June 25, 2023 • 15 mins
Original Air Date: June 25, 2023
Miriam Ezagui is an Orthodox Jewish mom and delivery nurse from Brooklyn who has more than 1.7 million followers on TikTok.
Miriam Ezagui is an Orthodox Jewish mom and delivery nurse from Brooklyn who has more than 1.7 million followers on TikTok.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome to Sunsteen Sessions on iHeartRadio,conversations about issues that matter. Here's your
host, three time Gracie Award winner, Shelley Sunstein. I want to introduce
you to Miriam as Zagwi, andshe is a TikTok phenomenon and she is
an Orthodox Jew and this is whyshe's on TikTok. She has one point
(00:25):
six million followers and close to eightyfive million likes on her video content.
She's also a labor and delivery nurse. And you live in Brooklyn, right,
Miriam? I do, okay,So how did you come up with
this brainstorm? How did this allbegin? You know, I fell into
(00:45):
it. I didn't know what Iwas getting myself into. It started as
a baby wearing channel where I wouldwrap my babies. My youngest was two
months old at the time, andI was on the Turney leave and I
was wrapping her every day anyways,because as a busy mom with four kids
total, I needed to be handsfree and still get things done. And
(01:10):
it was a practical option for me. And it's something that I've done for
a number of years, and it'skind of something that I'm passionate about,
and so it also gave me areason to like not walk around in pajamas
every day. All days, Iwould get dressed and make a video ofor
be wrapping my baby and coming Andby rap do you mean swaddling? No,
(01:37):
I have baby wearing. So Iwould use a woven wrap that I
was made out of non stretching material, and I wear her on my body,
usually either on the front or theside or the back. And to
what age do you do this?What age of the child? What doesn't
depend on the child? Depends onthe child. I mean, my baby
(01:59):
then two months old is now ayear and a half and I still wear
her. Hold on, one second, hold on And that sounds like a
workout actually, because you're carrying allthat weight. I am speaking to Miriam
a Zagwe. She is an OrthodoxJew. She is on TikTok. She
has one point six million followers andclose to eighty five million likes on her
(02:24):
video, and she says this startedwith wrapping her baby and wearing her baby.
But who suggested TikTok? Nobody?It was just something, you know,
I kind of felt like other socialmedia platforms were tapped out, and
if I wanted to grow an audience, I figured that TikTok was one of
(02:45):
the newer social media outlets and Igive it a go. One of the
things that kind of transitioned my channelfrom being just baby wearing to me opening
up as an ORCS jew was abouta year and a half ago, Whoopie
(03:06):
Goldberg came out with a statement thatshe said on the air, saying that
the Holocaust was not about race,but about two groups of white people,
and that was that is incorrect,and so they took her off the air
and they educated her. And tome that was like a pivotal moment because
I am the granddaughter of two Holocaustsurvivors and it's very much a part of
(03:29):
my identity as a Jewish woman,and if people like somebody on her level
in the media doesn't know some ofit, I don't think it was coming
from a place of anti Semitism.It was just coming from place of misinformation.
(03:49):
And if somebody like her doesn't havethat education base, how many other
people in the country don't. Andso I wanted to, you know,
better than to come from a Jewishwoman who is descendant of Holocaust survivors and
to be able to educate from thatpoint and so I spoke out about that,
(04:12):
and that was my very first postwhere I opened up as being a
Jewish woman. And before that,I, you know, I really had
a long think about whether I wantedto identify as a Jewish person on social
media because social media can be avery dark place also, and I was
(04:32):
nervous about the anti Semitism that Imight come across. And as a whole,
my channel has been very welcoming andaccepting of who I am. I
mean, there are anti Semitic commentsand I do sometimes address those, but
that's not the focus of my channel. I mean, it is talking.
(04:56):
Addressing anti semitism is something that Ido like to discus us, but I
really try to bring a positive lightto everything that I do and share.
So if you get an anti Semiticcomment, do you address that person?
Do you ignore it? Or doesit depend on what is said? It
(05:16):
depends. I also get thousands ofcomments every day, so it's possible that
people are saying some things and Ijust don't see it because at this point,
you know, thankfully it's it's grownto a very large community that gets
a lot of interactions. But itis a community and people will even if
(05:38):
I don't see something. There willsometimes be people in the community that will
stand up and educate other people,and that's really neat to see because I
might have made a video about atopic, addressing something, and then someone
saw that video. Now they're reeducating somebody else in the comments, so
that's really special. Sometimes I willif some thing. The last time I
(06:02):
addressed something that was blatantly anti Semiticwas somebody saying something to the effect that
I should go to the ovens becauseI'm a Jew. And my response to
that was basically I made a videoreply saying that for thousands of jew thousands
(06:26):
of years, Jews have been hatedby many nations and they have tried to
annihilate us and they haven't succeeded,and that I'm proud of who I am.
And I said that I'm proud ofjew So just, you know,
standing tall and being proud of whoI am, I think, is you
(06:46):
know something that I definitely try toinstill. I am speaking with Miriam as
Zagwi and she is an Orthodox Jewwho lives in Brooklyn, and she has
become TikTok phenomen with one point sixmillion followers, close to eighty five million
likes because she discusses issues what itis like being an Orthodox Jew, what
(07:12):
what I have found, it's reallykind of peculiar. I married a man
from Allentown who grew up with afamily they never met a Jew in their
life. And when I met hisbrother, he just assumed that all Jews
were Hasidic Jews. And you know, why was I eating pork? No,
(07:36):
I don't eat pork. Well,you know I do eat pork.
You know, I do not keepkosher, whereas I'm sure Miriam keeps kosher.
But there are just different There aredifferent beliefs in every religion, and
how you are observant can vary.But it just kind of shocked me in
(07:59):
this day and age that somebody hadnot even met a Jew in their life.
Of course, you know you're talkingto someone in New York, right,
Yeah. And there are many differentlevels, and no matter what level
you are on, one Jew isnot more Jewish than the next. We
are all equally Jewish, which Ithink is so beautiful and special. No
(08:22):
matter where you hold in your customs, we're all equally Jews. So tell
me, tell me some of thethings that you have tackled in your TikTok
video talking about your day to daylife as an Orthodox Jew and what kind
of surprised people along the way.I talk about every topic. Nothing is
(08:46):
off limits, so anything from intimacy, which that tends to be a very
interesting topic because people want to knowwhat do they want to know? So,
for example, my husband I sleepin separate beds, and that has
to deal with her so much abouther family purity. When a woman's on
her cycle and for seven days afterhusband and wife will separate physically and they
(09:11):
don't engage in any merital relations orphysical touch. And to help make that
easier, we also sleep in separatebeds. Um So that's one of the
topics that I talk about. Italk about keeping kosher and the kosher food
that I eat, and I takepeople to kosher restaurants I do day in
(09:33):
the life, so you know,get readies with me. We recently went
to Disney World and I shared allthe kosher food that I ate at Disney
World and that's uh, that wasfun. So was our hard keeping kosher
or at Disney World or did theymake it easy? You know, they
actually had a lot of kusher options. Can't say that they're like five star
(09:56):
options, but they had more thanI had anticipated. It was really nice.
So what is your biggest frustration beingan Orthodox Jewish woman today? I
don't know. I mean, I'mreally happy with with my role in my
life, and I guess I wouldn'tcall it a frustration, but I guess
(10:20):
I'm surprised sometimes at how much peopleknow or how little people know, kind
of like reflecting on like what yousaid about your brother in law. Sometimes
I'm just so shocked at the randomthings that people know about Jews, or
like there's a lot of misconceptions thatpeople have about Judaism because they're raised in
a country which is primarily Christian based, and Christian views are not Jewish hues.
(10:46):
A lot of people think that OrthoxJews are like Orthox Christians, and
it's they're very They're completely different religions. So that's something that sometimes surprises me
because I'll, you know, peoplewill ask me something coming from a Christian
mindset, and I'm like, it'stotally different. That's not how we view
things, that's not why we dothings, And so it reminds me of
(11:09):
my son. My son calls theNew Testament the sequel, and every time
I say that, it scracks meup. But I have to say,
now, I went to Israel,and I was a guest of the Israeli
government, and I was with awhole bunch of other journalists and there were
(11:31):
only a couple of Jews. Mostwere non Jews. So the things we
saw in Israel were equally Jewish historyand Christian history. I didn't know from
the Stations of the Cross, andI did the Stations of the Cross,
which of course is in a hugefunctioning marketplace in Jerusalem. But I was
(11:54):
just shocked at what I didn't know, because of course, you know,
religion isn't taught in school unless yougo to a Catholic school or you know,
or yeshiba right, so I findthat. Yeah, so that was
a surprise to me what I didn'tknow. Okay, you have had as
(12:16):
your guest on TikTok, your bubby, your grandmother who survived Alsh Fitz.
How does she handle this? Whatdoes she think of your TikTok videos?
I think she's very proud of me. My bubby and I have a very
close relationship. We always have.And again going back to that initial inspiration
(12:37):
of why even started to talk aboutbeing a Jewish woman and identify as Jewish
on social media, was at sparkof discussing the Holocaust. And originally I
started, I said, I wasgoing to share about my life today,
like you know, just the basicyou know, how I lived my life.
And I was also going to reflecton story worries of my grandparents,
(13:01):
and it would take everything out ofme retelling their stories. My grandfather too
was a Holocaust fiber, but he'sno longer with us, but a lot
of their stories are documented in placeslike the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC,
and they have different articles and they'vebeen published in books. And for
(13:22):
me to research just once one storyof their lives from that time really spent
I spent a lot of time researchingand took It was emotionally draining and taxing
for me. And a few monthslater I went to visit my bubby.
It was actually for passover, andI said, Bubby, why why don't
we just do it together and you'lljust share your stories like it's what she
(13:46):
does anyways, And she was alwaysvery open about sharing her experience from the
Holocaust. She's very passionate about beingvocal. She used to go around to
colleges and high schools and talk abouther experience so that we never forget and
that those atrocities never happen again.And being able to you know, now
(14:09):
she's ninety four years old, she'sreally not able to travel and do things
like she was when she was younger. So bring social media to her where
she can still tell her her experiencesover it was. It opened up a
whole new world for both of us. And we just have like thirty seconds
(14:30):
left. Just how do you feelabout the efforts to ban TikTok very quickly?
We should stay I want to takedeck to stay around. I think
it is an amazing platform and youcan literally see into other people's lives and
I think it's doing a lot ofgood too. Okay, And I want
to thank you Miriam as Zagwe ofBrooklyn, who depicts her life as an
(14:52):
Orthodox Jew on TikTok with one pointsix million followers, you can't argue with
that. Thank you so much,Miriam Calton, Thank you so much.
You've been listening to Sunsteen sessions oniHeart Radio, a production of New York's
classic rock Q one oh four pointthree
Welcome to Sunsteen Sessions on iHeartRadio,conversations about issues that matter. Here's your
host, three time Gracie Award winner, Shelley Sunstein. I want to introduce
you to Miriam as Zagwi, andshe is a TikTok phenomenon and she is
an Orthodox Jew and this is whyshe's on TikTok. She has one point
(00:25):
six million followers and close to eightyfive million likes on her video content.
She's also a labor and delivery nurse. And you live in Brooklyn, right,
Miriam? I do, okay,So how did you come up with
this brainstorm? How did this allbegin? You know, I fell into
(00:45):
it. I didn't know what Iwas getting myself into. It started as
a baby wearing channel where I wouldwrap my babies. My youngest was two
months old at the time, andI was on the Turney leave and I
was wrapping her every day anyways,because as a busy mom with four kids
total, I needed to be handsfree and still get things done. And
(01:10):
it was a practical option for me. And it's something that I've done for
a number of years, and it'skind of something that I'm passionate about,
and so it also gave me areason to like not walk around in pajamas
every day. All days, Iwould get dressed and make a video ofor
be wrapping my baby and coming Andby rap do you mean swaddling? No,
(01:37):
I have baby wearing. So Iwould use a woven wrap that I
was made out of non stretching material, and I wear her on my body,
usually either on the front or theside or the back. And to
what age do you do this?What age of the child? What doesn't
depend on the child? Depends onthe child. I mean, my baby
(01:59):
then two months old is now ayear and a half and I still wear
her. Hold on, one second, hold on And that sounds like a
workout actually, because you're carrying allthat weight. I am speaking to Miriam
a Zagwe. She is an OrthodoxJew. She is on TikTok. She
has one point six million followers andclose to eighty five million likes on her
(02:24):
video, and she says this startedwith wrapping her baby and wearing her baby.
But who suggested TikTok? Nobody?It was just something, you know,
I kind of felt like other socialmedia platforms were tapped out, and
if I wanted to grow an audience, I figured that TikTok was one of
(02:45):
the newer social media outlets and Igive it a go. One of the
things that kind of transitioned my channelfrom being just baby wearing to me opening
up as an ORCS jew was abouta year and a half ago, Whoopie
(03:06):
Goldberg came out with a statement thatshe said on the air, saying that
the Holocaust was not about race,but about two groups of white people,
and that was that is incorrect,and so they took her off the air
and they educated her. And tome that was like a pivotal moment because
I am the granddaughter of two Holocaustsurvivors and it's very much a part of
(03:29):
my identity as a Jewish woman,and if people like somebody on her level
in the media doesn't know some ofit, I don't think it was coming
from a place of anti Semitism.It was just coming from place of misinformation.
(03:49):
And if somebody like her doesn't havethat education base, how many other
people in the country don't. Andso I wanted to, you know,
better than to come from a Jewishwoman who is descendant of Holocaust survivors and
to be able to educate from thatpoint and so I spoke out about that,
(04:12):
and that was my very first postwhere I opened up as being a
Jewish woman. And before that,I, you know, I really had
a long think about whether I wantedto identify as a Jewish person on social
media because social media can be avery dark place also, and I was
(04:32):
nervous about the anti Semitism that Imight come across. And as a whole,
my channel has been very welcoming andaccepting of who I am. I
mean, there are anti Semitic commentsand I do sometimes address those, but
that's not the focus of my channel. I mean, it is talking.
(04:56):
Addressing anti semitism is something that Ido like to discus us, but I
really try to bring a positive lightto everything that I do and share.
So if you get an anti Semiticcomment, do you address that person?
Do you ignore it? Or doesit depend on what is said? It
(05:16):
depends. I also get thousands ofcomments every day, so it's possible that
people are saying some things and Ijust don't see it because at this point,
you know, thankfully it's it's grownto a very large community that gets
a lot of interactions. But itis a community and people will even if
(05:38):
I don't see something. There willsometimes be people in the community that will
stand up and educate other people,and that's really neat to see because I
might have made a video about atopic, addressing something, and then someone
saw that video. Now they're reeducating somebody else in the comments, so
that's really special. Sometimes I willif some thing. The last time I
(06:02):
addressed something that was blatantly anti Semiticwas somebody saying something to the effect that
I should go to the ovens becauseI'm a Jew. And my response to
that was basically I made a videoreply saying that for thousands of jew thousands
(06:26):
of years, Jews have been hatedby many nations and they have tried to
annihilate us and they haven't succeeded,and that I'm proud of who I am.
And I said that I'm proud ofjew So just, you know,
standing tall and being proud of whoI am, I think, is you
(06:46):
know something that I definitely try toinstill. I am speaking with Miriam as
Zagwi and she is an Orthodox Jewwho lives in Brooklyn, and she has
become TikTok phenomen with one point sixmillion followers, close to eighty five million
likes because she discusses issues what itis like being an Orthodox Jew, what
(07:12):
what I have found, it's reallykind of peculiar. I married a man
from Allentown who grew up with afamily they never met a Jew in their
life. And when I met hisbrother, he just assumed that all Jews
were Hasidic Jews. And you know, why was I eating pork? No,
(07:36):
I don't eat pork. Well,you know I do eat pork.
You know, I do not keepkosher, whereas I'm sure Miriam keeps kosher.
But there are just different There aredifferent beliefs in every religion, and
how you are observant can vary.But it just kind of shocked me in
(07:59):
this day and age that somebody hadnot even met a Jew in their life.
Of course, you know you're talkingto someone in New York, right,
Yeah. And there are many differentlevels, and no matter what level
you are on, one Jew isnot more Jewish than the next. We
are all equally Jewish, which Ithink is so beautiful and special. No
(08:22):
matter where you hold in your customs, we're all equally Jews. So tell
me, tell me some of thethings that you have tackled in your TikTok
video talking about your day to daylife as an Orthodox Jew and what kind
of surprised people along the way.I talk about every topic. Nothing is
(08:46):
off limits, so anything from intimacy, which that tends to be a very
interesting topic because people want to knowwhat do they want to know? So,
for example, my husband I sleepin separate beds, and that has
to deal with her so much abouther family purity. When a woman's on
her cycle and for seven days afterhusband and wife will separate physically and they
(09:11):
don't engage in any merital relations orphysical touch. And to help make that
easier, we also sleep in separatebeds. Um So that's one of the
topics that I talk about. Italk about keeping kosher and the kosher food
that I eat, and I takepeople to kosher restaurants I do day in
(09:33):
the life, so you know,get readies with me. We recently went
to Disney World and I shared allthe kosher food that I ate at Disney
World and that's uh, that wasfun. So was our hard keeping kosher
or at Disney World or did theymake it easy? You know, they
actually had a lot of kusher options. Can't say that they're like five star
(09:56):
options, but they had more thanI had anticipated. It was really nice.
So what is your biggest frustration beingan Orthodox Jewish woman today? I
don't know. I mean, I'mreally happy with with my role in my
life, and I guess I wouldn'tcall it a frustration, but I guess
(10:20):
I'm surprised sometimes at how much peopleknow or how little people know, kind
of like reflecting on like what yousaid about your brother in law. Sometimes
I'm just so shocked at the randomthings that people know about Jews, or
like there's a lot of misconceptions thatpeople have about Judaism because they're raised in
a country which is primarily Christian based, and Christian views are not Jewish hues.
(10:46):
A lot of people think that OrthoxJews are like Orthox Christians, and
it's they're very They're completely different religions. So that's something that sometimes surprises me
because I'll, you know, peoplewill ask me something coming from a Christian
mindset, and I'm like, it'stotally different. That's not how we view
things, that's not why we dothings, And so it reminds me of
(11:09):
my son. My son calls theNew Testament the sequel, and every time
I say that, it scracks meup. But I have to say,
now, I went to Israel,and I was a guest of the Israeli
government, and I was with awhole bunch of other journalists and there were
(11:31):
only a couple of Jews. Mostwere non Jews. So the things we
saw in Israel were equally Jewish historyand Christian history. I didn't know from
the Stations of the Cross, andI did the Stations of the Cross,
which of course is in a hugefunctioning marketplace in Jerusalem. But I was
(11:54):
just shocked at what I didn't know, because of course, you know,
religion isn't taught in school unless yougo to a Catholic school or you know,
or yeshiba right, so I findthat. Yeah, so that was
a surprise to me what I didn'tknow. Okay, you have had as
(12:16):
your guest on TikTok, your bubby, your grandmother who survived Alsh Fitz.
How does she handle this? Whatdoes she think of your TikTok videos?
I think she's very proud of me. My bubby and I have a very
close relationship. We always have.And again going back to that initial inspiration
(12:37):
of why even started to talk aboutbeing a Jewish woman and identify as Jewish
on social media, was at sparkof discussing the Holocaust. And originally I
started, I said, I wasgoing to share about my life today,
like you know, just the basicyou know, how I lived my life.
And I was also going to reflecton story worries of my grandparents,
(13:01):
and it would take everything out ofme retelling their stories. My grandfather too
was a Holocaust fiber, but he'sno longer with us, but a lot
of their stories are documented in placeslike the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC,
and they have different articles and they'vebeen published in books. And for
(13:22):
me to research just once one storyof their lives from that time really spent
I spent a lot of time researchingand took It was emotionally draining and taxing
for me. And a few monthslater I went to visit my bubby.
It was actually for passover, andI said, Bubby, why why don't
we just do it together and you'lljust share your stories like it's what she
(13:46):
does anyways, And she was alwaysvery open about sharing her experience from the
Holocaust. She's very passionate about beingvocal. She used to go around to
colleges and high schools and talk abouther experience so that we never forget and
that those atrocities never happen again.And being able to you know, now
(14:09):
she's ninety four years old, she'sreally not able to travel and do things
like she was when she was younger. So bring social media to her where
she can still tell her her experiencesover it was. It opened up a
whole new world for both of us. And we just have like thirty seconds
(14:30):
left. Just how do you feelabout the efforts to ban TikTok very quickly?
We should stay I want to takedeck to stay around. I think
it is an amazing platform and youcan literally see into other people's lives and
I think it's doing a lot ofgood too. Okay, And I want
to thank you Miriam as Zagwe ofBrooklyn, who depicts her life as an
(14:52):
Orthodox Jew on TikTok with one pointsix million followers, you can't argue with
that. Thank you so much,Miriam Calton, Thank you so much.
You've been listening to Sunsteen sessions oniHeart Radio, a production of New York's
classic rock Q one oh four pointthree
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