JANUARY 12 • 2023 | 49

CELEBRITY JEOPARDY, 
EXPLAINED; A JOYOUS 
JEWISH MOMENT 
The Celebrity 
Jeopardy Tournament, 
hosted by Mayim Bialik, 
47, is broadcast live on 
Thursdays on ABC at 8 
p.m. (Also available via live 
streaming or on-demand on 
many channels, like Hulu). 
 Sadly, the tournament 
website is terrible. It doesn’t 
make it easy to find out, in 
advance, when a particular 
celebrity will appear on 
the program, and it really 
doesn’t explain how the 
tournament is organized. As 
I write this, even Wikipedia 
is “confused” and has some 
wrong info. 

 Amazingly, neither the 
website nor Wikipedia say 
what I finally figured out. 
The 27 contestants were 
divided into three groups 
of nine players. Two groups 
of nine have finished their 
play. The winners of these 
two groups, Wil Wheaton 
(Star Trek: Next Generation) 
and comedic actor Ike 
Barinholtz, 45 (The Mindy 
Project), will appear in 
the final championship 
game. Here’s what has hap-
pened to date with the 
Jewish celebs (four out of 
27) and what will happen, 
overall, in the near future. 

The first round (called 
a “quarterfinal”) aired on 
Sept. 25. Three non-Jewish 
celebs played. The second 
round (all new contestants) 
aired on Oct. 2. Comed-
ian Iliza Shlesinger, 39, 
won. The third round (new 
contestants) aired on Oct. 
7. Barinholtz won. The Oct. 
16 episode was styled a 
“semi-final” and Barinholtz 
won. He beat Shlesinger 
and actress Constance Wu. 

The Oct. 23 and Oct. 
30 episodes had “new” 
non-Jewish contestants. 
John Michael Higgins 
(10/23) and Wil Wheaton 
(10/30) won their rounds. 
The Nov. 6 episode con-
testants included Big Bang 
Theory actress Melissa 
Rauch, 42. Actor Joel Kim 
Booster won. The Nov. 
13 episode was another 
“semi-final.” Wil Wheaton 
won. 

Eighteen players had 
played a first round as 
of Nov. 13. Then, without 
warning, the show “went 
dark” and didn’t air any 
more games until Jan. 5. 
As I write this, I don’t know 
who won the Jan. 5 game. 
I do know that none of the 
(new) Jan. 5 players are 
Jewish. Likewise, the Jan. 
12 episode features three 
new players, and none are 
Jewish. 

The Jan. 19 game 
has three new players, 
including comic actor and 
writer B.J. Novak (The 
Office). The last semi-fi-
nal game will air on Jan. 26. 
The “championship” game 
will air on Feb. 2. If Novak 
wins his “group,” two Jews 
will be in the final game. 

As you probably 
know, Jon Stewart, 60, 
has an interview program 
on Apple+ titled The 
Problem with Jon Stewart. 
You may not know that 

he has a podcast of the 
same name. The podcast 
is filmed and posted on 
YouTube. The guests are 
remote but appear on the 
screen. 

I recently came across 
his Dec. 19 show. His 
guests were Marisa Ressa, 
a journalist who won the 
Nobel Peace Prize (2021) 
for her work defending free 
expression; Mark Cuban, 
64, the well-known billion-
aire businessman (Shark 
Tank); and Julia Ioffe, 40, a 
prominent journalist (New 
York Times, Politico, the 
Atlantic), who was born in 
Russia and came to the 
States when she was 7. 

The panel began with 
discussing Elon Musk and 
his banning of some jour-
nalists from Twitter. Ioffe 
said that many editors 
would be secretly happy 
if journalists were banned 
from Twitter. Ioffe explained 
that what journalists posted 
on Twitter often conflicted 
with their editors’ wish that 
their newspaper (etc.) be 
perceived as unbiased. 
Ioffe colorfully remarked 
that these journalist Twitter 
postings gave editors 
“shpilkes genechtagazonk.”

 Shpilkes, of course, is a 
Yiddish word that means 
being highly agitated. (The 
second word I will discuss 
below). 

When Ioffe issued 
her shpilkes line, the cam-

era caught Cuban and 
Stewart breaking into real-
ly loud, joyous laughter. As 
he was laughing, Cuban 
said, ”I thought my grand-
parents jumped on and 
said something.” Stewart 
had the whole panel laugh-
ing when he said that 
Ioffe’s comment was 
a “beautiful tribute to 
Chanukah” (which was just 
about to start). 

 Genechtagazonk? Was it 
a Yiddish word I had never 
heard of? I looked it up. 
It is faux Yiddish. It origi-
nated in a Simpsons epi-
sode in which Krusty the 
clown, a Jewish character, 
said that mobsters beat on 
his body parts, including 
his ”genechtagazonk.” It’s 
unclear what body part he 
was referring to. 

Bottom line: It is a made-
up, Yiddish-sounding slang 
word whose exact meaning 
is unclear. Several sources 
say that many people have 
incorporated it into their 
vocabulary. They almost 
always use it in a joking 
way. Do watch this podcast 
on YouTube. A joyful Jewish 
moment like this is very 
rare in mainstream news 
programs. 

Correction: In my last 
column, I said that Justin 
Chazelle (Babylon) was 
nominated for a “best 
score” Golden Globe. I 
meant to say that Justin 
Hurwitz was nominated. 

CELEBRITY NEWS

NATE BLOOM COLUMNIST

ARTS&LIFE

BY GREG2600 

Ike Barinholtz

MONTCLAIR FILM FESTIVAL 

Jon Stewart

YOUTUBE

Julia Ioffe

