to do what Mel Brooks always says, which is weaponize antisemitism in a way to make people laugh.

[00:05:28] Josh Gad: And it was no longer funny. And I had a really hard time. And it was really difficult navigating art and commerce simultaneously in real time. And I sat down with the writers, And Alex Timbers and Andrew Rannells. And I said, as the Jew here. Uh, we need a, we need to fix shit now. Uh, and we workshopped it and that day I told them what I was comfortable with.

[00:05:56] Josh Gad: And I, and they said, do you want to get away from the concept? I said, no, not [00:06:00] at all. Now more than ever, I want to, I want to lean into it. But I just think we need to ease up on the wording. So we changed little Nazi girl. Um, strike that, reverse it. It was anti Semite and we changed anti Semite to little Nazi girl.

[00:06:16] Jonah Platt: Right.

[00:06:16] Josh Gad: And because the

[00:06:17] Jonah Platt: Nazis were safe now to make fun of Nazis, if

[00:06:20] Josh Gad: Indiana Jones could do it, so could we? And I, once we made that change, you couldn't laugh at anti Semite, as you're literally seeing acts of anti Semitism, the likes of which we hadn't seen in years,

[00:06:34] Jonah Platt: how deep into our into the run? Are we talking now since when when these changes are going?

[00:06:39] Jonah Platt: Oh, this was day three. This was right away.

[00:06:42] Josh Gad: This was right away. And I was very, I was very grateful that I had such a collaborative team who was willing to roll up their sleeves and go, okay, we hear you. We're going to do this. We changed some of the wording. And it suddenly, it [00:07:00] suddenly got laughs. It invited people to actually engage with the idea Of antisemitism being real and laughing sort of like my other show book of mormon did at the fact that like yes There are you can laugh at tragedy and you can do satire, but you have to navigate it gently and It was a real learning curve, but one I was grateful for and also I was pretty scared to leave my apartment during those You During my run of the show, I had to have security, uh, because I did the thing you're not supposed to do, which was be Jewish.

[00:07:42] Jonah Platt: Oh, that thing.

[00:07:43] Josh Gad: And it was tough. I made one post after October 7th, which is my heartbreaks for the families. And it's not a political post. That is not a post that should have any controversy. And I was met with death threats. I was met with rabid [00:08:00] antisemitism. And I called it out and I said, this is insanity.

[00:08:06] Josh Gad: The fact that you are making me feel ashamed of giving condolences for people being massacred is that is, that's a point of no return. That's a, that's a problem. And I felt really uncomfortable in my skin and I felt scared And I felt really, really sad that I had to feel those things. My grandparents are Holocaust survivors and they always said, never forget.

[00:08:39] Josh Gad: And I just didn't realize, I, I didn't realize that the warning meant because it could happen

[00:08:48] Jonah Platt: Powerful. Um, I noticed Marley and Jenny both nodding as you're talking about that post and the, and the backlash you received. Marley, I was going to ask you about it later, but I'll ask you now. You posted something [00:09:00] right on October 7th, very similar to what Josh did.

[00:09:03] Jonah Platt: What it's, you know, sending condolences and, and praying for people who had been harmed. And I saw the comments. Some were supportive, but some were extremely negative. hateful, and, you know, I'm unfollowing you, I used to be a fan, I'm not anymore. What was the effect of that on you?

[00:09:21] Jack for Marlee Matlin: I, I posted right away exactly when it happened.

[00:09:26] Jack for Marlee Matlin: And I just wanted to say, you know, let's call for peace. And the comments were so hateful. So, I mean, full of words that I couldn't even process or look at after the first time that I felt, I mean, just disgusted and upset my kids who saw the same comments and I wanted to sit and have a conversation, probably for the first time, I just had no words.

[00:09:59] Jack for Marlee Matlin: I [00:10:00] mean, I was too stunned. I was too stunned to have to, I mean, it really literally had to take a break for like a day or two and try to process it and talk to them about it. About the hate that we were experiencing after all those posts of the, just the spewing forth of, of hate just from one post. And on October 7th, my first, I mean, my, my first thought was.

[00:10:29] Jack for Marlee Matlin: All the people that had to experience the families, the friends, everything that was going on. And the one thing I kept thinking about were deaf people that might have gone through the same thing. Not being aware of what was going on. The lack of communication in the state of Israel. The chaos. The, the craziness of everything that was going on.

[00:10:56] Jack for Marlee Matlin: That really worried me to the point where I, I [00:11:00] mean, it was constantly on my mind.

[00:11:02] Jonah Platt: That's really an interesting and unique perspective to hear, so thank you for sharing that. Ginny, I want to take it back to the original question with you of how has your connection to being Jewish changed since October 7th?

[00:11:17] Jonah Platt: Because I, and you know, I ask, you know, how have you spent your time since October 7th? How has that changed? And I know those have both been big changes for you.

[00:11:25] Ginnifer Goodwin: Well, I mean, I think the biggest change has been just people finding out I'm Jewish. Um, apparently that was something we were supposed to keep our heads down about.

[00:11:32] Ginnifer Goodwin: Um, I will say it's interesting because I relate to words, um, specifically the words we use changed my life as much as October 7th did. I'll say, and social media plays into this too. So on October 7th, I remember when I read the news of what had happened. I'll And, um, which I think was actually October 8th by the time we were, um, by the time we found out [00:12:00] and I immediately went on to Instagram and I was reposting, I have friends who escaped Iran in the 80s and, um, escaped from the regime.

[00:12:12] Ginnifer Goodwin: That has been in power all of this time. And so I felt in reposting what they had posted, like surely the world just needs to understand the situation and that then there will be. sympathy for, you know, for the victims of this. So I started reposting and I immediately got calls from my Persian friends, which I wasn't expecting.

[00:12:36] Ginnifer Goodwin: Their question was, do you understand what's about to happen to you? Like, we really appreciate the support. However, we think maybe you shouldn't, like, your, like, your career could be at risk for speaking up about this, which took me days to then process. And. On October 10th, I remember someone made a Jew joke to me.

[00:12:59] Ginnifer Goodwin: [00:13:00] And, I've spent my life laughing at Jew jokes, realizing people didn't know that I was Jewish because I wanted to seem endearing and, um, I mean, it's a form of assimilation, right? I wanted to, I wanted them to, if they found out that I was Jewish, think that I was like hip to it and I could be self deprecating in a way that made me more appealing, um, As if being Jewish comes with all these caveats that we are not.

[00:13:30] Ginnifer Goodwin: And in it was the first time in my life. So the Jew joke was made to me and my comeback was terrible. Like usually I would laugh but the most I could muster was not today. And I realized that like I was done. I was just done with I was I was done with all of it. I experienced a lot of anti semitism in my childhood.

[00:13:50] Ginnifer Goodwin: Um, I felt like we were in this other period of You I mean, like you were saying about your [00:14:00] grandparents, like, we were never going to have to face these things again in our lifetime. And I thought that what I had experienced, I could frankly write off as being, well, I was living in the South and in a very different sort of political climate, and maybe that's why I experienced what I, what I did as a child.

[00:14:16] Ginnifer Goodwin: But in all of my trying to assimilate in Hollywood. And for all that I did to keep my head down, I just realized on, it was on October 10th when these words were used with me that I was like, no, I'm done. I'm done with this. I don't need to apologize for doing something like reposting what my Persian friends experienced escaping Iran in the 1980s.

[00:14:38] Ginnifer Goodwin: You know, my husband and I had to have a lot of talks as I then continued to post. I was asked to post about the hostages and we talked about like, what if I, what if I lose my career over this? Like, what if I become some kind of pariah because I up for us. And it came down to like, you know, yeah, okay. We would be okay if we like lost the [00:15:00] house and had to pull out the, pull the kids out from school and all of these things.

[00:15:03] Ginnifer Goodwin: Because the truth is like, there's only one way this goes where I can sleep at night. And that's the way where I am not only embrace Judaism, but I fight for the continuation of our people and I, you know, educate and I celebrate and I advocate. This is the next phase of my being an adult. And there's only that one path where I'm going to feel good about who I am as a human.

[00:15:25] Ginnifer Goodwin: And I, oh, thanks. And it, and I simultaneously realized that. I had to become, uh, well, Brett Stevens said, if you follow the writings of Brett Stevens, I think he's,

[00:15:38] Jonah Platt: uh,

[00:15:39] Ginnifer Goodwin: brilliant. And he said in an interview recently, um, he did an ADL panel of some kind and he said, um, he hopes that everyone, you know, post October 7th becomes 10 percent more Jewish.

[00:15:51] Ginnifer Goodwin: And I mean, I do, I mean, honey, how many, what do you think? I'm like a million percent more Jewish at this point. Yeah, because my my path [00:16:00] through this has been it's not just that I'm going to be loud and proud because I feel like our job as Public figures is to give permission, um, and to show like we can take this so you can take this to

[00:16:12] Jonah Platt: 100 percent

[00:16:13] Ginnifer Goodwin: and it's part of like stepping out into the community and say, like, I'm here.

[00:16:16] Ginnifer Goodwin: Come with me. We're going to do this together. This is a team sport. We and we all need each other to continue and It turned into not only would it be about this advocacy work, but I was really worried that my kids were going to think that, um, my girlfriend, Dory, we would always celebrate. Um, she's in the audience here, so I'm pointing at her.

[00:16:35] Ginnifer Goodwin: If you're not watching the video, I thought you were just

[00:16:37] Jonah Platt: randomly pointing. Yeah, right.

[00:16:38] Ginnifer Goodwin: I'm just pretending. But, um, I really did fear that my kids were going to think that my friend Dory's house was this big. was synagogue because we would just go to her house for all the Jewish holidays. And I realized that I could not be in control of, if I'm, if I'm the sole person teaching my children about Judaism and, and if going to Dori's house is like their sole experience with like Jewish community, [00:17:00] then like I was not giving them the option as adults to lead Jewish lives.

[00:17:04] Ginnifer Goodwin: And that I needed community, like real community, lots and lots of people to help me raise Jewish sons. And that that was part of my contribution to commit. You know, to the future of the Jewish people is I need good Jewish boys. And so I enrolled them in Hebrew school and my eldest is already studying for his bar mitzvah and we're going to go to Israel.

[00:17:24] Ginnifer Goodwin: And, um, we started, we had, we had kind of, we had stopped celebrating Shabbat every Friday. Now we definitely celebrate Shabbat every Friday night. Like it really was like, I, Brett Stevens, 10 percent has nothing on me.

[00:17:37] Jonah Platt: You're nailing it. I want to just follow up on something you mentioned, you know, the, the fear of your career.

[00:17:44] Jonah Platt: Being affected by your speaking out has it been

[00:17:47] Ginnifer Goodwin: no, I've gotten far more jobs in the past year than I have in like 10 years

[00:17:49] Jonah Platt: Exactly, right? So yes, I mean i've talked about that a lot on the show that I think people get i'm still looking[00:18:00]

[00:18:01] Jonah Platt: I I think you know the big barriers to entry for people taking that step forward into Taking up space and speaking out is first They're afraid that that that startling hate that you get when you do that first post that you've all experienced can be extremely arresting and Jarring and and scary and there's also that fear of this is gonna ruin my professional career I'm gonna be blacklisted, but if you push through that You actually see that it opens up all kinds of new doors and new relationships and new opportunities with people who are appreciative and connecting to what you're doing in an amazing way.

[00:18:38] Jonah Platt: So I encourage everybody to keep speaking out. Okay, so I said we'd go back to the beginning. So I want to talk a little about your Jewish origin stories. This is now we're into act one here. Um, Ginny, you were talking about how you felt, you know, anti semitism growing up in the south. You grew up in Memphis, Jewish mother, Catholic father.

[00:18:57] Ginnifer Goodwin: Well, he's actually converting right now, [00:19:00] but I'm really happy for him.

[00:19:01] Jonah Platt: Converting to

[00:19:01] Ginnifer Goodwin: Catholicism.

[00:19:03] Jonah Platt: Okay. What, what was that like growing up with both?

[00:19:06] Ginnifer Goodwin: I mean, I feel really lucky. I feel like it was always, I mean, we are, dare I say, like we're the people who love arguing about things. Oh yeah. And this was just, this was just yet another thing for us to, in a very productive, healthy way.

[00:19:20] Ginnifer Goodwin: I feel like really like go to the literary sources and go to the rabbis and ask all the questions and, And I feel like I was really blessed to have a little bit of everything, um, but I really gravitated towards Towards the, the Jewish part of my upbringing and I was the, I mean, being the South in the 1980s, I was like the one person who was not like an 80 year old male in synagogue on Friday nights and I would go with my grandfather and he would, you know, point to the Hebrew and help me follow along and, um, it was very, very, uh, It was very meaningful to me, and I felt like it could be a choice as much as it was that I was born into it.

[00:19:58] Ginnifer Goodwin: It could also be a choice, and [00:20:00] it's a choice that I make again and again.

[00:20:02] Jonah Platt: You waited until you were 15 to have your bat mitzvah, is that right? Tell us why.

[00:20:07] Ginnifer Goodwin: I didn't feel ready before. I was going to all of these parties, which are nothing like the L. A. parties. Like, the theme of my bat mitzvah was being Jewish, y'all, and we didn't have, like, t shirt shooters or whatever those are.

[00:20:18] Ginnifer Goodwin: Um, but, um, no offense. But, um, yeah, I went to my rabbi, who's still my buddy, and by the way, like, married my husband and me, and we see him when he visits L. A., and, um, I just, I went to him and I said, I feel like this doesn't mean anything to me right now. Can I do this, like, When I'm feeling it? It's

[00:20:38] Jonah Platt: so mature.

[00:20:39] Ginnifer Goodwin: And he said, yeah, you can do it when you're feeling it. And like, a year and a half later, I was like, I'm feeling it and I want to have a bat mitzvah.

[00:20:44] Jonah Platt: Amazing. So, yeah, as I mentioned, baptized and bat mitzvahed, you're closer to God than all of us. Um, Marley, you grew up with a different kind of intersectionality.

[00:20:55] Jonah Platt: Uh, you grew up Reformed, but your temple in Skokie served both deaf and [00:21:00] hearing congregants. So, born and raised in Chicago, yay Chicago.

[00:21:04] Jack for Marlee Matlin: And I was fortunate enough to have temple, a temple that served both hearing and deaf communities. Uh, our rabbi was hearing, but he signed fluently in American Sign Language.

[00:21:16] Jack for Marlee Matlin: And I would attend Sunday school and, uh, you know, half hearing kids, half deaf kids, half hearing adults, half deaf adults, lots of deaf children, some hearing children. And, uh. It was my duty to learn Hebrew, and I learned to phonetically speak it. I did not sign Hebrew. Fun fact, by the way, sign language is not universal.

[00:21:38] Jack for Marlee Matlin: So there's not a similar sign language in Israel or in Hebrew. There's like hundreds of sign languages out there. So I learned to speak Hebrew for my bat mitzvah at 13, by the way, Jenny, and I wanted my money. I wanted my money sooner. Okay. No, listen, I was very proud to be bat mitzvah. But anyway, I was [00:22:00] ready at 13 and I attended Shabbat services after dinner.

[00:22:05] Jack for Marlee Matlin: We would go to temple every Friday night and I went to Sunday school and I learned my Hebrew and I really was so proud. As a Jewish person, my bat mitzvah day was really something I'll never forget. I studied my Hebrew. I had the Torah before me. I had it ready for everybody. It was perfect to recite. And when I look up into the audience.

[00:22:33] Jack for Marlee Matlin: Everybody was crying. They were crying, and I'm like, Why are they crying? And so I started to cry. And then everybody in Shul was crying, and when I looked down, I noticed that my tears had stained the parchment of the Torah. And I began to cry even more. So then I said to the rabbi, I ruined your Torah with my tears.

[00:22:54] Jack for Marlee Matlin: And so after the service was over, I went to the rabbi, I said, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to cry on the Torah. I'm so sorry. And the rabbi [00:23:00] said, Look, Marlee, No, Marley, your tears are a mitzvah, because they are a reminder of the tears of those who were persecuted, the history of Jews, and instead, yours are tears of joy.

[00:23:14] Jack for Marlee Matlin: So, bottom line is, bottom line is, very proud to have had a Jewish learning experience, fortunate enough to have been deaf, and to have had the opportunity. to have been taught and exposed to both Temple and my family, the Judaism that we all had about being Jewish. And because there's just not enough out there for people who are deaf and Jewish.

[00:23:53] Jack for Marlee Matlin: So I feel very grateful.

[00:23:55] Jonah Platt: Have you ever found another similar [00:24:00] community or space or anything that offered that same? There's one in Los

[00:24:04] Jack for Marlee Matlin: Angeles. But it's very, very small. I know they have it in New York, maybe two or three across the country now, not many. We got to work on that. But in Israel, I've had a chance to visit there, and their deaf community is very, very rich.

[00:24:23] Jack for Marlee Matlin: And they took me to see, I went to an army base, excuse me, a military base. And what impressed me, is that the IDF hired people who were disabled, including people who were deaf. Not used for combat, but putting people with disability to work. Whether it was in the office, working on computers. They don't do that here with disabled people in the military service here.

[00:24:45] Jack for Marlee Matlin: So I was very grateful for Israel for showing me that.

[00:24:48] Jonah Platt: Amazing. Josh, you grew up, correct me if I'm wrong, you grew up modern Orthodox, uh, in Florida to a German mother, Afghan [00:25:00] father who grew up in Israel and grandparents who survived the Holocaust. Beat that, guys.

[00:25:06] Josh Gad: Was your childhood a game of Mad Libs?

[00:25:11] Jonah Platt: Tell us a little bit of what it was like growing up in that game of Mad Libs.

[00:25:15] Josh Gad: Oh, wow. Now, you know why I am. It all makes sense. So yeah, my mom was born in Germany, um, at the end of the second world war. She was born in 1946, uh, in a, in a place called Biden, Germany. Um, an Ashkenazi Jew born to two Holocaust survivors who met post war Evelyn and Joseph Greenblatt, my heroes, true superheroes.

[00:25:46] Josh Gad: Um, My father was a Sephardic Jew, born and raised in Afghanistan. It's wild, uh, to say that. Um, [00:26:00] but he lived there for 13 years. Uh, and then at some point, his parents were like, Oh shit, we're in Afghanistan.

[00:26:11] Josh Gad: I don't think they like us here. We gotta get out. Um, so, uh, they left. Uh, I was born and raised in South Florida. My, uh, we went to a shul called Young Israel. Um, and it was the kind of temple that, uh, Separated the men from the women. Uh, and it was one of those things where growing up not being 13, my brothers being 10, uh, and nine years older than me respectively, me being the youngest, I was the one who had to turn the lights on and off.

[00:26:47] Josh Gad: And you were the shabbos child. I was the shabbos child. Um, I was the cheat code, uh, for my brothers to watch Smurfs on Saturday mornings. Um, and you [00:27:00] know, I had sort of a tricky relationship with Judaism growing up, if I'm being honest, because when I was about five years old, I found out that, um, my dad had cheated on my mom, had another family.

[00:27:17] Josh Gad: And, you know, he was the one who sort of was the Orthodox person. He was the one who, you know, bestowed this on us. We would walk to temple every Saturday. Uh, and I went to Hebrew school. And while I didn't know everything, I knew that he had broken one of the Ten Commandments. And I was kind of, yeah, and I was kind of pissed as a kid.

[00:27:41] Josh Gad: And it made me, um, made me sort of be like, well, this is hypocrisy. Sure. And, you know, my family was broken and I was very angry. And I sort of started to have a much healthier relationship with Judaism [00:28:00] once I was old enough to have it on my own terms. I also had a bar mitzvah. I loved it. I didn't love the process.

[00:28:07] Josh Gad: I felt bullied. Into learning my haft Torah and not like it was a communal experience. And so I'm jealous hearing these stories because I'm like, I would have loved that. Um, but again, it was, mine was a childhood of rules and regulations in Judaism. And the spiritual connection to Judaism came much later for me.

[00:28:33] Josh Gad: And when I was able to have that spiritual connection, then I really Then I really became proud, then I really became, um, inspired by the history, by the traditions, by the faith, uh, and that journey ironically began my sophomore year of high school because I played a character named Tevye. And, [00:29:00] um, through art, I was able to fall in love with faith.

[00:29:05] Jonah Platt: Amazing. One of the many gifts of the arts. Um, that's a good segue actually to say. You know, our act two, which is, you know, you, you each sort of had a period where you may be not as connected to your Judaism. We've just heard a little bit about yours. Ginny, you said there was like a 10 year period really, where you were not connected to your religion or Jewishness.

[00:29:28] Jonah Platt: And then in a speech at your temple, you said, I was a Jew by birth. And now I am a Jew by choice. What, what changed? What happened in those 10 years?

[00:29:36] Ginnifer Goodwin: Um, I met my husband. It made me feel real nasty.

[00:29:41] Jonah Platt: I totally understand. It's one of the big changes in life that changes your priorities.

[00:29:45] Ginnifer Goodwin: Absolutely. Because you start, exactly.

[00:29:46] Ginnifer Goodwin: You start thinking about like what it is that's ultimately the most important and self definition. And so I think that meeting my husband really, uh, yeah, had a really profound impact on me in terms of. Yeah, [00:30:00] just rebalancing what it, like, not just who I am, but what it is, like, what puzzle piece I am in the world.

[00:30:06] Ginnifer Goodwin: And so, I made that choice, and then I will say, I had babies, and like, we had their brisses and everything, and we served the deli meat, which I still think is really weird that we do, um, at those ceremonies. And, um, and, then I'll say, like, I feel like I became, like, a tired mom. And an actress working 16 hours a day.

[00:30:24] Ginnifer Goodwin: And then I, I do feel like tradition fell away again after I even gave that speech at temple. Um, and I feel like it really, there were years there where, like I said, we were not celebrating Shabbat, um, in any kind of meaningful way. And like, we would still do holidays, but I don't know. It just wasn't. I got lazy and uh, and I, I, I've recommitted to myself.

[00:30:50] Ginnifer Goodwin: I feel like it's sort of like a cycle with me where I, you know, I'm, I'm grateful that in the past year I've been able to rebalance again.

[00:30:57] Jonah Platt: Yeah, you know, it ebbs and flows, I think for everyone, [00:31:00] their connection and as, as you go through life, it's different at different times, so it's just the way it is. Um, Josh, just to kick it back to you for a second, you have said that, uh, it's thinking about your grandparents that at times really, you know, pushed you to stay connected to the faith before you found it for yourself.

[00:31:18] Jonah Platt: Can you tell us a little bit about your connection to your grandparents and, you know, what, what they mean to you?

[00:31:24] Josh Gad: They, they were everything. I mean, they're, so my grandfather was in Auschwitz. Um, my grandmother was in some pretty gnarly camps as well. Both of them escaped on the death march. Um, separately.

[00:31:39] Josh Gad: Anybody here with, uh, family members who survived the Holocaust? Show of hands. So you Quite a few. Probably have similar stories to my grandparents. The first time I even understood what the Holocaust was, was I I was walking outside with my grandma. I was very young and I saw a tattoo. And I said, what what is that?

[00:31:57] Josh Gad: Why do you have that? And she said it wasn't by [00:32:00] choice. It was forced onto me and thus began a conversation that would last the duration of her life, where she very openly talked to me about the experience of the Holocaust. My grandfather, I'm fortunate enough, um, committed to doing a show, a testimonial, uh, which I come back and revisit once a year.

[00:32:22] Josh Gad: Um, and those stories really, um, They taught me a lot about what it means, um, to protect your faith, to protect yourself from others who would take that faith away from you, um, to not live with shame of having people make Jewish jokes at your expense. Um, and without saying it, they survived so I could live.

[00:32:58] Josh Gad: And I [00:33:00] don't take that for granted. It's why I speak out. It's why I speak up. It's why I'm here. Um. You're doing them proud. Never again, kind of means now. And I wasn't prepared for that. I don't want this job. I don't want to have to talk to people about why they shouldn't be assholes. Uh, it shouldn't be hard, but it is.

[00:33:30] Josh Gad: And, um, I hear my grandparents in the back of my head every day saying, keep going. And, and for my own kids, it's, it's more important than ever. I have a surviving aunt. Who's 97 years old, who lives in New Jersey, and she wakes up, and she says it's happening again, isn't it? And I want to defend her, [00:34:00] and I want to defend everyone else who shouldn't have to feel that way.

[00:34:04] Josh Gad: Who shouldn't feel that there is this hate, this naivete, this ignorance. Um, and that's my battle and, and I am wearing it wearily, but proudly.

[00:34:20] Jonah Platt: So to change gears a little bit, I want to talk about marriage kids. You guys are all married. You all have kids. Well, it's a good thing. Um, what I find interesting, you guys are a tapestry of Jewish identity, reform, modern Orthodox, interfaith.

[00:34:37] Jonah Platt: Okay. You're all three married to non Jews. Um, what was the calculus for each of you? You know, what's hiding and there's no, no judgment

[00:34:47] Jack for Marlee Matlin: we have to

[00:34:48] Jonah Platt: talk about. Not if you don't want to, it's fine. You know, it's, it's, this is your, your life. You know, there's nothing, nothing wrong with any of them. I just want to say

[00:34:58] Jack for Marlee Matlin: we have beautiful Christmas tree.

[00:34:59] Jack for Marlee Matlin: We did have [00:35:00] a Christmas tree. Fab Christmas trees are beautiful. No, um, no, we, um, I been married for 30, 31 years. to a Catholic guy and we had both a rabbi and a priest perform our wedding at Henry Winkler's house. I also got married at Henry Winkler's house. Yeah. See, there you go. No, no. So no, um, yes, we decided that we would have both a rabbi and a priest to perform our wedding.

[00:35:34] Jack for Marlee Matlin: Unfortunately, the rabbi that I grew up with that my bar mitzvah with Um, we had a falling out and so, uh, and we had someone from Los Angeles, but the priest, I flew out from Chicago because he, um, had a church for the deaf in Chicago, a church for the deaf Catholic church. So I was very good friends with him as the deaf community is, is all very close.

[00:35:57] Jack for Marlee Matlin: So it wasn't Jewish, but you know, [00:36:00] whatever, . Um, so we got married at Henry's house and we talked about our kids and we did say that. We had a discussion that, is my husband here? He's not here, is he? No. Okay, he's not here. So, um, good. Now I can tell stories. He'll never be able to find this conversation anywhere.

[00:36:30] What stays

[00:36:30] Jack for Marlee Matlin: in this room doesn't go out of this room. Anyway. So, uh, he doesn't know much, he doesn't know much about this because of any of my podcasts. Uh, so, um, we talk about our children and I did mention that they would be Jewish. And he looked at me and he was like, Okay, fine. So they'll be baptized too.

[00:36:50] Jack for Marlee Matlin: And I said, hell no. So I said, no, no, not happening. And he said, okay. Well then, so I [00:37:00] said, they'll be bat mitzvahed. He said, no. So I said, okay. Then they're going to have a naming ceremony. And we went back and forth, back and forth. And we never really, in all honesty, none of this was ever resolved. So they're just sort of, you know, So we celebrate both holidays.

[00:37:18] Jack for Marlee Matlin: We do all the Christian holidays and the Jewish holidays. And that's that.

[00:37:26] Jonah Platt: Thank you for sharing. Um, Ginny, I'd love to hear from you.

[00:37:30] Ginnifer Goodwin: So, um, on top of the fact that I grew up in an interfaith household, which was also just fairly Jewish leaning, um, my great grandparents escaped from pogroms in Eastern Europe in the very early 1900s, and They were orthodox, and they kept Christmas trees in their windows when they moved to the United States.

[00:37:50] Ginnifer Goodwin: Like, they saw this as a very American, um, it was a way to feel very American. And, it, I never questioned that [00:38:00] we then always had also Christmas trees and Santa Claus and all of this. and celebrated the, like, the bunny part of Easter. Right. Yeah, the candy part. The fun part. The, the, yes, finding the eggs part.

[00:38:13] Ginnifer Goodwin: Um, I didn't know what it all meant, um, to other people, and that we were stealing this from other people. Um, but, um, when I met my husband, who was, um, all about, Raising a Jewish family as that was important to me. Um, he actually, I hope this is okay. Then I'm going, um,

[00:38:31] Jonah Platt: we love it.

[00:38:40] Ginnifer Goodwin: He actually, he asked my rabbi when we were getting married, if he was interested in converting. And the rabbi said, like, I don't think that I don't think it's time. He was like, you don't need to convert for Jenny and we can have more conversations about your converting. But I, as your rabbi, don't need you to convert.[00:39:00]

[00:39:00] Ginnifer Goodwin: in order to, you know, have this relationship with your family and to marry you guys under the chuppah, which was actually, um, Josh's grandmother's tablecloth that we used for our chuppah. And, um, right. And then he actually revisited this, um, after October 7th, Josh said, I'd really like to talk about converting again.

[00:39:22] Ginnifer Goodwin: Um, and there are a lot of reasons, um, including. including fear and he was somehow in conversation with my now eight year old. And this was, yeah, he was seven years old at the time. And he said, Daddy, I don't want you to, this is my kippah wearing youngest. And he said, Daddy, I don't want you to convert. And Josh said, well, why not?

[00:39:49] Ginnifer Goodwin: And he said, I love you just the way you are. And like Josh is saying, that's the nicest thing anyone's ever said to him. And it, I mean, it's a [00:40:00] conversation that we've revisited again and again, but it's never been, like, if he, if, if Josh has ever, if he's ever feeling it, it's like me with my bat mitzvah. If he gets to a point where he's like, I'm feeling it, then I will be, I will throw the party with the deli meat, if that's what you do.

[00:40:14] Ginnifer Goodwin: Um, however, um, I don't, I'm not making a comment about his private parts. Um, but, um,

[00:40:20] Jonah Platt: Nobody thought you were until you said

[00:40:22] Ginnifer Goodwin: that. Well, I guess I mean, I made the comment earlier about the bris, and I'm just taking it back. If you can, like, never mind. Um, so I'll be there with bells on. With Christmas bells on.

[00:40:34] Ginnifer Goodwin: Um, but I, uh, Silver bells, if you will. Yes, but I, um, but yeah, it just, this way, it just works for us. It just works for us.

[00:40:43] Jonah Platt: Great. Uh, Josh, kicking it over to you.

[00:40:48] Josh Gad: Uh, I too married a Catholic. Uh, I, you know, I, it was definitely hard because in my [00:41:00] mind, again, growing up the way I grew up, I was only ever going to marry a Jewish woman.

[00:41:06] Josh Gad: Uh, and sometimes you can't help but fall in love with who you fall in love with. And that was a hard thing to navigate, uh, because I felt pressure from my grandparents.

[00:41:17] Jack for Marlee Matlin: Sure.

[00:41:18] Josh Gad: And I felt like I was breaking my grandmother's heart, and it was really painful. And I had a conversation one day with my Nana, and I said, Look, I'm in love with her.

[00:41:34] Josh Gad: It was a very fiddler on the roof conversation. You're like, little bird. And actually my grandmother's Jewish name was Havala, which made it that much more strange. And, and I said, you know, I, I didn't mean for this to happen, but, um, I love her and I really can't and won't marry her without your blessing.[00:42:00]

[00:42:01] Josh Gad: She came around my grandfather was like, oh, yeah, that's great she came around and she Said that she approved and then she died the week of my wedding a week before I got a call and she passed away in her sleep And I was so grateful that I had that closure, that I had that gift of acceptance because I don't know that I could have gone through with it without that.

[00:42:37] Josh Gad: Um, you know, similarly, um, I'm raising my girls Jewish. My mother in law is very Jewish. He's a very old school Italian Catholic, speaks Italian, lives with us now, uh, and, you know, I always think back to my grandfather telling me the story of being in the camps with, um, [00:43:00] Catholics, Italian Catholics, and every day.

[00:43:04] Josh Gad: The Jew would be in the corner being like, why us? Why us? Why this? And then he would hear the Catholics being Porto, Maria, Porto, what did they say? Porto, the Porto Madonna, uh, which is a term I will not translate here, but it was the same sort of. There's so much in common. There's so much communal anguish.

[00:43:25] Josh Gad: There's so much communal joy. There's so much communal eating There's so much communal guilt that it felt familiar and it felt really nice to learn about another culture and My wife was so supportive of Allowing my girls to grow up Jewish because she knew it was super important to me And, um, I'm very grateful for that.

[00:43:55] Jonah Platt: Everything you're saying is resonating hard with me. I married an Italian [00:44:00] Catholic, now Jewish. Weekly shout out to Courtney. There she is, there she is.

[00:44:06] Josh Gad: Did I say that right? Porco Dio, Porco Modano? Porco. Yeah, okay.

[00:44:10] Jonah Platt: She's like Italian American. She don't know.

[00:44:16] Jonah Platt: They're the ones who pronounce all the things weird that none of the Italians pronounce it the same way, like mozzarella, and the Italians are like, what? Jersey Shore.

[00:44:25] Josh Gad: The week that I met my wife's parents for the first time, somebody came up to me and they're like, You, here's something you should say to them, they'll love it.

[00:44:33] Josh Gad: And I was like, oh great! So I go up to these old school Italians and I go, Ciao, manja bene caca forte, which means eat well, shit well. She looked at me, she goes, Oh, I was like, Oh, that I learned correctly.

[00:44:56] Jonah Platt: Um, do this is a free skate question, [00:45:00] uh, for anybody, uh, any favorite family Jewish traditions that you guys like to, and with your own families or ones that you had growing up, just something to, uh,

[00:45:09] Ginnifer Goodwin: I mean, we play rummikub on Fridays.

[00:45:11] Jonah Platt: Nice. Got to have a nice little Shabbat board game situation.

[00:45:16] Josh Gad: On Passover, we would, um, we would beat each other with leeks. Is that a tradition anyone else does? Yes. That's a Sephardic thing. Yeah. It's a Sephardic tradition. And I would have like welts, like we went for it. Like my brothers and I just truly like, boom.

[00:45:34] Josh Gad: And then I did Passover here and I brought this to like a friend's and they were like, What the fuck are you doing, man? They were not impressed. They were like, why are you hitting my kids with vegetables?

[00:45:48] Jonah Platt: It's meant to be like the, the slave masters beating the slaves.

[00:45:52] Josh Gad: Does not play as well in Ashkenazi.

[00:45:56] Jack for Marlee Matlin: My favorite thing is that I've been able to, [00:46:00] I'm the youngest of three. I have two older brothers. One is 12 years older. One is eight years older. And I was born in the sixties. And, uh, because I was home. By myself mostly because the two older brothers were out of the house, but I think I remember I'm always looking.

[00:46:16] Jack for Marlee Matlin: For Hanukkah gifts, searching the house for Hanukkah gifts, trying to find it. And so one day I was bored and I was looking and I, we had to crawl space into our house and so I went into the crawl space and I opened the door and there I saw, and I said, what is that? So I went to my mom, I said, mom, come here, take a look at what's down here under there.

[00:46:35] Jack for Marlee Matlin: What is though, what are all those plants? And my mother's like, Plants? All lit up pot plants that my brothers had planted in the crawl space while I was looking for Hanukkah gifts. Both of my brothers had this giant farm growing underneath the house. And they wanted to kill me while I was looking for Hanukkah plants.

[00:46:55] Jack for Marlee Matlin: You

[00:46:55] Ginnifer Goodwin: found the Hanukkah jackpot.

[00:46:58] Jonah Platt: What happened to the plants? [00:47:00] Seth Rogen bought them all. What happened? Oh, of course, mom threw them out, so anyway. Ugh. Sorry. Um, okay, so now, bringing it back to Jewish advocacy stuff, sort of where we started. Uh, Josh, not new for you. You've been speaking out about this stuff, as you said, for a while.

[00:47:20] Josh Gad: Guys. My mom was a proud member of Jewish Federation when I was growing up. Like it was from the time I was like, Five years old, I remember the Jewish Federation, you know, everything around our house, all of the material, all of the literature. Um, no, I've, I've been, I've been advocating, um, passively, if that makes sense.

[00:47:50] Jonah Platt: What do you mean by that?

[00:47:52] Josh Gad: I've always felt like it was something I had to do. I had to advocate. I had to talk about [00:48:00] Judaism. I had to. Communicate what it means to be Jewish. Communicate to, and I don't say this jokingly, communicate to others what it means to be anti Semitic. Because I think a lot of people don't necessarily realize they're engaging in anti semitism.

[00:48:19] Jonah Platt: That, that, I actually wrote down a quote that you have from something you posted online. I'm getting tired of having to explain how anti semites are being anti semitic. Figure it out or don't, but stop coming to us to explain why your behavior isn't what it so clearly is. Which is great. So What, what, what was Like, what were you seeing or getting thrown at you that prompted you to, you know, put your foot down on that one?

[00:48:44] Josh Gad: What wasn't I seeing? I mean, I It's just stuff online? It's, it's stuff everywhere. It's all around me. It's in our community. It's in the same people I advocate for and with and alongside. [00:49:00] It's heartbreaking. It's heartbreaking to stand with others, firmly and unequivocally, And then here there's silence.

[00:49:10] Josh Gad: When it's your turn, it's really tough. That's really tough. I think a lot of people

[00:49:17] Jonah Platt: here can relate to

[00:49:18] Josh Gad: that. And, and so then I've become an active activist because now I don't feel like I just need to. I feel like I desperately want to, um, because I have a position to speak out. And again, it comes back to the fact that.

[00:49:40] Josh Gad: Nobody spoke out for my grandparents. They, their lives were taken from them. They were forced into, you know, first they were forced into compounds, um, ghettos with barbed wire [00:50:00] fences and stripped of their jobs, stripped of their identities, and then stripped of their families. Stripped of their clothing, stripped of their hair, stripped of their legacy, and taken to barbaric camps where, best, you would starve and leave, you know, with maybe one or two family members, and at worst, It would be the end of your name.

[00:50:38] Josh Gad: That was my legacy. That's my, that's, that happened two generations ago and I'm not going to sit here and fucking let that happen again. So like, that's why I speak out because I'm, I have a microphone because I have a platform because I know the consequences of not speaking out and I know that people are [00:51:00] scared.

[00:51:00] Josh Gad: I get it. You know, I, I, I am, I'm not doing this because it's thrilling. I'm, I'm not. It's not a great time. No, it's not a great time. It's a bummer. Um, I would so much rather be rolling around in that basement at your house than here right now, but.

[00:51:18] Jonah Platt: In the crawl

[00:51:18] Josh Gad: space. In the crawl space. But, your brothers sound dope.

[00:51:25] Jack for Marlee Matlin: I wish it was still there, not there anymore. But,

[00:51:28] Josh Gad: but, you know, like we're all here because we know the stakes, right? We're all here because we are, we're community and we have each other's backs. And I can't tell you how many times somebody comes up to me on the street and says, thank you. Thank you for using your, your platform.

[00:51:47] Josh Gad: And I, and it makes me sad that people need to thank me because you shouldn't have to, I shouldn't have to be doing this, but I promise to keep doing it as long as I can. And as long as I have to, [00:52:00] which may be at this point in my whole life.

[00:52:03] Jonah Platt: When, when people express fear that I'll be in conversation with, that we're, we're heading towards another kind of Holocaust, it's, The reason it's not going to happen is people like you three on the couch saying it's not going to happen again, which they didn't have last time.

[00:52:20] Jonah Platt: That's right. Yeah. I believe that very strongly.

[00:52:22] Jack for Marlee Matlin: We, we, I mean, thank goodness to UTA who sends me out to the federations all over the country. Thank you UTA. Um, cause I've been speaking to federations everywhere. Really. Thank you. Thank you for that opportunity. It's really important to do the old school way of meeting people in person instead of posting online.

[00:52:37] Jack for Marlee Matlin: I'd rather meet people in person.

[00:52:38] Jonah Platt: Marley. You have obviously been a hugely influential and involved activist for deaf and disabled community at large. How has, have those communities responded to your public support for Israel and the Jewish people?

[00:52:54] Jack for Marlee Matlin: You probably wouldn't believe this, but the [00:53:00] largest number of those people are anti Semitic in the deaf community.

[00:53:05] Jonah Platt: What do you think that's about?

[00:53:08] Jack for Marlee Matlin: Probably for a lot of reasons. Um, they're uneducated. They don't have the opportunity to, they're not exposed to what is really going on in the world. They don't have the opportunity to overhear what's going on. They, they really feel, I mean I felt the hatred. Uh, towards the Jewish community on a lot of people's behalves.

[00:53:28] Jack for Marlee Matlin: And yet there are allies in the deaf community. Um, it's just, it's the same as it is in the hearing community. Right,

[00:53:35] Jonah Platt: I was gonna say, it sounds all, sounds very familiar.

[00:53:38] Jack for Marlee Matlin: People just are, they're not willing to pay attention, not willing, for whatever reason, they're not willing to accept a different point of view.

[00:53:47] Jack for Marlee Matlin: It is so, there are people there, there are Jews who are really, really, really, Like Josh, very outspoken, who make a point of making noise and saying, you know what, don't fuck with [00:54:00] us. And I'm grateful for them because we need them.

[00:54:09] Jonah Platt: Yeah. Eventually we need everybody, but it's good to have some people on the front lines.

[00:54:18] Jonah Platt: Um, Jennifer, you have been doing so much advocacy, especially over the past year in so many different ways. Um, especially you've done a lot speaking up for the hostages, which is actually how you and I met. at the home of, yeah, Ashley Margolis when she was hosting some of the hostage families whose, you know, kids are still in captivity.

[00:54:38] Jonah Platt: Who are you trying to reach when, with your advocacy? Like, are you thinking of a specific audience or group or person and are you Like, we haven't had

[00:54:47] Ginnifer Goodwin: this conversation before, which is what, like, it seems like you are leading me to tell the story I am about to tell. I am. However, we have not had this conversation before.

[00:54:54] Ginnifer Goodwin: Um, I got a phone call from someone I did not know, um, who [00:55:00] was involved with the, um, families and friends of the hostages, now known as the, like, Bring Them Home Now, the hostages forum. And it was in early days of releasing videos and he said I would like you to make this video where you are taking on the voice of, of one of the little girls who's being held hostage and speak as if you are her and we're hoping that this will connect with people.

[00:55:28] Ginnifer Goodwin: And at first I said absolutely not. My fear was A video of an actress acting like a little girl was going to appear opportunistic and that that was going to do more harm than good. And also I said to him, I mean, Hamas is not going to let her go because Jennifer Goodwin made a video like talking about her favorite, this little girl's favorite singer.

[00:55:52] Ginnifer Goodwin: And I don't understand how this is going to make any kind of difference in the world of what has happened. October 7th and anti [00:56:00] Semitism. He goes. No, here's the thing. He said, you're making that video could make it's gonna make me emotional is it there's a chance that it will make one member of her family feel like someone out there is listening.

[00:56:17] Ginnifer Goodwin: And I was like, I'm in whatever you need. And I did learn I had to turn my comments off of social media because that's not a healthy place for discourse in any way. But that was kind of it for me. It wasn't like the audience for me was frankly like just maybe possibly. Have you ever read Franny and Zoe by J.

[00:56:36] Ginnifer Goodwin: D. Salinger? I just am putting this together now because I was like my favorite book as a teenager. I read

[00:56:41] Jonah Platt: it a long time ago. I had

[00:56:42] Ginnifer Goodwin: never thought about this until this moment. But remember, there's the he has the whole thing. You know what? He's in the bath. And, and Franny's sitting outside the bath, and there's the conversation.

[00:56:51] Ginnifer Goodwin: You're looking at me like I

[00:56:52] Jonah Platt: didn't just say I read this a long time ago.

[00:56:55] Ginnifer Goodwin: But there's something about like, but if you can reach one person in the audience, just one, then you're doing God's [00:57:00] work. And, um, and I felt like, yeah, so my audience was really, it was really just her family. It was just like maybe someone in her family will feel like someone is listening from the other side of the planet and It's just that community thing again.

[00:57:18] Jonah Platt: It's beautiful. As much as you have each advocated for Jews, you've also celebrated being Jewish publicly, you know, displaying Jewish joy, which is so important and is, you know, the other side of this coin that we can't just be defending against hate. We have to be celebrating what we love about being Jewish and putting that out there.

[00:57:37] Jonah Platt: Josh, you, one of the things you've done recently is Written an award winning Jewish comic book series called The Writer. Please tell us about The Writer, how you got involved, what it's about, the whole shebang.

[00:57:49] Josh Gad: Yeah, I just want to circle back to something because I Oh, let's do that first. No, because I, it's, it's, it's fascinating to me.

[00:57:56] Josh Gad: And I keep reminding myself of this. It's like, [00:58:00] the hoops that we have to jump through. We represent 0. 1 percent of the world. Of the global population. Why do we have to do all this work to just be who we are?

[00:58:16] Ginnifer Goodwin: You mean like the mental Jenga?

[00:58:18] Josh Gad: Just the, you have to do this, and you have to do this, and you can't do this, because then this will happen, and it's like, leave us alone.

[00:58:27] Josh Gad: Let us be.

[00:58:28] Jonah Platt: That's, you know. Let us be. I was talking to an executive at TikTok, and he was like, one of the, one of the reasons you know, the counter messaging is so overwhelming is because they have a, A charge free Palestine and he was like, you know, the Jews don't have any, but anyone, I was like, can ours just be, leave us alone?

[00:58:48] Josh Gad: Hashtag it's been thousands of years All we want is to give it a rest Just we just want a schluff [00:59:00] Um, I what was your question? The writer the writer the writer. Um, I so yes, I I I did a comic book series You Um, with these brilliant writers, um, the Berkowitz brothers, who, um, they're amazing. One person knows the Berkowitz brothers.

[00:59:20] Josh Gad: Yes, Berkowitz is. Um, and they came to me and they said, we want to do We want to do a story that celebrates the Jewish faith and that celebrates Jewish mythology. And like, I am, Raiders of the Lost Ark is one of my favorite movies of all time. It's a masterpiece. And part of the reason I think it's so damn compelling is because it has a monopoly on on Jewish myth and Old Testament mythology.

[00:59:52] Josh Gad: And if you, if you go back into the scriptures, there's some really interesting, incredible, powerful stuff in there that [01:00:00] is ripe for storytelling. And I was like, this is great. And the premise is, is that this, this writer, um, basically every time he takes, uh, he writes, Uh, a word on a piece of parchment and consumes that he then embodies the power on that piece of parchment and I just loved that idea and it's really connected with the zeitgeist it's um, we've sold out of, of all of our initial copies and we have the trade paperback coming out in March and it's, it's just been a thrill to get to tell that kind of story.

[01:00:37] Josh Gad: In a new form in and and one of my favorite stories ever is the adventures of cavalier and clay by michael chabon And I wanted to you know also pay tribute to all of the incredible jewish artists uh who Created some of the most iconic comic book characters of all time. [01:01:00] So that was a big part of it as well.

[01:01:01] Josh Gad: Amazing

[01:01:02] Jonah Platt: marley I found on Instagram, you posted a video last Hanukkah, celebrating Hanukkah, eating gelt. Why was something like that important to you to showcase? I love

[01:01:16] Jack for Marlee Matlin: celebrating Hanukkah because it's eight days of gifts. Uh, and I found weed one day, as you said, but no, no, no, I'm just kidding. Um, uh, I love, I love my childhood growing up with Jewish traditions in Martin Grove, Illinois.

[01:01:35] Jack for Marlee Matlin: And. The times that I spent in Temple on Fridays, sometimes on Saturdays, often on Sundays, the way that my parents truly exposed every aspect of the Jewish holidays to me was just, it just, it just brings great joy and they're great memories. And lighting the candles, the [01:02:00] festive aspect of Hanukkah, it just, it just moves me.

[01:02:04] Jack for Marlee Matlin: Just cherishing our religion, simple as that, or Judaism, and never forgetting our ancestors.

[01:02:14] Jonah Platt: I love that. Jenny, you have been rocking lots of Jewish jewelry, Jewish jean jackets, Yeah, you posted an amazing photo of you carrying a Torah from your bat mitzvah. That photo was Jenny's Instagram. Um, what, what's your approach to showcasing Jewish joy?

[01:02:32] Jonah Platt: How do you think about it, or is it something you think about?

[01:02:35] Ginnifer Goodwin: I mean, it's kind of all I think about in terms of posting and social media. And I've had friends recently asked me like, but what about, you know, work and all that? And I'm, to me, there's nothing as important as this, everything else sort of pales in comparison.

[01:02:49] Ginnifer Goodwin: So everything to me is about opportunities to, I don't look for the opportunities, but I feel like they, they keep coming opportunities to celebrate and share. And it's that thing for me always [01:03:00] about like giving permission, giving permission, letting people know like that, the. I mean, I think that just saying like, I am Jewish is like, yeah, is, is, um, one of the most, I don't know.

[01:03:13] Ginnifer Goodwin: It's like the most important first step. And so I feel like I'm repeatedly trying to show people that, that first step.

[01:03:20] Jonah Platt: Yeah, I love that. I relate to that a lot. Okay. So now I want to take it to Hollywood, the industry in which we all work. Super liberal community. But by and large, have been mostly silent in this time on the hostages, on, you know, anti Jewish hate in this country.

[01:03:38] Jonah Platt: Uh, Josh, you spoke about that a little bit earlier tonight, but how does that feel and, and why do you think it's happening? It

[01:03:45] Josh Gad: doesn't feel great. Um, it's heartbreaking, you know, I, it's, it's heartbreaking because a lot of times I will actually reach out to the [01:04:00] community. And, uh, conveniently not hear back.

[01:04:06] Josh Gad: Um, if it's another issue, I hear back very quickly. And, um, and that sends a message, you know, I think that sends its own message. The, even the simple task of, Hey guys, not sure if you've noticed lately, but, A lot of people hate Jews. Can you help tell people not to? Uh, you would think that that's an easy ask.

[01:04:30] Josh Gad: Uh, not so much it turns out. And a lot of times there's an excuse, right? And it's again, it goes back to, I'm tired of people telling me what antisemitism is and isn't, is the amount, and I'm sure a lot of you experience is the amount of people who explain, who Jewsplain to me, Why what I'm asking is not easy, you know?

[01:04:54] Josh Gad: Well, it's complicated.

[01:04:57] Yeah.

[01:04:58] Josh Gad: No, no, this is not complicated. [01:05:00] No, I'm not asking you, I'm not asking you to not speak out on what's happening to innocent cousins. I'm not asking that. I'm not telling you to make a choice. I'm asking you as a Jew to stand up when you see somebody getting their head bashed in in New York City.

[01:05:19] Josh Gad: That's not hard. I'm not telling you to make a choice. You're choosing to make a choice. That's the problem. That's the problem. And we've, we have been trained by social media to think in terms of football matches. You're on team Palestine. You're on team Israel. I'm on team fucking humanity. Always have been, always will be.

[01:05:51] Josh Gad: Be a human. Nobody deserves to suffer. Nobody deserves to live. In fear [01:06:00] nobody and I'm not telling you not to advocate for everyone I'm, just asking you to remember that everyone includes jews. That's right.

[01:06:12] Jonah Platt: We are fully capable of Handling complex issues and holding multiple truths at the same time We should we we are able to but as you said sort of society has pushed us into this false paradigm where so many feel they need to pick a side, it has to be polarized, and it just, it doesn't.

[01:06:30] Ginnifer Goodwin: But by the way, have you met, I mean, not to be self righteous about this, but I'm gonna, like, I also, like, haven't met a Jew who's, like, choosing a side. Like, everyone is on the, I mean, all the Jews I know, everyone I talk to is like, On the human side.

[01:06:45] Josh Gad: Yeah, I, I think, I think a part of it is, again, I think it's, there's ignorance.

[01:06:50] Josh Gad: I think a lot of, for sure, there's a lot of ignorance. My, my rabbi, shout out to my rabbi, rabbi Sharon Browse, who's the most bad [01:07:00] ass rabbi in the universe. She said something, uh, during, um, her sermon during Yom Kippur that really stood out to me. Shouting about the rights of Gazans and the right to free Palestine is not antisemitic.

[01:07:22] Josh Gad: It's simply not shouting it at a Jew going to temple is antisemitic. And that's the distinction that I think people are forgetting. And I think it's important to remember that when you start to paint a group with any brush, regardless of what group that is, It's wrong. It's

[01:07:50] Jonah Platt: textbook bigotry.

[01:07:52] Josh Gad: It's textbook bigotry.

[01:07:53] Josh Gad: And I see these kids going to hellel [01:08:00] houses and terrified. And I'm, uh, I'm just scratching my head going,

[01:08:09] where

[01:08:10] Josh Gad: are some of these kids brought up that Their parents don't tell them, no, it's not okay to do this to anyone. Do you know what I would do if my daughter went up to a Muslim kid and made them feel unsafe?

[01:08:26] Josh Gad: You wouldn't see her for a week. She'd be punished. Punish your fucking kids. Teach them right from wrong. This isn't hard. This is called decency. Stop pointing at a group of people who have nothing to do with the issue that you are upset about and saying it's their fault. Because they are just like all of them.

[01:08:54] Josh Gad: Don't do that to anyone, any race, religion, nobody deserves that. [01:09:00]

[01:09:00] Jonah Platt: No doubt. Um, sticking with the Hollywood theme, what are your guys feelings about Jewish representation today in Hollywood, both in terms of the way things are being cast and in the stories that are being told? Do you feel like things are in a good place?

[01:09:18] Jonah Platt: Is there room for improvement?

[01:09:21] Jack for Marlee Matlin: I mean, for me, I mean, my first television show, I played a character named Tess Kaufman and I was as Jewish as they come. But there was, there was nothing really, they didn't go into depth about her being Jewish. It was a character that I played on the L word. I played a deaf Jewish lesbian and, but there was nothing really specific about her Judaism.

[01:09:39] Jack for Marlee Matlin: I haven't played a character that really went into depth. In depth into their Judaism, but I've always wanted to do Jewish story, um, like, like a Hanukkah story for Hallmark. I've tried and tried and tried and I've, I've, they're like, hmm, not so much, not so much, and they sort of turned down the ideas that I've had.

[01:09:57] Jack for Marlee Matlin: I've, I've, I've made attempts. There's so many great [01:10:00] ideas and stories having to do with that space, but No takers, what can you do? So that's Hallmark, right? Double whammy, deaf and Jewish, okay?

[01:10:10] Jonah Platt: What about you two, either of you, have you either of you any thought about this at all? Oh my gosh, yes. We're both trying to get cast on Nobody Wants Us Season 2.

[01:10:17] Jonah Platt: Yes, by

[01:10:19] our way.

[01:10:20] Ginnifer Goodwin: We are available. I mean, I would like to see more Jewish representation in general. And I'm not saying that I'm not saying that there are not enough Jews in Hollywood, but the truth is there's never been a survey. Um, there's no mechanism thus far for self identifying as being Jewish, so we actually have no concept of what our representation is, as far as in the workforce.

[01:10:41] Ginnifer Goodwin: But I would certainly love to, for there to be more representation on screen, and I would like it to not be so much about, um, I feel like the bulk of things seem to be about people Like, you know, orthodoxy and freeing themselves from the shackles of Judaism, which I, [01:11:00] I'm, I'm just exhausted from. And, um, I would like to see being Jewish just more normalized.

[01:11:06] Ginnifer Goodwin: I would like to, to have more, you know, mezuzot. And I would like for there to be more kippot. And I'd like to, I'm just trying to show you how many words in Hebrew I can pluralize. Um, I would like to see as many, um, Hanukkiah as I do. Thank you. That's not plural, but wait, Hanukkiot? No, that's still, Oh, I did it.

[01:11:29] Ginnifer Goodwin: Um, as we see Christmas trees in movies and just have it be like, have it be normalized. I mean, that's, I feel like we're trying to even do this at our elementary school right now with just normalizing, you know, the fact that when you have the winter fest, there's also some latkes. Um, and so I, I, I would like that to be, yes, everywhere.

[01:11:50] Jonah Platt: Come to to my house. Come to my house. A nice segue into, uh, just a little tidbit. You and I are working on a project together.

[01:11:58] Ginnifer Goodwin: Yes, we are.

[01:11:58] Jonah Platt: Which is a [01:12:00] Jewish forward narrative, contemporary Jews just being Jews, called The Mench. Can you, can you tell us a little bit about, you know, what drew you specifically to that project?

[01:12:11] Ginnifer Goodwin: Um, well, I think it is, you know, Though it is about, I mean, our central character is a rabbi that I am not playing, um, but our central character is a rabbi and it is, I don't know how much I can say. Say whatever. Okay, um, and, and we are, we are searching for a, um, Holocaust era Torah, um, and chaos ensues. But though that is the case, I still feel like, um, it's not, it's not a story about being Jewish.

[01:12:42] Ginnifer Goodwin: Right, it's a story about people

[01:12:43] Jonah Platt: who are Jewish.

[01:12:43] Ginnifer Goodwin: Yes. Your characters happen to be Jewish, and like, leading with Jewish values, but it's not about being Jewish, and there's something that was so unusually, um, dynamic about that, because I have read a number of Jewish scripts this year, and I am [01:13:00] ecstatic that there is seemingly a focus on developing, I mean, I hope that they I'll move forward, but a focus on trying to get these projects developed.

[01:13:09] Ginnifer Goodwin: But this was the script that I felt like, um, was all the things. It was a brilliant movie, like, On top of being Jewish leaning.

[01:13:20] Jonah Platt: Right, which is, you know, exactly what I had been advocating for even before I got involved with this project was stories about people being people and those people are Jewish and this is their life.

[01:13:34] Jonah Platt: Yeah, I think that's super important. Um, alright, we're getting close to the end here, but I do, uh, I do want to mention, I know it's, It's sitting on the table there. Uh, there's a water bottle, this water bottle. Please tell us about it. There's a book there. It's called in GAD we trust, which is a total home run title, by the way.

[01:13:53] Jonah Platt: You, you told me in the like pre meeting for this, there's a Jewish chapter. Um, so [01:14:00] yeah. So why don't you tell us, can I read an excerpt? Oh,

[01:14:02] Josh Gad: please. So this, this felt. Um, the, the book is coming out January 14th, but tonight's conversation sort of, I speak about this in the book and I thought it was worthwhile if you guys, is it okay if I read a little section?

[01:14:18] Josh Gad: I think it's on point. And I want to read you this piece that stays with me. Um, about my grandfather. Um, I once asked my grandfather if he believed in God. I assume because he always sent me to temple every Saturday and kept a kosher house for most of his life, the answer would be obvious and in the affirmative.

[01:14:42] Josh Gad: However, less than a second after I asked that question, he tersely answered back, no. I stared at him in disbelief. Why? Because, he continued, no God would have put me through the hell that I had to endure. No God would [01:15:00] allow my family to all be murdered in cold blood for no reason. No God would have taken my entire youth from me as I fought to simply not starve to death, or be shot, or gassed.

[01:15:12] Josh Gad: The answer, the answer was both shocking and yet so obvious. I'd always taken for granted that his mere survival meant a renewal of his faith, never once contemplating that the horrors he had to endure to survive could simply mean proof of an absence of God in his weary eyes. As I pondered his answer, however, I suddenly became incredibly confused by a simple set of facts.

[01:15:36] Josh Gad: Why, for 90 plus years, Had he continued to worship if he felt this way? Why would he go to temple every week, celebrate every holiday, insist on his children and grandchildren doing all of the Jewish traditional rites of passage from brisses and baby namings to bar and bat mitzvahs? How could a person who didn't believe [01:16:00] in God pray to that God publicly and celebrate in his name again and again?

[01:16:06] Josh Gad: I couldn't for the life of me understand. Papa, why then? If you don't believe in any of it, do you continue to do all of the things that identify you as being a practicing Jew? He looked me square in the eyes and smiled a crooked grin because, Josh, it's all I know. So what the hell else am I gonna do?

[01:16:28] Josh Gad: Tradition, identity, and guilt. The perfect recipe for a card carrying Jew. I am destined to never fully embrace Jesus. and never fully withdraw. My and my descendants journey with Judaism is inevitable and familiar. It will be the same as those who for thousands of years have asked similar questions and arrived at similar answers, despite the pain, despite the aggravation, despite the [01:17:00] never ending hate from others.

[01:17:02] Josh Gad: And from ourselves, we are who we are because whether I like it or not, whether you like it or not, I am a Jew. What the hell else am I going to do?

[01:17:18] Josh Gad: So if you feel like me, buy my book on the 14th.

[01:17:23] Jonah Platt: It's actually, there's a copy for each of you under your seats. No, there's not. Sorry. Uh, people are going to know there is an, I'm a

[01:17:31] Josh Gad: Jew.

[01:17:32] Jonah Platt: Hey, People, people are going to like jump ahead listening to this episode and think they've stumbled into the audio book of Engad we trust.

[01:17:41] Jonah Platt: Um, all right. So to bring us home, we're going to do something we like to do on the show. It's a little lightning round. Um, so we'll just go one at a time. I'll ask the question. You could just throw them out. It's easy. These are easy ones. These are, these are the real softballs. Favorite Jewish holiday.

[01:17:55] Jonah Platt: Hanukkah.

[01:17:56] Ginnifer Goodwin: Passover.

[01:17:57] Jonah Platt: Passover. Interesting. [01:18:00] Uh, least favorite Jewish holiday. Yeah, I'm with Marley. I'm like Passover. That's like the stuffiest and the longest. Passover, Passover, Passover. It's like our

[01:18:07] Josh Gad: Thanksgiving, just with less bread. Yeah.

[01:18:11] Jonah Platt: Uh, least favorite Jewish holiday?

[01:18:13] Ginnifer Goodwin: Easter. I cannot think of one. I mean, I really think they're all.

[01:18:18] Josh Gad: That's a good answer. That counts. Do you know what's funny? It used to be Yom Kippur. Yeah. Cause you're fast. I hate fasting.

[01:18:28] Josh Gad: For those listeners at home, just to look up a picture. Uh, but I, yeah. But, But, I've really come to adore Yom Kippur lately. I think post the 7th, it's actually maybe weirdly become my favorite holiday. It's just a day of reflection. Um, so least favorite? I never got Sukkot. I just never Understood why we're wasting so many twigs.[01:19:00]

[01:19:00] Josh Gad: And lemons.

[01:19:04] Jack for Marlee Matlin: I make a mean kugel for any Jewish holiday.

[01:19:06] Jonah Platt: All right. You're invited. You're invited over.

[01:19:08] Josh Gad: Raisins or no raisins.

[01:19:15] Jonah Platt: Okay, we ask this all the time on the show, challah, rip or slice? Yep. Rip. What she said.

[01:19:23] Josh Gad: Rip. If you come with a knife to a challah party, you better come with a gun. Cause I will not let you get away with that.

[01:19:34] Jonah Platt: I am so in the minority of having like grown up with people slicing the challah. Like nobody slices challah.

[01:19:40] Jonah Platt: No, Mike, please rip it apart and throw it.

[01:19:43] Jack for Marlee Matlin: Rip it, rip it, rip it.

[01:19:44] Jonah Platt: What is your Jewish deli order? What do I order? Yeah, what do you order when you go? Matzah ball soup. Classic.

[01:19:53] Ginnifer Goodwin: Matzah ball soup and a knush.

[01:19:55] Josh Gad: Ay. Give me some good New York [01:20:00] bagels and lox. I mean, I, I love me a good, I, all I want after I fast on the holidays is just a bagel and some dead smoked fish.

[01:20:12] Josh Gad: It's all I want. Some good cream cheese. It's all I want.

[01:20:15] Jonah Platt: You're, you're invited to our house. That's what we have every year. What is one of your favorite Jewish values?

[01:20:29] Ginnifer Goodwin: I was always taught that, and I don't know what you'd call this, maybe to an alum, but that it was not about how we, I remember distinctly learning this lesson in Hebrew school as a young person, that it is not about how we feel about anything. It's about what we do.

[01:20:44] Josh Gad: Josh community. I mean this.

[01:20:48] Jack for Marlee Matlin: Yeah,

[01:20:48] Josh Gad: pretty great.

[01:20:49] Jonah Platt: Feels good.

[01:20:51] Jack for Marlee Matlin: My rabbi always said, I always listened to him. I love, love thy neighbor. That's what my rabbi used to always say. Love that.

[01:20:58] Jonah Platt: Classic. [01:21:00] Um, favorite Yiddish word?

[01:21:04] Oy vey.

[01:21:05] Jonah Platt: Oy vey. Oy vey. Oh yeah, big time.

[01:21:10] Ginnifer Goodwin: I'm

[01:21:10] Jack for Marlee Matlin: gonna keep with the um, And now I'm a bubby officially.

[01:21:13] Jonah Platt: Hey, Mazel Tov. Mazel Tov. I'm

[01:21:18] Ginnifer Goodwin: gonna stick with my um, bris theme and say schmuck.

[01:21:22] Jonah Platt: Hey, nice. You know

[01:21:23] Ginnifer Goodwin: what schmuck really means.

[01:21:25] Josh Gad: Josh, I love chutzpah. Yeah. Chutzpah is just such a, it's got so many consonants in it.

[01:21:34] Josh Gad: a lot

[01:21:34] Jonah Platt: to chew on so much. Um, what is one thing you wish the world understood about Jews or Israel?

[01:21:44] Jack for Marlee Matlin: That we are human beings.

[01:21:48] Ginnifer Goodwin: I've done a lot of, um, what is it? Jew presentations since, by the way. fourth grade. Um, and the thing that I find most fascinating is that [01:22:00] we are just incapable. I think like on a world stage, we are, it's very hard for people to understand this concept of our being an ethnicity and a tribe and a religion and all of the things that Every group of people used to be thousands of years ago.

[01:22:18] Ginnifer Goodwin: You were the religion of your community before we had the borders that we have now and defined countries and states in the way that we do. You were all of these same things. We just happen to be like one of the only. tribes that survived.

[01:22:32] Josh Gad: Yep. Josh, those are both beautiful answers. Actually, I love that.

[01:22:37] Josh Gad: We're just people is sort of it, isn't it? Like that's the whole ballgame. Yeah.

[01:22:44] Jonah Platt: And last but certainly not least, any parting bit of advice or inspiration or call to action for our audience?

[01:22:53] Josh Gad: Call your mother.

[01:22:56] Jonah Platt: Very Jewish advice. [01:23:00]

[01:23:00] Jack for Marlee Matlin: Call your mother. Um, just be kind. Be kind.

[01:23:04] Jonah Platt: Fabulous. And it's past my bedtime.

[01:23:07] Jonah Platt: Okay. Jenny, bring us home.

[01:23:08] Ginnifer Goodwin: You know what? I'm just going to steal from Brett Stevens and let's go with everybody. Just go for a 10 percent more Jewish and we'll be good.

[01:23:14] Jonah Platt: Boom. A huge thank you to each of our incredible panelists for their honesty, advocacy, and being with me here tonight. Thanks to G2 and Rainbow Creative for making us look and sound great.

[01:23:28] Jonah Platt: Thank you to everybody here at the amazing CBS Television City for hosting us so graciously. A massive thank you to Jewish Federation Los Angeles and every individual lay and professional who worked so hard to make tonight possible. Especially my good friend and entertainment co chair Jacob Fenton.

[01:23:49] Jonah Platt: And the singular Steven Singer, without whom none of this would have happened. Oh yeah. This was such a blast. Thank you all for being here. And I'll see you all next time for [01:24:00] the next unbelievable episode of Being Jewish with me, Jonah Platt.

[01:24:12] Jonah Platt: Thank you to everyone who makes Being Jewish with Jonah Platt possible. Executive producer Matthew Jones, story producer Sean Leviashvili, and editor Patrick Edwards of Rainbow Creative. Consulting producers Bethany Mandel and Ariella Novek of Shield Communications, social media manager Yuval Yosha, graphic designer Noah Bell of Bellboy Creative, and more.

[01:24:33] Jonah Platt: My incredible research assistant, Samantha Greenwald, everyone at Aura House Studios, the whole team at Jewish Broadcasting Service, composer Gabe Mann, and of course you, dear listeners, who even stuck around to listen to all these credits. Man, I love you guys.