I remember the first time I saw Shayna Maydele’s bio on Instagram, after clicking on a picture of her in a kippah sitting next to a Challah. The bio read: “Shayna Maydele is Beautiful Girl in Yiddish. I’m a NYC dog, living my best fluffy life. Never met a roll of toilet paper I didn’t like.” I felt like Renée Zellweger’s character in Jerry Maguire when she said: “You had me at hello.” But for me, it was: “You had me at Shayna Maydele.”
THIS was a Mazel Pup! As I scrolled through the pictures, I saw postings on Fridays with Shayna Maydele, always in a kippah in pictures about Jewish occasions, with a kiddush cup, candlesticks, a delicious looking challah, or sometimes all three in front of her. For Rosh HaShanah, Shayna Maydele posed with a round challah, apples and honey; for Yom Kippur she was “wearing” sneakers (since you’re not supposed to wear leather shoes on Yom Kippur); and so on, for all of the Jewish holidays.
But it wasn’t just the pictures that I loved. There were the explanations below the pictures, giving Shayna Maydele’s many fans the opportunity to learn about Judaism. For example, under a picture of Shanya Maydele posted right before the start of Passover in 2022, the pup sat in front of matzah and a seder plate, and the post explained the meaning of the items on the seder plate, as well as why we eat matzah on Passover. It also noted that this year Shayna Maydele (well, actually her human mom, Heidi Silverstone, more on her in a bit) was adding olives (representing hope for peace in Ukraine), an orange (representing marginalized people, such as women, minorities and the LGBTQ community) and coffee (so the world will wake up to the plague of antisemitism) to her seder plate. This wasn’t just your typical “cute Jewish dog” post!
Not everything on Shayna Maydele’s Instagram feed is Jewish. We also get to see Shayna Maydele going about her daily life in NYC, which includes taking walks and posing next to things people have discarded – such as a radiator, a refrigerator with a door that’s come off, a microwave, etc. – along with her humorous “NEW BUSINESS VENTURE” proposals. A typical caption under a recent picture of Shayna Maydele in front of an old discarded couch reads: “Are you looking to update your living quarters? Are you looking to adopt a pet? If so, have I got a deal for you! NEW BUSINESS VENTURE: Crusty couch for sale! Although it’s missing a cushion, it is most likely loaded with bedbugs. You get a couch AND a collection of new friends, all in one. Free nightmares included.”
Perhaps nobody is more surprised by Shayna Maydele’s fame than her mom Heidi. Heidi had never intended for Shayna Maydele to become famous with thousands of followers. Heidi wasn’t even on social media before Shayna Maydele became part of her family. But when she and her husband went to get Shayna Maydele from a breeder in Arizona, they wanted to have a way to easily share pictures of her with their close family and friends. So Heidi started an Instagram account, not ever thinking that total strangers would take an interest in her dog. But they did, and Shayna Maydele’s following grew.
Also when Heidi started posting, she didn’t think about creating “a Jewish dog account.” As Heidi put it, “it was just me posting about our life, but a lot of it happens to be Jewish.” When I spoke with Heidi recently, she noted that, while many of Shayna Maydele’s followers are Jewish, there are also “a lot of people who aren’t Jewish who started following Shayna Maydele for different reasons.” Then once they follow her, they “appreciate learning about Judaism.”
Shayna Maydele, who has over 16,500 followers, was already getting recognized on the streets of New York before articles were written about her in NY Jewish Week, the Jewish Chronicle (London, UK) and the Australian Jewish News.
So how did Shayna Maydele get her fantastic Yiddish name? As Heidi explained: “We live a Jewish life, and thought a Jewish name would be nice.” When they were preparing to get their dog from the breeder, she and her husband and two sons – one is studying to be a Cantor and the other, who works for a tech company, is also a photographer – were “throwing out all of these Jewish names.” Heidi mentioned Shayna Maydele, but they thought it would be too cumbersome. Big fans of Springsteen, they even considered forgetting about a Jewish name and calling her Rosalita. When Heidi and her husband went to Arizona to pick up their puppy, they still didn’t have a name. But the moment the breeder handed Heidi her dog, there was no doubt in Heidi’s mind. She said: “This is Shayna Maydele.” (In speaking about the power of Yiddish, Heidi said: “Yiddish sounds comforting. In New York so many people use Jewish words, even if they’re not Jewish.”)
And now, Shayna Maydele, the little dog with the big Yiddish name who almost didn’t have that name, who became an Instagram sensation by chance, and whose account wasn’t intended to be a “Jewish dog account,” is entertaining thousands of people on Instagram and teaching lots of people – Jews and others – about Judaism. Shayna Maydele is perhaps the most famous “Jewish dog” of all – and I, like so many others, can’t wait to see what she’ll be up to next.
Check out some of Shayna Maydele’s Instagram posts below. You can follow Shayna Maydele on Instagram @Shayna.maydele.the.coton
