Being Jewish with Jonah Platt

BJJP_34_Tara Strong_V2
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Jonah Platt: [00:00:00] Folks, today you are in for a real treat. Usually I have one guest on the show, sometimes two or maybe three. Today I've got about 600. I've got a telekinetic teenager, a 10-year-old boy with fairy godparents, a lab created super sister, a villainous talking clock, and a baldheaded baby named Dill to name a few.

I've also got the woman who voices them all and who uses that same powerful voice to advocate fiercely for Israel and the Jewish people, no matter the consequences. She's the Canadian Queen of cartoons. Please welcome the aptly Surnamed Tara Strong.

Tara Strong: Aw, I love that intro.

Jonah Platt: I spend a lot of time on those intros, I gotta tell you.

Tara Strong: Well, you make people feel special. That's sweet.

Jonah Platt: They are special, and that's why you're here. Mm-hmm.

Tara Strong: Thank you,

Jonah Platt: Tara. I'm a huge animation fan, so you know, I'm already a fan of yours as a, a consumer. I, I worked at Family Guy for a couple years. You did? What did you do? I did. I was the writer's assistant for seasons eight, nine, and 10.

Wow.

Tara Strong: I did quite a few [00:01:00] of those. I know you did. Yeah.

Jonah Platt: Um, I wonder if we

Tara Strong: crossed paths.

Jonah Platt: Uh, well, I know you did, like early on you were there mm-hmm. A bunch. And you, you were the singing voice of Meg Yeah. In a couple episodes. Yeah. If you didn't know that.

Tara Strong: Yeah. And whenever, like Stewie had a little girlfriend.

Right. That was a lot of those characters. Yeah. Yeah.

Jonah Platt: So fun. It's classic. And uh, also, I believe you grew up with Gail Simmons, is that right? Yes. Yes. Who we had on the pod. And she said that you guys did, like, was it the synagogue musicals together? Maybe?

Tara Strong: Yeah. I mean, we went to high school together. And yeah, we definitely were at the same synagogue.

Yeah. And I've always like loved her and she always had this ethereal beauty about her. Yeah. And then when I saw her posting about our people, I was like, oh, she's still so beautiful inside and out. She really is. It's

Jonah Platt: amazing that you both have become so successful and are both amazing Jewish advocates.

There's a of

Tara Strong: successful Toronto Jews. To Toronto Dues are the best.

Jonah Platt: I, I did an event in Toronto. Yeah. Pretty recently. I'm, I'm already going back to do another one. Yeah. 'cause we love each other. It's like a Toronto Jonah love fest place. So shout out to all the Toronto homie. Yes. Okay. [00:02:00] So if you couldn't tell from my intro, I was talking about a bunch of terrors very famous characters, Raven from Teen Titans, Timmy Turner from fairly odd parents, bubbles from Powerpuff girls, miss Minutes from Loki Dill pickles from the Rugrats.

I mean, you're living the dream. Are you Just, every day you're like, man, my life rocks.

Tara Strong: You know? I knew, I'm sure you're the same. I knew when I was like four or five, I'm gonna be singer, dancer, actress, and no one in my family was in the business except for my grandfather who was a cantor,

Jonah Platt: right? No

Tara Strong: one else like knew anything about how to get into showbiz, and I just kept pushing my parents and pushing my parents to get me an agent, which they finally did when I was 13.

Jonah Platt: Finally,

Tara Strong: finally. But before that, my only performance was at my shul. I was singing in the children's choir. I was a little soloist. Aw. And then my first like job, it wasn't a paying job, but I was singing in the Yiddish Theater. I have a picture. Do you wanna see it?

Jonah Platt: I do wanna see it.

Tara Strong: I was singing in the Yiddish Theater and I spoke Hebrew.

I went to Hebrew school. Amazing. But I didn't speak Yiddish, and so I learned, I'm not surprised. All the songs Frenetically. [00:03:00] After the show, people were like, oh, you're the Wonder Maid Luck. And they put it in the paper that I was the Wonder Maid, luck. What is Wonder Made Luck. It means Wonder Girl.

Jonah Platt: Aw,

Tara Strong: that's me singing my little booty out Atish Theater.

Jonah Platt: Yeah, you just belting away. I could see that mic's a little high for you. And

Tara Strong: actually this picture is from, um, a song called Puppy Rosen, which is playing a little boy who is trying to sell cigarettes like during the Holocaust time to, oh my gosh, take care of his sister, and Wow. Yeah, it was pretty amazing.

But then I finally got an agent when I was 13. And I booked my first cartoon, which was the voice of Hello Kitty. She was a cat.

Jonah Platt: Heard of her.

Tara Strong: My first on camera show with Mr. T. It was called T and T.

Jonah Platt: Mr. T, yeah. Were you the other T?

Tara Strong: No, I was just like a little Punky Brewster type character. Okay. Cute. Yeah.

Jonah Platt: Yeah. Amazing. All right, so what we're gonna get in more to the early days of Tara Chernoff. Mm-hmm. Tara Strong, like kind of worked out for you that night. It's better. It's like a pretty sweet stage game. It's better. And it's like people can remember it. They can spell it. Yeah. Yeah. That's a good one. I married it.

I know, but it's, he, I kept the [00:04:00] name, the name was the best. Exactly. You got the, the name and the kids was the best part of that marriage. You got some good stuff out of there. That's all that matters. Of those characters that you've done so many is, are there any, or is there one that you like get the most love for?

Or is it pretty even? Well, when

Tara Strong: I go to Comic-Con, yeah. Most people that are cosplaying. Have you been to a Comic-Con by the way? I

Jonah Platt: haven't.

Tara Strong: You gotta come on. I would

Jonah Platt: have a great time. I love that stuff.

Tara Strong: You should come with me. There's one in Ontario, like in a few weeks.

Jonah Platt: Oh, Ontario, Canada. Yeah.

Tara Strong: No, here. Oh, Ontario.

Yeah. Okay, great. Yeah,

Jonah Platt: yeah. Yeah.

Tara Strong: So I love comic cons 'cause it's the most beautiful environment. Nobody's weird 'cause everybody's weird. Right? And it's just so much fun. So I see the most cosplay for Raven or Harley. Mm-hmm. Um, a lot of people love fairly odd parents. A lot of people. My Little Pony. And that exchange at the cons is so beautiful.

Like, I had no friends till my little Pony, or I wanted to end my life till I met Raven. Or oh my God, I didn't know I was gay till I saw you as Harley. Wow. Things like that. And there's like these. Really beautiful moments. Like there was this girl dressed as Raven and she was talking and talking and talking and talking.

And I look over her mom's bawling and a lot of people cry when they [00:05:00] meet me, but this was like no big deal. Unusual. So I went to check on her and she said her daughter was nonverbal on the autism spectrum. She hadn't spoken for five years. And when she heard I was coming, she didn't shut up. And I was like, this is why we go, you know, this is why we go.

Wow. But my favorite job I ever did was the sequel to the Little Mermaid.

Jonah Platt: Little Mermaid two. Yeah. What's the, what's the Colon? Little Mermaid two. It's like into the return to the sea Return. To return to the sea. To the sea,

Tara Strong: yeah. Because her story, the, I played her daughter and it was the reverse. She was a girl that wanted to be a mermaid, but to sing in the studio with Jody Benson was like, I could have died the next day.

Jonah Platt: Dream come. Yeah. I love that you play bubbles. Who is, you know, the love and the joy and the prettiest girl at the party. You wanna try it And then you also play. Do you wanna try it? Bubbles?

Tara Strong: I'm gonna bet girl at the party.

Jonah Platt: Yeah, that one. Try it. Ah, let's see.

Tara Strong: I'm gonna be the prettiest girl at the party

Jonah Platt: about as high as it goes.

That's not

Tara Strong: bad. That's not bad. It was hardcore.

Jonah Platt: No, don't have that one. [00:06:00] Okay. That was good. You're that you know I have my strength. That's little girls, isn't one of them. That's okay. So you play her, but you also play Raven who's like the opposite,

Tara Strong: right?

Jonah Platt: Moody, brooding, quiet. Which one is more? Tara,

Tara Strong: they're both parts of me.

Every time I have a character that becomes sort of beloved by everybody where we get to do it a lot,

Jonah Platt: right?

Tara Strong: They. I don't know, a, a lot of your animation stuff, but you become like symbiotic with this character. Of

Jonah Platt: course.

Tara Strong: And when it's their turn to come out and play, they just do. And there's so much of me in bubbles.

First of all, I am super sweet. I am kind of Pollyanna like trusting and everybody's like, you can't hurt me with the things that you do. I'll pick up dandy lions and I'll give them to you. That's me. Like right. Love is like my favorite magic in the world. But if you mess with me, I will get hardcore. I will.

So like we have a lot. In common in that way. Raven and I have a lot in common where I love to meditate. I need my alone time. I love to read, I love magic. Mm-hmm So there's a lot of me in [00:07:00] a lot of my characters and a lot, a lot of characters in a lot of me. It's like this very symbiotic

Jonah Platt: relationship. When you like first got into the role, auditioning like was either more of a stretch for you or like, oh this is gonna be fun to try.

They're both was like, I can, it doesn't matter.

Tara Strong: You know what's funny? Bubbles came first.

Jonah Platt: Mm-hmm.

Tara Strong: And when I was auditioning for Raven, I was already doing Bat Girl for the exact same crew at Warner Brothers. I was also doing Extreme Ghostbusters Kylie, which is kind of like a dark teenage brooding and like three other characters like that.

How am I gonna make this different? Okay. And the character description for Star Fire literally said she's a grownup bubbles. So I'm like, well, I'm grown up bubbles, so probably I'll book that. And then I went in and they wanted me to read for her, and I just relied on my acting, which sounded a lot like Bat Girl.

'cause Bat Girl is really my own voice. Mm. And they're like, thanks. And as I'm walking out, I turned to Andrea Romano, the director, and I'm like, can I just try this one thing that like God shot came to me, that she had this weird little role. Under every word she said. And it wasn't like a pre-planned thing.

Whoa. But that's, you know, from improv, [00:08:00] like sometimes you just kind of gotta go with it. Yeah. And that's what meant was meant to be. And she's so important to so many people, including myself. She's an amazing character.

Jonah Platt: That's so cool. I love that story. Rugrats famous for their Jewish holiday episodes, like very famous.

They're some of the best Jewish TV we have. Yeah. But it's few and far between. So, I mean, how is TV animation doing in your point of view, on, on telling Jewish stories and is that something that gets discussed at all?

Tara Strong: I will say that I'm really proud of animation 'cause I think they were way ahead of the inclusion game.

Jonah Platt: Mm-hmm.

Tara Strong: Rugrats was like the first Jewish black family, all these other families Yeah. That were getting along. And you know, every animation has. Characters of all different colors. They worship and love all different people and they all seem to have a great time and get together for the next episode. And I think it's really beautiful.

I don't know that there's been a family, a Jewish family since the Rugrats. So maybe we early that, and they're in, they're faith too, I think, right? Yeah. I mean, I'm sure we could do better. Mm-hmm. I hope that if there's a Jewish character, they hire a Jewish [00:09:00] actor. I, I think the beauty of animation and inclusion is something that should really be looked at by all kinds of Hollywood.

Like, wow, here's all these characters from all different places, and they all get along.

Jonah Platt: I certainly agree with you. Yeah. So now I want to go to my first little game that I wanna play with you. Okay. Timmy Turner gets invited to a bat mitzvah and he has a crush on the Bat mitzvah girl. What's his pickup line?

Ah,

Tara Strong: Cosmo, Wanda. I wish I was the most handsome boy at the Bar Mitzvah. Cosmo. Wanda made me taller. Cosmo, Wanda teach me two songs and then I like go impressed her and sing two songs. Perfect. Hava,

Jonah Platt: I think you're in.

Tara Strong: Yeah,

Jonah Platt: and I think that's the day she's gonna

Tara Strong: go for him.

Jonah Platt: Raven, you're at your first Passover Seder and you get asked, why is this night different from all other nights?

Tara Strong: Whatever. I would be like, man.

You know, I would do that. Passover is my favorite holiday, by the way.

Jonah Platt: Ravens or yours?

Tara Strong: Mine and Ravens.

Jonah Platt: Why is it your favorite holiday?

Tara Strong: [00:10:00] I have so many memories as a kid of having the ish bacha together.

Jonah Platt: Mm-hmm. Um,

Tara Strong: my booby and my mom were caterers and we would have, and she was a one of five and there were 18 grandchildren.

We'd all get together.

Jonah Platt: Your mom was one of five. One of five. Wow. And they were Me too.

Tara Strong: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Wow. Russia,

Jonah Platt: Latvia, Lithuania, and some Russia.

Tara Strong: All right. So. My grandmother, who I'm talking about was like the reason we're alive. She forced her family on a boat at 16 during the pogroms and said, we're getting outta here.

Wow. And her mom said, if we die on this journey, it's your fault. And she saved a generation.

Jonah Platt: How old was she?

Tara Strong: Um, 16.

Jonah Platt: She was 16. And everybody listened to her. Everybody

Tara Strong: listened to

Jonah Platt: her.

Tara Strong: Yeah. I mean, we lost a lot of other family, but she made it.

Jonah Platt: Yeah.

Tara Strong: But I love carrying on that tradition and I think things that bring people together.

I also love tradition a lot.

Jonah Platt: Yeah.

Tara Strong: And so I had a Seder in my backyard once that was 70 people. And a lot of times people that have never been to one

Jonah Platt: who does the cooking.

Tara Strong: I do a lot of the cooking. Wow. My son helped me a lot this year. Have you

Jonah Platt: inherited the, the skills from the bug? Not, not really, but I

Tara Strong: do make my mom's soup Really [00:11:00] Well.

Jonah Platt: What, what kinda soup?

Tara Strong: It's a matza ball soup.

Jonah Platt: And you, and you nail the soup.

Tara Strong: Yeah, I nail the

Jonah Platt: soup. That's a good one. Yeah. Bubbles. What should we make sure to have at our Hanukkah party?

Tara Strong: Well, probably lots of presents for me. Maybe another toy for octe, maybe a pretty hairbrush and things for my sisters.

Jonah Platt: So thoughtful, so sweet.

Harley Quinn, what are you dressing up for? Uh, for Purum this year. I know you love costumes. That one really got you.

Tara Strong: Just because like picturing Harley Quinn as like Queen Esther is really funny. That's a good one. I mean, she is the queen. She might as well be Queen Esther, but she's still got a bat in case anyone messes with her.

Jonah Platt: Yeah. Like me, in spring of 2021 when there was violence between Israel and Gaza, that was sort of your first. Foray into speaking online about this conflict, which is funny enough, was the same sort of timing for me. Uh, you posted a blue square. There was barely any caption to it. It was very simple. What was the reaction?

Tara Strong: Die [00:12:00] Zionist bitch.

Jonah Platt: I mean, I looked through some of the comments just like there were some, I didn't know if, if the, if like what the ratio was. 'cause I was scrolling, you know, for 10 seconds. But it was a lot of hate. I saw some good ones, but

Tara Strong: I can't believe how much hate there is online and how bold people are.

Like, we can see who you are and your avatar and like. I, I don't, I don't understand bullying or hate. I grew up with a sister who is, um, on the Asperger spectrum, right? So I used to see her come home and cry every day. My mom was overweight, my dad wasn't. Well, I don't really have tolerance for bullies at all.

Jonah Platt: Yeah.

Tara Strong: And the pro Hamas crowd are real bullies, like, oh yeah, I dunno about you. But as a Jewish person, you can't post anything without being called a genocide lover or. It's just so mean. And I don't want anybody to die. I don't want any innocent people to die. Of course you don't like, I, I don't understand why they feel so emboldened to be so mean, but they are.

Every single day, every, like you were just talking about it on one of your posts, like it's every day people are like. You [00:13:00] should die. Like why? We don't want anybody to die. You never see a Jewish person on online saying, we want people to die. No, of course you don't want that. But they do celebrate it when some, when a Jewish person dies, the pro Hamas crowd are like celebratory.

And I just think,

Jonah Platt: well, to be fair, I, we like celebrated the pager thing.

Tara Strong: The pager thing. Well, we celebrate a terrorist, right? Being killed. Right, but not an innocent person. Of course that's important. And that's like. I just don't understand. I would I, when I see some of the footage of how cartoons are in, in Gaza for those children, oh God.

Yeah. Like I just want to hug these kids and show them how loving cartoons make you love each other. Like, I just want to help deconstruct this brainwashing of hatred. Otherwise, I don't know how. We get them to understand that Jews really just want peace. We don't want anyone to die. Right. We want you to come over for my mom's matza bowl soup.

Jonah Platt: Right. That's interesting. Just, you know, having somebody from the animation world voice that, 'cause like we've seen or most people have seen [00:14:00] that footage, but to hear that from you. Yeah. What a, like, gross distortion of something so, and so sad, beautiful. And, and that, you know, is made to educate and, and, and entertain children and being used in, in this way and

Tara Strong: it's child abuse.

Children shouldn't be seeing violence that young, right? They should be seeing rainbows and hugging each other and learn about friendship. Like I just, it breaks my heart. Like, I know this sounds naive and stupid, but I wish I could hug them all and show them loving cartoons and say, I get it. You're supposed to be playing right now.

Jonah Platt: I wish you could too. I wish. We gotta have like a, you know. Middle East Comic-Con.

Tara Strong: Yeah. Well I went to one in Dubai, which was incredible by the way. Not that this is like, you know, compared, but I will say the fans there like loved Ben 10. And I'm like, there's a lot of people with like titles that came over and Queens that came over and they're like, my kids love all your shows.

I'm like, oh, it's so sweet. And they were very kind and loving. And I was speaking Hebrew in public 'cause my cousin called me from Israel.

Jonah Platt: Do you speak fluent Hebrew?

Tara Strong: I used to be a lot more fluent. I, I, you can carry a conversation. Yes. I fell in love with it in Hebrew Scholars and Hebrew Day school as a kid, and I [00:15:00] fell in love with it.

I love That's amazing. Speaking to people. That's amazing. Yeah.

Jonah Platt: That's cool. I mean, I went to Jewish Day School. You did? All the way through eighth grade, but I did not leave with a conversational.

Tara Strong: Okay.

Jonah Platt: You know?

Tara Strong: Uh,

Jonah Platt: um,

and then I wanna like bring it into Spanish, which I speak better. I'm like Hebrew. Um, were you surprised by that initial onslaught?

Tara Strong: Yes. I was so surprised. I can't believe anybody had anything to say, but, oh my God, I can't believe these young kids at this festival were so. Terribly. Oh, I'm not

Jonah Platt: even at October 7th yet.

I'm still in 2021. And you're getting, you know, it's the, the, the same level of hate that you're getting now. There was

Tara Strong: a bunch of hate before that too, and I would put up stuff and like I, I've been in this arena for a very long time. I know we're gonna talk about the March of the living, but, um, you know, as a little girl, [00:16:00] I, I didn't deal with much antisemitism, but I did, we did have a, um, someone spray paint.

Jews, pigs with a swastika on our temple. You wanna see

Jonah Platt: on the temple? Mm-hmm. Is, and did you go to the temple where your grandfather was a cantor?

Tara Strong: Yeah, this was the temple where my grandfather was the cantor and my Beth

Jonah Platt: Roddo.

Tara Strong: Beth Roddo Reddam. Are you looking that up?

Jonah Platt: You know, we research things on being Jewish.

Tara Strong: Okay. So I'm like four years old in this picture.

Jonah Platt: I look at you guys smiling in front of like posing. Well, we didn't know

Tara Strong: what it meant, but my dad, why did

Jonah Platt: your dad wanted you guys? Yeah, and there's a SWA right

Tara Strong: beside it. Just to show like how Jewish hatred. Was still around 'cause I didn't really How cute you two are though.

Jonah Platt: So cute. Your little dresses. But that's when we

Tara Strong: moved synagogues after that.

Jonah Platt: Really? But, um, yeah, I, because of that, uh,

Tara Strong: I don't know if, because of that, but we also moved down the street from a big synagogue called a Israel At Israel.

Jonah Platt: Mm-hmm.

Tara Strong: But I had known a little bit, actually I'd known quite a bit about anti-Semitism as a child because [00:17:00] my dad had a World War II museum.

Jonah Platt: What does that mean? Had a museum?

Tara Strong: I mean, uh, it was about. Four or five times the size of this room. He was a child during World War ii and he was fascinated by it.

Jonah Platt: Wow.

Tara Strong: And he collected and he brought tour groups in and there was a whole section on the Holocaust.

Jonah Platt: Wow.

Tara Strong: Yeah. And I learned about propaganda back then, which was a lot harder before social media, but it was on like, uh, product boxes and newspaper articles, which always hated the Jews.

They were always like,

Jonah Platt: right. Well, yeah, propaganda's been around long before. Yeah. It has social media. Actually,

Tara Strong: I brought you something to see.

Jonah Platt: From the museum. Yeah, from the museum. Oh yeah.

Tara Strong: And my dad's long gone. I'm, I'm going to donate all the Holocaust stuff, but I'd like to find a home for the other World War II stuff.

So it's not in the greatest shape, but it's toilet paper if you wanna unravel it. It has Hitler's face on it, and it says, wipe out Hitler. Come

Jonah Platt: on.

Tara Strong: This is from World War ii. The

Jonah Platt: end is near no monkey business. There's hit. Is that hit there? He is just a mirage, exterminate. Wow. So you get to wipe your ass with Hitler.[00:18:00]

That's the idea, right? There it is. Wipe out Hitler. There's the next one. Yeah. Other is wipe out. Wipe out Hitler. Yeah. So all these

Tara Strong: people, oh no, all these people now like Kanye, not the

Jonah Platt: Mexican food,

Tara Strong: loving Hitler. Like, did y'all know what he wanted? He wanted an Aryan race. He wanted everyone else gone.

Your ancestors fought to get rid of him. And now. Kanye's making songs about him.

Jonah Platt: Ugh. Let's he who will not be named. Ugh. Anyway. That is so cool. Yeah, so I grew up at what a relic. Yeah.

Tara Strong: So I would go and like to antique markets with them and I'd be like, dad, this is a DJ map. And like I ha I was quite educated on World War II growing up.

Jonah Platt: Was your dad a child in Canada During the work? Yeah.

Tara Strong: Yeah. Um, and then, I dunno if you wanna get into March of the living yet, but that Sure. Let's jump in. That really like. Took it to the next level when I was there.

Jonah Platt: You went when you were 16? I went

Tara Strong: when I was 16 and I was,

Jonah Platt: I just went, I went like this past month.

Wasn't

Tara Strong: it incredible?

Jonah Platt: It was. But I know that you had a very different [00:19:00] experience.

Tara Strong: I went with a choir and, um, Ellie Rubenstein who heads the Toronto trip. Mm-hmm. And I went with a lot of kids, um, from my school. And then you meet kids from all over the world. Ours was like 7,000 kids.

Jonah Platt: Wow.

Tara Strong: It was. So eyeopening to walk into the camps and to like see it in real life.

Mm-hmm. And see the nail marks on the walls in the, in the, uh, in the gas chambers, in the gas chambers and the kids' areas where they slept. And they had painted like things on the walls. And actually at one point I had sat by myself in the kids' area and I just started digging in the dirt. And I found this old.

German top to a poison thing, which my dad said was part of like the experiments that they would do to kids. Whoa. Did, would do their skin. Did you give that to a Yeah. Yeah. Somebody. Whoa. And uh, you know, Poland was interesting. There was still quite a lot of antisemitism. We had stones thrown on our bus, a swastika Whoa painted on our bus.

Kids were like throwing C cigarette butts in the myonic pit. I dunno if you saw that pit. I

Jonah Platt: didn't go to Myonic. [00:20:00] There's a

Tara Strong: big pit that says. In Poland across the top, we lie here in warning to you. And there was a lot of that, that it, of the antisemitism that made me like, there was beautiful moments though.

There was like a, a few synagogues still standing in Poland and one, we were there for Shabbat and we were singing outside on the lawn. And this older guy, very old guy came by and he was crying. And our um, tour guide said. That he had said, it's been so long since the Jewish people have been here, and it's so nice to see them come home.

Nice. So there were, that's nice, very beautiful moments too.

Jonah Platt: When, when was this? What decade?

Tara Strong: Well, I was 16 and that's at least 10 years ago.

Jonah Platt: Okay, so sometime, was it Russia or the Soviet Union?

Tara Strong: Uh. Russia. Yeah, it was already Russia. Okay. Yeah, yeah. After the march, which was, I'm sure you felt this way, like so moving where you're like, we were 6,000 strong from Auschwitz to Birkenau.

Every country with their flag and the Israeli contingency with their blue jackets and white pants and their Israeli flag and e Weel spoke.

Jonah Platt: That's [00:21:00] very special.

Tara Strong: We had. Been staged on the crematorium that the Jews had blown up in. Um, what does that mean, broken out

Jonah Platt: like so was it where it used to be or There's still a structure there.

Tara Strong: There is still a structure broken down from. This crematorium that the Jews had blown up and it started to rain and E Weel spoke and he started to cry. This is a man who have spoken many, many times.

Jonah Platt: Mm-hmm.

Tara Strong: And he said that when he saw all of these young people in the crowd, he had, he saw a young girl that he knew, like the ghost of her mm-hmm.

Who had been killed. And he said, if you had all been here when I was here, you would've all been dead. And it was like super duper emotional. And then the rain just really started Wow. Pouring down. And then our, um, choir began to sing a Lee Lee. Mm-hmm. Which is from Freedom Fighter Hanish, who was saving people during World War ii.

Jonah Platt: I love that song.

Tara Strong: Yeah. And as soon as we started a Lee

[00:22:00] stopped. Wow. Sun came out. It was pretty incredible. And then I knew like I had to be part of this message for peace and actually sang for Arnold Schwarzenegger at an event for peace between Arab Israeli wars and just trying to. Like get this message out that we can all live together, which we can.

There's beautiful orgs. I've been raising money over 10 years for a program in Israel called Children of Peace that put Arab Israeli children together for sports events and music events, and then fantastic hand in hand schools. Like there's all these beautiful things that can be done that are being done in Israel, and so I've always felt like I'm part of this sort of plan for peace.

That's all I want.

Jonah Platt: Why do you think. Those sorts of organizations of of which there are many doing like amazing stuff. Like why don't we hear about them? Why don't people care about those?

Tara Strong: I dunno. I tweet about them all the time. Yeah. I raise money for them. I've

Jonah Platt: seen that. I know, I know you've done a bunch of fundraising things.

Yeah. I

Tara Strong: think it's. You fundraise for

Jonah Platt: stuff all over the [00:23:00] place? I do. For all different causes. I

Tara Strong: do. I, that's what, like, that's honestly what's keeping me on social media. Mm-hmm. 'cause sometimes it's really hard on your heart to see the mean stuff. Yeah. But it's like, okay, I've raised over a million dollars on Twitter for kids with cancer.

I've, whoa, you know, I've done all these beautiful things that I wanna still continue to help and do. So that's why I'm still there. But it's part What an

Jonah Platt: amazing way to use your platform.

Tara Strong: Yeah. That's

Jonah Platt: awesome. What a contribution.

Tara Strong: Thanks.

Jonah Platt: Family in Israel, we mentioned you, you have a cousin you're speaking to on the phone.

How, how much family do you have in Israel and how are they?

Tara Strong: So I have a cousin who was also a singer growing up and she, um, made Aliyah when she was very young and she has five kids who I visited actually on the march. And they have a million kids and between friends and family, there's like 50 people that I'm, you know, related to or very close friends with in Israel.

And Wow. It's the most beautiful, magical place in the world. I wish people would visit it and understand how magical it is and how much history it holds for. All religions and all people. It's so beautiful.

Jonah Platt: When was the last time you were there?

Tara Strong: March [00:24:00] of the Living. I gotta go back. You have been since you were 16.

You know what's funny? I had actually planned a trip with my kids to go to Egypt to see the pyramids and then go to Israel. And the day after we bought our ticket, my travel agent called and said, you should cancel this. And I'm like, why COD? Mm. So that put a. A little kibosh on that trip, but I'll go back.

I wanna go back.

Jonah Platt: You got a go? Have you been back lately? I went on the anniversary of October 7th. Oh, you did? I went 20, 24. October was last. Wow. I really wanna

Tara Strong: go.

Jonah Platt: Yeah, I'm definitely, I'm definitely Jones in to get back.

Tara Strong: Yeah, me too.

Jonah Platt: Okay. Can we talk about box town?

Tara Strong: Okay.

Jonah Platt: Just a little. So days after, this is days after October 7th.

Tara Strong: Yeah.

Jonah Platt: You tweet. This is only the beginning. They were smart to start with. A country people love to hate. This is only the beginning now, obviously, to somebody who's educated. I understand exactly what you mean. You're talking about Hamas starting with Israel. Correct. Very obvious. Very obvious to any. And if it wasn't, uh, a question, Hey Tara, what did you mean by this?

Would make it obvious in a moment, of

Tara Strong: course.

Jonah Platt: But then right after that. You're fired from a show that [00:25:00] you sort of helped put together? Yeah, based, it seemed like mostly on this comment. It

Tara Strong: wasn't a show. It was a Kickstarter. A

Jonah Platt: Kickstarter,

Tara Strong: and the kid that was working on it approached me on Twitter, so he had all my information.

He could have asked me what I meant by this comment, of course, and they quote tweeted it and said, this is disappointing. I'm like, why is this disappointing? I'm talking about a terrorist organization. This tweet was put out before Israel went in. To Gaza. Right. So there is actual, it was

Jonah Platt: misconstrued that evidence.

It sounded like you were, they thought you were talking about Israel attacking Gaza was a good thing. But

Tara Strong: they didn't think that because it was before Israel went in the, the tweet is dated. Mm. It was two days after October 7th. Israel hadn't gone in yet. So it was just a way to hate on Jews, I guess. And had he asked me, I would've said, this is against terrorists and terrorists only, and Right.

The thing that really. Hurt for me. Was that like press picked it up? Mm-hmm. But you can see the tweet is dated, right? You can see I'm talking about. [00:26:00] The fact that they hate Jews, that they were smart to start with Israel because people hate Jews. 'cause they're coming for the rest of us. And look how right I was.

Right. The whole world turned on Jewish people around the world.

Jonah Platt: Yeah. When

Tara Strong: America goes to war and another country goes to where there are Jews, there are Christians, there are Muslims, there are all kinds of people fighting. But we don't hate Christians around the world when there are Christians fighting in a United States war.

Like the fact that every Jew is responsible for anything. The Israeli government does is insane. The fact that Jewish kids don't feel safe at schools in synagogues walking anywhere with a star of David. I have kids at Comic Cons.

Jonah Platt: Yeah.

Tara Strong: Clutching their star of David's and coming to me saying, thank you for speaking up for our people.

It's good they're wearing

Jonah Platt: them. Yeah,

Tara Strong: yeah. But like. You know, they say, oh, the Jews control everything. Well, we certainly don't control the news. Right. Because then none of those misconstrued things would get out.

Jonah Platt: You see, Tara, that that requires thinking about it. Yeah. To make that connection. Yeah. It's a lot easier to just press tweet.

You know [00:27:00] than it is to think.

Tara Strong: It's amazing. It's amazing. It's amazing. Yeah. It was pretty heartbreaking that like how quickly people turned. I'm like, oh my gosh.

Jonah Platt: All right, game number two. Okay. Melody from Little Mermaid two. Could you sing me a line from your favorite two thousands pop song?

Tara Strong: Because I am beautiful.

No matter what they say. My fins can't bring me down. Oh, no.

Jonah Platt: I see what you did there. I like that. Um, twilight sparkle. Can you, can you spit a line from your favorite rap?

Tara Strong: Dear Princess Celestia, I'm a rap God.

Jonah Platt: There we go. That's a good one. I love m and m too. Back girl. A line from your favorite Beyonce.

Tara Strong: Well Back Girl's. Really my own voice.

Jonah Platt: All right. I like her

Tara Strong: new country song a lot, but I don't know it. Okay. Sorry, I failed. I failed.

Jonah Platt: You didn't fail. It's fine. You, I'm, this is not easy. Um, but you know, you're, you're Tara Strong, so I don't feel bad about it. All the

Tara Strong: single ladies. All the single ladies.

There we go. Whatever.

Jonah Platt: Perfect. I wanna get [00:28:00] back to some of your, your family history stuff. Okay. Your grandfather was a cantor. What did that feel like being in shoal and like watching your grandfather? Be the one singing and leading, like what kind of impact did that have on you?

Tara Strong: I definitely loved that and I was proud of him, but I have to say even more impressed was when we switched to the Addeth Israel and the Cantor there, Cantor Kirsch Bloom, who could have been a huge Broadway star.

Mm-hmm. His voice was just magic, but it's kind of the reverse of the jazz singer. He wanted to be in the shul, that's where he wanted to be and he was a big inspiration for me and he gave me like my start sort of singing in front of people. I would do like, hmm. Duets with him, and I would do, I would do the entire high holidays with him.

He and I would just sing everything together.

Jonah Platt: That's so cool. Yeah, it was really beautiful. That's so nice. Yeah. And your grandmother, you mentioned also did catering? Mm-hmm. For the show. Yeah. And your mom worked with her too? Yeah. Were your parents in general as involved as your grandparents were?

Tara Strong: Yeah, we were really Jewish.

I mean, the thing that I loved about ADD Israel in Toronto, I don't know [00:29:00] what it's like in New York, but for me, east coast, I'm from la.

Jonah Platt: Uh,

Tara Strong: well, the shuls there are more like the conservative temples are more like Orthodox except that the men and women sit together. So it feels a lot more formal than some of the conservative temples here.

And I actually really loved it. I was in Hebrew school and I loved just being in the synagogue. It was like very big and beautiful and um, my parents were a big part of that. We did all the traditions. My mom. Taught me how to make all kinds of Jew cooking things and, um, Jew cooking things. We always had a bunch of people over.

It was a small house, but we always, we were the house people wanted to go to 'cause it was so filled with love. Nice. Aw.

Jonah Platt: Do you have any favorite family traditions?

Tara Strong: I mean, for sure Passover is my favorite, but we also lit the candles every Friday night. I still do with my kids every Friday. Oh, that's so nice.

Me too. Yeah.

Jonah Platt: You've lost both your parents. Mm-hmm. Younger than you should have. And also I believe your mom's twin sister, right? Yes. What traditions do you hold onto that remind you of them?

Tara Strong: Like every Jewish tradition reminds me of them. Mm-hmm. I basically had two [00:30:00] moms. My mom was the sweet one and Sylvia was the feisty one.

And just so many things remind me of them every day. Like I, it's so hard to lose a parent, especially if you were close and they were great. Like, and I heard once that like grief is hard because you have to unlearn that they're here to talk to. Yeah.

Jonah Platt: But

Tara Strong: I talk to her all the time. And when my sister and I were little, she get, she got bullied a lot in school for being neurodivergent, right?

And I would have her back a lot and she would get beat up and I'd push kids outta the way for her. And when she left the school, they started coming after me and going Marla's sister. And they were like teasing me and pulling my hair. They said to my mom, what should I do? And she said, ignore them.

Bullies won't keep going if it's not fun for them. And like just the other day I was like very sad about some bullies online. And I just heard my mom say like, just ignore them. Like why am I fighting with people who think rape is justified? Right. That's who's yelling at me. I don't wanna fight with someone like that.

Mm-hmm. That's not worth my time.

Jonah Platt: I feel the [00:31:00] same way when people will ask sort of like, how does that not make you feel upset? I'm like, why would I be upset that this absolutely uninformed idiot is like yelling something racist at me? Right.

Tara Strong: Like

Jonah Platt: that guy's the one with the issues. I'm good.

Tara Strong: It is hard though because like.

Meet Tara Strong as a person. I like really love, love. Mm-hmm. And make people feel seen. And like I said, I've used my platform for sharing love. I will reach out to people. I've talked to people with a gun in their mouth and talk them off the ledge. Like,

Jonah Platt: whoa. I

Tara Strong: love helping people and being there for people.

And like, it's very hard to see all the hate online when I just wanna keep spreading love. Like, it's been very hard. It's also very hard to see the footage. Of every tragedy, of course, and not just Israel, Gaza, like all over the world. There's so much pain and so many wars going on and so many innocent people.

Like it's very hard to like look at and still be positive and say, Hey, you know, let's do voices. Let's hug each other. Like there's so much sadness, which. Part of me is like, I don't even wanna be online anymore. But also the voiceless [00:32:00] need a voice.

Jonah Platt: We can't abandon ship. No. Let's talk about Marla for a second.

Okay. Anyone I've met that has had like a special needs sibling has is a very empathetic and caring person. Uh, just sort of the nature of that relationship. What does your relationship to your sister mean to you?

Tara Strong: Oh my gosh. She taught me so much. Like I learned from her all the time. And when we were little, we would do voices together.

We, um, had this little radio station that we created where we would just do silly voices all day. And every stuffed animal had a voice. Every pet had a voice.

Jonah Platt: I love that. I love the origin story. Yeah,

Tara Strong: she's definitely like part of the reason. Of who I am and you know, gave me a bigger understanding for when I meet kids that are on the spectrum and like I get so mad when people bully them.

Like, I dunno if you watch Love on the Spectrum, but I've become friendly with a lot of these kids on the show and it's like,

Jonah Platt: I was gonna ask you about that. You've been posting a lot recently with Danny, with Danny Bowman, specifically from that show. I just

Tara Strong: love them so much. They're [00:33:00] like so pure hearted.

Not that there aren't mean people on the spectrum, almost like there's mean people in every neuro whatever you are, but the sweet ones that just want to be. To have friends and be liked by people when people are mean to 'em. I just, I just wanna like hug them all and protect them all. Yeah, it makes me really upset, but she taught me a lot of that.

You know, I remember one time I was walking home from school and this kid was crying and I'm like, what's wrong? And he said, these. Kids said, I can't go home and the police are coming for me. And I could tell he was on the spectrum and I helped him get home. Like I think just having that at a young age, seeing what it looks like to come home when the kids were bullied, like it makes you, okay, I'm gonna protect everybody I can in this

Jonah Platt: way.

Mm-hmm.

Tara Strong: I mean, the fact that. We don't really talk enough about Noya Don. In fact, when you Google like Girl on the Spectrum, who was murdered October 7th, there's images of other people. Like Noya was a very special sweet girl on the spectrum. She called her mom when they were invading her and her grandmother were brutally killed.

Like I can't imagine how afraid she was in those moments. Like, it's so sad. It's so [00:34:00] sad.

Jonah Platt: Yeah.

Tara Strong: Ugh. So she gave me like a real, um. You know, base for understanding. And also we used to sing together at weddings and bar mitzvahs. Really? So I kind of got my start with her.

Jonah Platt: She's, I hope she's getting a commission.

She should, right? Yeah. Yeah. You've done a lot of speaking up for the hostages specifically. Let's talk about the positive response. Like what, what have you heard back from the, the appreciation that you've gotten, and where's that coming from?

Tara Strong: Well, the first day I started posting about. Israel, and again, this is before Israel went in, right?

This is Postoc. October 7th, I lost 5,000 followers on Instagram, and on that exact same day, I went up 30,000 followers from Israel.

Jonah Platt: Wow.

Tara Strong: People were like, you were my childhood and now you're my hero. Like, thank you so much, and like. I don't really understand why it's considered brave to speak up for the hostages.

If there was a kid missing in someone's hometown and someone put up a poster, nobody would rip it down. Right? And in these war rooms, which I'm sure you're [00:35:00] into. The one thing that the parents have asked for is, don't stop speaking about our children. And God forbid it was anyone else's child. Like we would do everything to keep their names and their faces present.

And um, I had Rachel on, um, uh, Hershey's Mom, Goldman Pollen, yeah, yeah. On my, uh, Instagram Live. And I just like feel so much. I, I can't imagine, I can't imagine like. Just let them all go. Bring them home. It's so sad. It's so sad.

Jonah Platt: I see you're rocking the necklace right now.

Tara Strong: Yeah, I tried to as much as possible.

That's awesome.

Jonah Platt: How connected are you to what's going on for Jews in Canada right now?

Tara Strong: Oh my God, it's really upsetting.

Jonah Platt: It's, it's really. Seems terrible and I know it's really terrible. I know having just been in Toronto, like they're really in pain over what's going on. I don't

Tara Strong: understand. I used to say like the one thing I loved about growing up in Toronto is it really was a melting pot.

It didn't matter where you're from, the color of your skin, who you worship, who you love. Everybody was like just loving each other. And to me growing up, it felt more inclusive than the United States. Hmm. [00:36:00] It just felt like that to me. But now when I see these images of kids' day schools getting. Firebombed firebombed and like people feeling unafraid to walk in neighborhoods that like are very close to where I grew up.

It's shocking. Like I don't, I don't understand how people can, and I'm not talking about people who are advocating for the innocent people of Gaza, which there are a lot. There are a lot. And when they speak out they are tortured and often killed. So like this is a big problem. This is. People that I worry about every day too.

But when you have these people saying, we are Hamas, we are the terrorists. We want Jewish people dead or actually killing Jewish people. That guy in Calabasas was killed by a megaphone.

Jonah Platt: Oh yeah? Yeah.

Tara Strong: What the hell? Like I, I. I just don't understand, and I think there's a really big problem in Canada, and I don't know how it gets fixed, and I don't know why people aren't marching for Syria, for the women in Afghanistan, for all these other war torn countries, [00:37:00] why aren't people marching for them?

Why aren't people still marching for Ukraine? I don't understand. Like no Jews,

Jonah Platt: no news.

Tara Strong: It's horrible.

Jonah Platt: Yeah. Do you have people still in Canada that you're talking to? This stuff? Yeah. My entire family's there. Everybody's there.

Tara Strong: They're shocked.

Jonah Platt: How did the, how did they feel about the election?

Tara Strong: I haven't spoken to them so much about the current election, but most of their concerns are about.

The public takeovers and feeling unsafe in the city, which Toronto's, I used to describe it as a clean, safe New York. Mm. Like it's always felt very safe to me. And now they don't feel safe. And that's really sad.

Jonah Platt: That's awful. So aside from Jews and Israel animation, you have some other passions. And And helping people.

Yes. One of them is veganism and animals.

Tara Strong: Yes.

Jonah Platt: Your boyfriend Willie's Instagram at this point is just like you guys holding insects and reptiles. I

Tara Strong: didn't know he liked reptiles when we first got together. For the record, he had a farm that has 300 goats near Yosemite. That's amazing. A happy goat farm.

Yeah. Which helped with fire brush and they also, it's a non-profit and they grow food and give it to the community. It's really, really beautiful.

Jonah Platt: How'd you guys meet?

Tara Strong: He slid into my dms.

Jonah Platt: Wow. He'll [00:38:00] kill me for that Nice work, Willie. He'll kill me for shout out to Willie.

Tara Strong: So actually to be fair, he was working with a company called Fan meo, which did Virtual Comic-Con.

Okay. So he didn't know who I was. He wasn't a fan. Like he doesn't have a My Little Pony tattoo on his

Jonah Platt: butt. Mm-hmm. Yes. And so,

Tara Strong: yeah, and so he followed me and we just started very like platonically chatting. And then after my divorce. I had seen him on Instagram and on Twitter there's just like this tiny picture.

I didn't know who he was and then I see him and all the animals and I'm like, oh my God. So I did do the slide back. Mm. I'd get in a lot of trouble if I didn't talk about the slide back.

Jonah Platt: Okay. Fair. Have you always been like a tarantula, snakes person? No. No. No. I am

Tara Strong: not a tarantulas person ever. I'm warming up to the snakes.

I like furry things that, you know, love you back. Yeah. And I'm not convinced reptiles give a shit. You're on the planet. No, except for our chameleon. When you walk. By, he's a rescue. He will jump at the glass to get to you to walk on your head. Aw, he's really cute. Um, that's like, does he have

Jonah Platt: a name?

Tara Strong: Bernard?

Of course. Yeah. That's what name writes classical music. Yeah, of course he does. Yeah. Every animal has their own theme song. [00:39:00] Um, but I've always loved animals and I think, um, going back to my booby. Being a caterer when I was very little, I have memories of being in the kitchen and seeing full-sized chickens going into the pot and looking at it and, and thinking it looked like an animal.

And from a very young age, you know when you see those videos where kids are like, I don't wanna eat it, it's my friend. That was me.

Jonah Platt: Yeah.

Tara Strong: And because my family was Russian Jewish, like. Save everything. Eat everything. I sort of had to fight them on understanding why I didn't want to eat animals.

Jonah Platt: Mm-hmm.

Tara Strong: And I'm also not like an obnoxious, do you know what you're eating person?

I, I think everybody should have that freedom to choose whatever they wanna do. But I do think people should think about more about how animals are treated in factory farming. And the amount, like if everybody cut down a little, it would be so much better for the environment. And also there should be like cameras and people making sure that the animals aren't unnecessarily abused because they are.

Yeah. And some of that footage is so disturbing and some of those guys are walking around society after kicking an animal in the head like, that's not right. So we should be thinking about these sentient [00:40:00] creatures that really wanna live Like a cow is pretty much a big dog. That's pig is a chubby dog.

Like they have friends and family and we should be considered. We should be more considerate about how they're treated.

Jonah Platt: When I think of that space of like the factory farming, whatever, I actually think of the Simpsons. Yeah. There's this like, um, it's like a Troy McClure kind of documentary about how like disgusting these like slaughterhouses are and a very funny, it's disgusting.

Take on it. Disgust. It's horrible. That's like my main frame of reference. Yeah. You started something recently called Voice Lings. Yeah.

Tara Strong: Do you wanna join?

Jonah Platt: Tell me, tell us about it.

Tara Strong: Okay. So every single con I go to and every day online I have people tell, ask me, how do you get into voiceover? And I really didn't want to start a class because I get very angry once again with people taking advantage of people.

And I can't guarantee myself work, let alone someone else work. So I didn't want to take people's money without promising something. And Willie, my boyfriend at the Cons was like, why don't you make a community so people can help each other? And so much of this. Business is who you know. Yeah. So we started brainstorming about it [00:41:00] and I thought, you know what?

If I'm gonna do this, at first I thought I would wing it. 'cause when I go to colleges and talk about animation, I often don't prepare. I just go out and talk about my life and take questions and help kids. And I thought, if I'm gonna really do this, I want it to be structured so it makes sense for people.

And I started to write and I couldn't stop. And it was like 20 classes that I was like, everything that's been in my brain since I'm 13 on how I create characters. Cool. So at the very base of it, I'm sharing how I became successful, what my process is, what I do, my adventures. Again, like you said, you've done improv.

I always tell people start with improv. Yeah. Because that's how you do characters quickly. Often you'll being a. Do a lead in a show and they'll say, Hey, can you do this little boy? Right? Or Can you do this teacher? Or whatever. So you have to be ready to think on your feet. So you have all these prerecorded classes that you could do at your own Le Leisure.

And then there is a community on Facebook where we all talk to each other and help each other, and there's like auditions on the site for people to do, and then they share artwork on it, and it's like, no bullies allowed area. And it's very, very sweet. And then the third element, which I'm really excited about, which is why I partnered [00:42:00] with Danny, so Danny.

Has a school, by the way, that she started when she was 14, to teach kids on the spectrum how to animate.

Jonah Platt: And this is de animation entertainment.

Tara Strong: Yes, yes. And so I thought, I can't guarantee people work, but what do people want? They wanna see themselves animated.

Jonah Platt: Mm. And

Tara Strong: so sort of to combat AI because. We can't stop ai, it's going to take a lot of our jobs.

Yeah. I would love to give the opportunity to kids on the autism spec spectrum, a place to show their work. So her students are going to be doing the animations. My students are gonna be doing the voices, and no matter what, everybody in my class is gonna see themselves animated and it's gonna be on the voice slings YouTube channel, which that's fun.

I just love, so it's a whole community and thing rather than just, you know, here pay for this class.

Jonah Platt: Wow. That's amazing. So you should join us. That's, I would love to, that's such a terror way to approach it. Right? Totally. That's a beautiful, so as we love to do here on being Jewish, we're gonna end with a lightning round.

Okay. Yours is gonna be a little different than everybody [00:43:00] else's. Tara.

Tara Strong: Okay.

Jonah Platt: Timmy Turner. What's your favorite Jewish holiday?

Tara Strong: For sure. Hanukkah. I wish every day could be Hanukkah.

Jonah Platt: Raven, what's your least favorite Jewish holiday?

Tara Strong: Yo Kippur.

Jonah Platt: I knew you were gonna say that. Yeah.

Tara Strong: Because I can, you know, starve myself and meditate any day.

But when someone's telling me to do it, I don't like it.

Jonah Platt: Perfect answer. Um, dill, what's your favorite Jewish food?

Delicious Harley challah. Rip it or slice it.

Tara Strong: You gotta rip that shit. Yeah. Rip it up. Can we swear on this show? Oh yeah. Rip that shit. Gimme a piece outta challah.

Jonah Platt: Miss minutes. If you could have Shabbat dinner with any Jew from the past, who would it be?

Tara Strong: That's such a good question. Well, miss Menace is still Tara, so Hey y'all.

If I could have dinner with any Jew, it would be my mom. Aww.

Jonah Platt: Bubbles. Who are some of your favorite Jewish [00:44:00] voices out there that you like to, to listen to and learn from?

Tara Strong: Jewish voices that I.

Who else do I like?

Jonah Platt: I don't know. I'll just me. That's a great answer. You, thanks you. Thanks Bob. Boys and Tara. Yeah. What is something positive that has come out of the past 18 months for you and, and what you've learned from it?

Tara Strong: I would say the positive part is, um, being there for kids who are really feeling alone.

And um, actually I've had a lot of people reach out to me privately and say, I came at you online, I'm really sorry, but people really pressuring me to be on this side of things and I wasn't educated. So like, I think opening people's minds and hearts to there being a bigger story here has been quite rewarding.

Jonah Platt: That's amazing. Yeah. What do you, have you gotten that response? Like they've come to you on their own or? Yeah, just like, some time has passed and they go, I learned something and I came back. Yeah.

Tara Strong: Yeah. [00:45:00] Which is really sweet. That's unbelievable. Yeah. Really sweet. And so like, I. I love that element. I love the kids in Israel saying, you're our queen, please come to see us.

It's so beautiful. It's so sweet. And also, I love how the Jewish community in general has come together because it, it shouldn't be a you, it shouldn't be a brave thing. You shouldn't be afraid to stand up for your own people. I don't know that any other minority has that problem. So the fact that people are standing up even in the fear of.

Being ridiculed, having bullies online and seeing how brave people are and seeing people come together has been really wonderful. I just love Mish BHA and community and also the friends of the Jewish people. And there are so many, many, like your post post last week talking about the Muslim activists.

Yeah. There's so many beautiful activists that have come forward at great risk to their life. Loe Al Sharif and um, Sarah Idon. Mm-hmm. Like these people risk their lives every day. Yeah. And like, we love you guys. Like, we love everybody standing up. For love. That's what matters. I really believe, I know this is gonna sound cliche, but I really believe that love is the most [00:46:00] powerful force in the universe, and I'm a really big person that believes in magic.

And I just think the more love we can put out there and get people to see that, that's really where we are coming from as a people. It's where we've always come from. Mm-hmm. And I hope we can just keep bringing people together.

Jonah Platt: Let's bring more love and bring people together. Tara, thank you so much for being with us.

Thanks for having me and all of your wonderful friends. Thank you for joining us.

Tara Strong: Thank you. Thanks for having me on. Being Jewish.

Jonah Platt: I'm gonna, that's gonna be like, we're just gonna use that every time now. I

Tara Strong: wish you'd have me every day on being Jewish. Whatever. I'm Jewish. Oh boy. That was really

Jonah Platt: fun, Tara. I loved having you and all the literal voices inside your head.

Join me today. If you're watching this on jbs, please subscribe to the Pod on Apple or Spotify. Subscribe to my YouTube at youtube.com/at being Jewish Podcast. And make sure to sign up for my newsletter@jonahplatt.com. I. We only got a handful of episodes left this season, but there's still time to sponsor one if you'd like to support our [00:47:00] work.

If you're interested, shoot an email over to jonah@jonahplatt.com. Alright, that's all folks. I will see you back here for the next animated episode of being Jewish with me, Jonah Platt.