Orthodox teachings through social media
These days, Ezagui gets invited to numerous events and Jewish product launches. Ezagui, who collaborates with both Jewish and non-Jewish influencers, said she's often recognised as she goes about her day-to-day life.
“Hi, my name is Miriam,” the video begins. “I’m an Orthodox Jew, and I share what my life is like.”
So opens a typical TikTok post from Miriam Ezagui, a 37-year-old, Brooklyn-based labour and delivery nurse who has amassed 1.6 million followers on the social media platform. Users who make their way to “JewTok”, as the Jewish corner of TikTok is known, have likely encountered Ezagui’s videos, which cover everything from purchasing a sheitel to making matzah ball soup to a make-up tutorial with her daughter.
Since starting her account in May 2020, Ezagui has cemented herself at the top of the searches for “Jewish” and “Orthodox Jewish” thanks to her warm demeanour, easy humour and information-based approach. But she didn’t set out to become a Jewish influencer.
“I didn’t originally start as a Jewish account,” Ezagui told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. Instead, it was a way to be productive while on maternity leave with her fourth child: “It gave me an excuse to get dressed and not just walk around in pyjamas all day.”
“I never would have imagined that it would be where it is today,” Ezagui said of her TikTok account. “It’s been a little life-changing.”
These days, Ezagui gets invited to numerous events and Jewish product launches. Ezagui, who collaborates with both Jewish and non-Jewish influencers, said she’s often recognised as she goes about her day-to-day life.
Ezagui, who is Chassidic and whose four daughters range in age from 18 months to 9 years old, began her account as a way to share tips on the best ways to safely and comfortably hold a baby using woven wraps. But that all changed in late January 2022, when comedian and The View host Whoopi Goldberg said on air that “the Holocaust isn’t about race.”
As the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors, Ezagui said she questioned how someone with as much of a platform as Goldberg had such a lack of understanding about the Holocaust – so she decided to speak up and create a video that debunked Goldberg’s claims.
“I really had a long, hard think about whether I wanted to come out as being openly Jewish online because I was really scared of hatred and antisemitism because it’s so easy for people to do that online because they can just be a blank profile or screen,” Ezagui explained. “I never hide the fact that I’m Jewish, but I was not a social media personality … I share things personally but not with the world.”
Ezagui made her first explainer video in February 2022, breaking down why the Holocaust was an attempt to eliminate the Jewish people because the Nazis viewed them as a lesser race.
“I feel like I have an obligation as a Jewish woman,” she said in the three-minute clip. “As the granddaughter of not one, but two, Holocaust survivors, I feel like my voice needs to be heard.
“The Nazi movement wanted to eradicate Jewish people from the world. They saw us as subhuman; they saw us as inferior, something that the world needed cleansing of,” she added. “If you read the Nuremberg Laws, they refer to us as the Jewish race. They racialised us, they slapped stars on our arms, put us in concentration camps, sent us to gas chambers because we were Jewish – our whiteness didn’t save us.”
Though the video got positive feedback from her followers, the video only received around 350 likes. But her account started attracting a large following in April 2022, when she featured her grandmother, Lilly Malnik, who discussed her memories of the Holocaust. The video, titled “Meet my Bubby”, racked up over 30,000 likes.
In the next four months, several of Ezagui’s videos began to rack up anywhere from tens of thousands to millions of likes and views. In one particular TikTok from June 2022, Malnik discusses how she lost her menstrual cycle while in Auschwitz. The clip garnered 23.4 million views and 3.1 million likes.
Along the way, Ezagui began producing more Judaism-focused content. Within two months of her first Jewish video, half of Ezagui’s content had become talking about the Jewishness of her day-to-day life. These days, she posts a mix of storytimes (a popular type of TikTok video in which creators recount a story about their lives), explainer videos on Orthodox customs and scenes from her days as a mum and nurse.
“It’s a lot about multitasking or it’s a lot about me just filming my everyday life,” she added, explaining how she manages to fit between one and four hours of filming each day, except on Shabbat. “You know, ‘okay, I’m making some chicken matzah ball soup. Let’s take out the camera.'”
It’s a mixture that’s clearly working for her. Fans say that it’s Ezagui’s authenticity – her children are often yelling in the background, for example – is what sets her apart.
Though Ezagui’s approach is often no-nonsense and educational, her videos are occasionally livened up with her unique blend of sarcasm and cheekiness – something her fans lovingly call “spicy Miriam”.
As her internet fame has grown, so, too, has the amount of antisemitic comments Ezagui has received on her accounts. Perhaps not surprisingly, she has found that her posts about Judaism have received the most hate. “When people are trolling my account, I’m not afraid to call them out, but I don’t want to make it [my account] all about that,” she said. “But when I do call [them] out, I like to do [it] in a tasteful way.”
For example, Ezagui, in response to a comment saying, “go in the oven jew,” Ezagui filmed a video in which she superimposed the comment over a video in which she says: “For thousands of years Jews have been persecuted. Great empires have tried to extinguish our flame, but we survive. We. Will. Always. Survive! Your hatred has no power over me.”
Ezagui emphasised how important it is for her account to be a safe space for all people, regardless of their race, gender or religion. She consistently features content creators and also man-on-the-street videos of people of all backgrounds – in one video, she and a Muslim friend discuss why they cover their hair, and in another she discusses topics like why Purim costumes should not appropriate other cultures.
“I welcome everyone to my channel,” she said. “I accept people as they are, I think it makes them feel comfortable.”
When the busy mum isn’t on camera and or at work, she enjoys reading, experimenting in the kitchen and getting some much-needed R&R at the nail salon.
In the future, Ezagui hopes to bring the birthing classes she runs in the Orthodox community to a wider audience, or even to start a podcast. Both ideas are still in their early stages but would continue her TikTok account’s mission of education.
“A lot of people don’t know Orthodox Jews, and there’s a lot of antisemitism surrounding Jews from a place of not, like, extreme hatred,” Ezagui said. “I’m not here to change anybody’s mind if they hate us for no reason, just to hate. But there’s a lot of people that hate Jews, just because of stereotypes that are not real or because there’s a lack of information.
“One of the things that I hope to accomplish with my account is that people can learn from a Jewish person directly,” she added. “And that has a positive impact.”
Follow Ezagui on TikTok: @miriamezagui
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