Mayim Bialik meets Israeli president Rivlin

JERUSALEM ( JTA ) — Israel’s president welcomed American actress Mayim Bialik to his residence in Jerusalem. On Sunday, Reuven Rivlin told Bialik that he had heard so much from his grandchildren about her, her work as an actress and her strong support for Israel. The star of the hit television series “The Big Bang Theory” is in Israel to participate in the Global Forum for Combating Anti-Semitism, which starts Monday in Jerusalem. “My family came to live in Israel when I was born, and they lived in a few places around the country, so I grew up with a strong Zionist identity,” she told Rivlin. Bialik, 41, has a doctorate in neuroscience and plays neuroscientist Amy Fowler-Farrah on her show. A divorced mother of two sons, she was raised Reform and now practices Modern Orthodoxy. In many int