As the hit Netflix rom-com returned for season three on Oct. 22, one of its stars found himself at the center of a political firestorm.
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one → return → firestorm
Adam Brody, who plays progressive California rabbi Noah Roklov, accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza in a September interview with GQ.
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who → play → GQ
“Put me down as thinking it’s a genocide,” Brody said.
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Brody → put → me
Steve Leder, senior rabbi emeritus of Wilshire Boulevard Temple in Los Angeles, who coached Brody on set as a rabbinical consultant for Season 1, condemned Brody’s comments in a recent Instagram video, describing them as “truly shocking” and “disgusting.”
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who → coach → them
The series follows Rabbi Noah Roklov (Brody), who leaves his long-term Jewish girlfriend Rebecca (Emily Arlook) in pursuit of Joanne (Kristen Bell), a non-Jewish sex podcaster.
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who → follow → Joanne
Their relationship is complicated by Noah’s mother, Bina, a strong-willed Soviet émigré played by veteran Broadway, television and film actress Tovah Feldshuh, who is fiercely devoted to Jewish continuity.
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who → complicate → continuity
Feldshuh has her own thoughts on the genocide controversy.
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Feldshuh → have → controversy
“To accuse the Jewish people of genocide is wild,” she told The Post.
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she → accuse → Post
“It’s right out of Hitler’s playbook.
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It → ’ → playbook
You take the victim and you make the victim the perpetrator.”
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victim → take → victim
Brody’s remarks concerned Israel’s conduct in the war following the Hamas-led Oct. 7 massacre, rather than Jews collectively.
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remarks → concern → massacre
Feldshuh, however, framed such accusations as against the Jewish people.
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Feldshuh → frame → people
Asked whether accusations of genocide are worse when they come from Jewish people themselves, Feldshuh said it “makes a difference to the [Jewish] community,” adding that people with large platforms who feed their followers such falsehoods do the most damage, though she did not name Brody.
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she → ask → Brody
“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,” Feldshuh said.
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Feldshuh → believe → world
“Of course, Israel needs the United States, [but] the United States needs Israel, believe you me.”
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you → need → me
She also warned of what she sees as a convergence between political extremes.
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she → warn → extremes
“We’re in a time where we have the ‘horseshoe effect,’ where socialism and antisemitism are trying to meet,” she said, arguing that speaking the truth is the only way to counter what she called lies that have been “cleverly” and “brilliantly” publicized by Israel’s detractors.
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that → ’re → detractors
Yet despite her strong views on Israel, Feldshuh says political disagreements seldom arise on set, noting that her strategy is “to switch channels and do my job.”
“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.
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she → say → work
Feldshuh never imagined “Nobody Wants This” would have provoked such intense discussions around Judaism and Israel.
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Nobody → imagine → Judaism
One oft-cited critique of the first two seasons was that the Jewish women in the show were portrayed as uptight, controlling and mean in contrast to the more laissez-faire non-Jewish women in the show, including the protagonist Joanne and her sister Morgan (Justine Lupe).
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women → cite → protagonist
Feldshuh attributes those character traits to history and collective trauma.
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Feldshuh → attribute → history
“One of the great privileges of being a Jew is the fear of extinction,” she told The Post.
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she → tell → Post
“If the Jewish woman has a higher anxiety level, to me that’s epigenetic and there’s nothing to be ashamed about that.”
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that → have → that
She rejects the suggestion that Bina is simply uptight.
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Bina → reject → suggestion
Her character, she says, “is just overstepping her bounds and trying to preserve and protect her son.”
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she → say → son
At a time of rising antisemitism, Feldshuh added, she has never felt prouder to be cast as a Jewish matriarch.
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she → rise → matriarch
Earlier in her career, she played Israeli prime minister Golda Meir in the one-woman Broadway production, “Golda’s Balcony.”
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she → play → production
More recently, she starred as an overbearing Jewish mother in the musical comedy series Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, as well as Oscar Isaac’s mother in HBO series “Scenes from a Marriage.”
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she → star → Marriage
“With the backdrop of global antisemitism,” she said, “I am thrilled to be chosen to play a Jewish matriarch.
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I → say → matriarch
Thrilled and proud, and that will never change.”
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that → change → ?
The Aporia
