Jeopardy! host Mayim Bialik (Photo by Matt Winkelmeyer\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
But perhaps its biggest audience yet came on Thursday night, when \u201cJeopardy!\u201d devoted an entire category to it. The iconic quiz show is seen by an estimated 8.7 million people every night, making it the most-watched syndicated show on the air.<\/p>\n
This week, the contestants are all college professors as part of the show\u2019s first-ever professors tournament, and the host is Mayim Bialik, the Jewish actress whose regular-season run was just extended as the show figures out how to replace longtime host Alex Trebek, who died last year.<\/p>\n
Julie Williams, an English professor at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology in Indiana, chose the first question in the Yiddish Theater category after it appeared during Double Jeopardy, the show\u2019s second round.<\/p>\n
But it was Ed Hashima, a professor of history at American River College in Sacramento, California, who dominated. He correctly responded to four of the five clues, racking up points as he identified one play as the Yiddish \u201cKing Lear,\u201d named the Jewish holiday of Purim as being tied to Yiddish theater\u2019s origins and answered that Marlon Brando\u2019s acting teacher was Stella Adler, who grew up in a family of Yiddish theater royalty.<\/p>\n
Hashima also revealed a \u201cDaily Double\u201d in the category, allowing him to select his own wager. A smile broke across his face as Bialik read the clue: \u201cA surprise New York hit in 2018 was a Yiddish-language \u2018Fiddler on the Roof\u2019: This song becomes \u2018Ben Ikh Bin a Rotshild.\u201d<\/p>\n
The response, of course, is \u201cIf I Were a Rich Man,\u201d and Hashima added $2,400 to his already substantial lead. One could almost imagine Trebek humming the song\u2019s memorable theme, but Bialik offered no elaboration or commentary about the clues \u2014 unlike when cholent was a \u201cJeopardy!\u201d question earlier this season and she offered a short history lesson.<\/p>\n
One clue stumped all of the contestants, who declined to buzz in. \u201cThe play \u2018Chantzhe in Amerika\u2019 is about a woman wanting to learn this modern play; \u2018How I Learned To\u2019 do it is a non-Yiddish play,\u201d Bialik read.<\/p>\n
The correct response: \u201cWhat is \u2018Drive,’\u201d referring to the classic work by Paula Vogel, the Jewish playwright whose own passion for Yiddish theater has been a galvanizing force in her recent work.<\/p>\n
Speaking recently with the Harvard Divinity Bulletin about her play \u201cIndecent,\u201d which incorporates scenes written by the classic Yiddish playwright Sholem Asch, Vogel offered an insight about why Jeopardy\u2019s non-Jewish contestants might be so knowledgeable about what was until recently a niche ethnic entertainment.<\/p>\n
\u201cYiddish is a language of yearning, a language of anxiety. I believe we\u2019ve worked hard to communicate that love to the audiences,\u201d she said. \u201cWe\u2019ve had productions in Omaha, Nebraska, and in Boise, Idaho, where Yiddish is rarely heard. Audiences have said they feel the emotion we are trying to convey.\u201d<\/p>\n
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