by Rebecca Honig Friedman

The following is cross-posted on The Docent blog.

Ah, the power of television and the internet to bring people (and their dolls) together.

In our Modern Jewish Mom Passover Special, still airing on The Jewish Channel, we feature the quirky Barbie-doll-centered seder table centerpieces made by Helen Schwimmer, author and mother of PopJudaica.com creator Sara Schwimmer. Well, as Sara points out, one of the dolls, the one posed as Moses’ sister, Miriam, is not a Barbie but a “Blossom” — from the sitcom of the same name, starring Jewish actress Mayim Bialik, that ran on NBC in the early 1990s (remember Blossom’s best-friend named “Six” and the funny hats they both wore?).

We thought that was just an amusing side tidbit to a fun segment, but the online clip caught the attention of none other than “Blossom” star Mayim Bialik herself! Tickled, Bialik emailed Sara Schwimmer through PopJudaica.com, and, long story short, the two met up recently while Bialik was in New York shooting an episode of the TLC network’s “What Not To Wear,” with the now famous Blossom-cum-Miriam doll that started it all in tow (see picture)!

And Schwimmer was not disappointed by the meeting with her childhood doll’s real-life counterpart. “She’s so great,” Schwimmer told The Docent of Bialik.

So the moral of the story is that while Barbie dolls represent an ideal unattainable by real live women, the real live “Blossom” easily surpasses the doll. (Though we are disappointed by the absence of a silly hat on both doll and human versions.)

Posted on April 19th, 2009 Filed under: Uncategorized |