In Nobody Wants This, Tovah Feldshuh plays Bina, the strong-willed Jewish mother of “hot rabbi” Noah, played by Adam Brody.
Before the now-streaming third season of the hit Netflix rom-com series released, Brody made headlines when, in an interview with GQ, the actor said of the war in Gaza, “put me down as thinking it’s a genocide. Put me down as wanting a free Palestine.” He added, “It’s awful that it’s taken so much death and misery, but it does feel like it’s reaching a breaking point that it should have a while ago.”
Brody — whose other on-screen Jewish characters have included Seth Cohen from The O.C. and Seth Morris in Fleishman Is in Trouble — has previously said he “barely got bar mitzvahed and retained nothing from it.” (Jews are both a religious as well as an ethnic group.) In Nobody Wants This, Brody’s Noah falls in love with the non-Jewish Joanne (Kristen Bell). They then navigate the obstacles — religious and otherwise — of their relationship, leading to a big update for the couple at the end of season three.
When asked about Brody’s comments, Feldshuh, who is a Jewish veteran Broadway, television and film actress, told The New York Post that “to accuse the Jewish people of genocide is wild. It’s right out of Hitler’s playbook. You take the victim and you make the victim the perpetrator.”
Feldshuh added that comments like Brody’s are made worse when coming from Jewish people with large platforms. “[It] makes a difference to the [Jewish] community,” she said. “I believe that the perseverance of the existence of the state of Israel is crucial to the well-being of the democratic world and of the free world. Of course, Israel needs the United States, [but] the United States needs Israel, believe you me.”
Still, she told the outlet there weren’t political disagreements on set.
“My job, as Bina but also as Tovah, is to love the people on set at my place of work, to be kind,” she said. “With the backdrop of global antisemitism. I am thrilled to be chosen to play a Jewish matriarch. Thrilled and proud, and that will never change.”
Nobody Wants This creator Erin Foster has also weighed in on Brody’s comments while promoting season three, saying on the Not Skinny But Not Fat podcast that “it’s complicated.”
“Our work environment, our set is very similar to dinner tables around the world where people are having debate and discussion and disagreeing,” she said. “While I love Adam, I also disagree with him, and that’s okay.”
She added that, as the show’s creator, “all I can say is that I want our Jewish fans to know that I see you and I hear you and I understand how you feel. And the show has always been and always will be a love letter to Judaism. That is why I made this show. It’s because of how beautiful of an experience I’ve had becoming Jewish and being a Jewish person, and sitting here right now at this time in the world where there is almost zero positive representation of Jewish people, I think it’s so important to have that.
“That being said, everyone is entitled to a different opinion than me. I can just tell you what I created this show for, what the intention of the show is,” Foster concluded.
Rabbi Steve Leder — the former senior rabbi of Wilshire Boulevard Temple in Los Angeles (the synagogue where Foster converted to Judaism) and who was the technical adviser during season one of the show — also condemned Brody’s comments, saying, “You by your own admission, are a relatively ignorant Jew, and your ignorance really showed the other day. Here’s some technical advice: If you know nothing about something, you should say nothing about it.”
In season one, Leder consulted with the cast and crew to ensure the Jewish representation, including Brody’s portrayal of a rabbi, felt authentic. “There is no genocide in Gaza, there are genocides in other countries happening, but you failed to mention any of them,” added Leder in his response. “If you’re going to use a word like genocide, you better know what it means. And by the way, being so flippant about a word like genocide — ‘hey, put me down for genocide’ like you’re asking for a table for two at [L.A. hotspot] Craig’s — is disgusting.”