Big Bang Theory Actress Claims She Receives Hatred and Threats for Her Faith

Actress, neuroscientist, and admitted anti-vaxxer (we’ll get to that in a minute) Mayim Bialik, best known for her roles on Blossom and The Big Bang Theory, told Fox News her identity as a Jewish woman puts her outside of trendy Hollywood circles.

Bialik took a recent trip to Israel to visit a friend in the Israel Defense Forces:

I’ve gotten a lot of negative attention for visiting Israel. That’s what’s amazing… simply by going to Israel this summer and saying nothing more than, “I’ve gone to Israel,” I got the same amount of hatred and threats and anti-Semitism for actually making a statement trying to support people whether I like it or not are serving in an army.

That reveals the truth. It really doesn’t matter what I support or believe the fact that I’m Jewish and go there is enough — that should be alarming to most people.

It’s unclear what threats she’s referring to. Not to say it didn’t happen because the Internet is certainly not above such a thing, but I couldn’t find any clarification elsewhere if she was implying the threats were coming from Hollywood, social media, or people she encountered on her trip.

She continues:

I think in general it’s never going to be trendy to be observant or religious in Hollywood circles. There are people I know of faith and we tend to congregate together. I study Jewish texts weekly. That’s something really positive to me when you’re a person of faith, it stays with you all the time.

It seems odd to lament your religion not being “trendy” enough to practice trivially at Hollywood gatherings. If fitting into the clique is what you want, you may need to upgrade your archaic beliefs to something modern and edgy, like Scientology. Or maybe try meshing with the industry folks by not bringing your faith up at cocktail parties while politely declining bacon hors d’oeuvres. It’s fairly commonplace in our country to not care about someone’s religiousity as long as they’re not force-feeding it to others.

I have an unwavering faith in a power greater than myself and I don’t think that will change any more than my belief in gravity will change.

Being a scientist and a person of faith, people want to know how that is. It leads to a lot of interesting conversations that I welcome but a lot of people want to open up a conversation just to tell you, you’re wrong.

What’s really interesting is that she is Mayim Bialik, Ph.D. — a UCLA-groomed neuroscientist. It’s not unheard of that scientists can fit their faith in God around objective truths, but it often comes as a surprise to non-believers to learn these two systems are operating simultaneously in the same brain. As a neuroscientist she should be able to explain how a brain accommodates religion, but she instead attributes it to the supernatural.

What’s beyond comprehension, though, is how she’s a scientist and an anti-vaxxer. She learned pretty quickly that her stance on vaccines is not something to tote around as publicly as her Jewish faith. She’s been vague and unapologetic since first announcing “We are a non-vaccinating family” back in 2009, and only tried to sweep the controversy under the rug ever since.

If she has changed her mind on vaccines, I would hope, as a scientist, she feels compelled to publicly admit she was wrong and swayed by the evidence.

And if she still insists vaccines are dangerous according to her understanding of the research, doesn’t she have an ethical obligation to share that, just as she does her Jewish faith?

Bialik seems to be biting her tongue on one unpopular magical belief but not the other.

(Image via Helga Esteb / Shutterstock.com)