Mandel Maven's Nest Lilith Watch:
Critical Guide to Jewish Women on TV, in the Flicks and Pop Music
Jewish Women on TV
Jewish Women in (and Missing from) the Flicks
Jewish Women in Pop Music
To find specific reviews by Nora Lee Mandel search by title, scroll TV shows as listed by season since 1999, and films in alphabetical order of English title.
Unlike everybody else, I am very careful in my analyses of films and TV shows to identify Jewish characters through actual evidence in dialogue, actions or supporting visuals (like the ubiquitous menorah-on-the-shelf prop). I look at how the character is explicitly identified, but have had to expand to implications, particularly by a Jewish-type-sounding name, though I find that no one else makes these distinctions.
I’ve had to also take into account how the audience reacts to them based on external assumptions, particularly if Jewish actresses portray them, either as identified by general knowledge or perception of physical characteristics or personality or other stereotypes of the actor/actress’s Jewishness, however defined by ethnicity or observance or some kind of Jewish identity so that their characters implicitly become Jewish because they have been cast. (Such as “tough Jews”, as David Mamet calls them, at least for male portrayals, particularly when non-Jewish actors play Jews, though I intend to read and comment on his essays "The Jew for Export" and related ones on the impact of Hollywood’s anti-Semitism.) I am repulsed by using octoroon/Hitlerian family tree definitions of "being Jewish" for any actor/actress, but certainly there are people who Americans think “look Jewish”, though that usually means some general European ethnic-ness, that could just as easily be Mediterranean or Eastern European, which gets even more complicated by the portrayal of Israelis.
The true diversity of how Jews really look is rarely reflected, like my redhead, freckled siblings, where my brother can “pass” in Celtic bands). I am therefore just as intrigued if actors/actresses who are perceived/identified as Jewish get to play non-Jewish roles.
Natalie Portman linked the on and off screen issues just a day after she was awarded the Academy Award for Best Actress: From Racked: "As the face of Miss Dior Cherie [perfume, she] was widely expected to wear a Dior Couture gown on the red carpet at the Oscars Sunday night. Portman chose, instead, to wear Rodarte—designed by the Mulleavy sisters who made several of the actress's costumes in Black Swan. [And was also awarded Best Dressed by Joan Rivers' Fashion Police on E! to the delight of her “Joan Rangers”] Today [3/1/2011], Portman issued a strong statement officially condemning [chief designer] John Galliano for the pro-Hitler statements he [was seen making in]. . .'I am deeply shocked and disgusted by the video of John Galliano’s comments that surfaced today. In light of this video, and as an individual who is proud to be Jewish, I will not be associated with Mr. Galliano in any way. I hope at the very least, these terrible comments remind us to reflect and act upon combating these still-existing prejudices that are the opposite of all that is beautiful.'" (updated 3/2/2011)
Why look at how Jewish women are portrayed on TV and in the movies? Others are documenting general or different specific images of women and the impact that has and the messages conveyed about women. The Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, at USC Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism, does terrific research on the quantity, quality, and types of women in film and television.
Apply her analysis to how Jewish women are portrayed: Geena Davis summarized her findings about female roles in G-rated movies and children's TV programming in The Wall Street Journal, 4/11/2011, "Life Imitates Art" interview with Rebecca Blumenstein: "They found that the more hours of television a girl watches, the fewer options she believes she has in life. And the more hours a boy watches, the more sexist his views become. . .Of the female characters that existed, the majority are highly stereotyped and/or hypersexualized. . . .Negative images can powerfully affect boys and girls, but positive images have the same kind of impact. We know that if girls can see characters doing unstereotyped kinds of occupations and activities, they're much more likely as an adult to pursue unusual and outside-the-box occupations."
For a feminist analysis of prime time TV, which takes into account racial but not ethnic minority women on TV. (updated 4/11/2011)
Why LilithWatch? Much of my thinking about the contemporary, post-"Molly Goldberg" image of Jewish women in popular culture was inspired by the archetypal "Lilith" on the long-running sitcoms Cheers/Frasier (played by Jewish actress Bebe Neuwirth). I used to do popular culture reviews examining how Jewish women are faring in television, rock 'n' roll etc. for LILITH Magazine, the national independent Jewish feminist quarterly.
Since the Lilith Fair women's concert tours 1997-1999 (and returning in 2010), the name “Lilith” has gotten associated even more with feminism, viz. the "Wichita Linebacker" episode of Veronica Mars, written by John Enbom and Phil Klemmer, which identified "Lilith House" as the locus for the stereotyped, protesting "militant feminists" at the fictional Hearst College. (Though starting in the third season, Supernatural treated Lilith like a Super Demon whose death then was the Final Seal that brought on Armageddon at the end of the fourth season.) (updated 11/8/2009)
My particular focus is on romantic relationships, as popular culture so rarely portrays Jews with Jews, let alone in a positive light.
Jewish Women on TV
I got tired of people always citing "Mrs. Seinfeld" to me as proof there are still Jewish women on TV, whether one considers a nagging elderly mother as a positive image or not. So I started covering leading characters who are Jewish women in Friends, Babylon 5, Buffy the Vampire Killer, Once and Again, Will and Grace (which I found too silly a show to keep monitoring even as she did end up back with her supposedly Jewish doctor husband), etc. My comments on The Nanny have been quoted in the catalog for the Jewish Museum exhibit Entertaining America: Jews, Movies, and Broadcasting, edited by J. Hoberman and Jeffrey Shandler, published by Princeton University Press, in Shandler's essay "At Home on the Small Screen: Television's New York Jews", and then in Joyce Antler's excellent academic study You Never Call! You Never Write!: A History of the Jewish Mother (Oxford University Press, 2007). No, I didn't write up Dharma and Greg where "Dharma Finkelstein" is Jewish only for the novelty of the name, like Whoopi Goldberg; Entertainment Weekly claimed that Jenna Elfman was specifically hired for the role because she didn't look Jewish.
Then with so few lead Jewish women characters, even the usual Dead Jewish Mothers, I turned to monitoring supporting roles, though I hadn't earlier covered the likes of the best friend on Mad About You, or the bat mitzvah of “Muffy” (played by Jami Gertz), where Devo performed, on Square Pegs (David Browne in The New York Times review of the DVD of the series on 7/13/2008 calls her “the proto-yuppie”). But then with so few of even those, I looked for recurring Jewish women characters. With so few of even those, I'm now looking at guest turns. While I don't watch many sitcoms, I do watch Law and Order to catch the Jewish Mother Murdering Matriarchs, fitting in with how executive producer Dick “Wolf maintains this consistency is by making most of the victims wealthy white people, which he believes viewers are more interested in watching. He limits the number of shows containing minority victims, including blacks and Muslims, to four or five episodes a season out of 22 to 24.” (per “Law and Disorder” by Rebecca Dana, The Wall Street Journal, 7/12/2008.) (I'm watching Law and Order: U.K., on BBC America, to see if the ethnic pattern from the adaptation of the U.S. scripts has been translated across The Pond.) (updated 11/8/2010)
With so few of those, I’m watching shows with Jewish male characters to see if they comment about their Jewish mothers or even date Jewish women, plus watching shows set in NYC to see if they ever have Jewish women characters, or shows in work settings like hospitals or law offices where in the real world it is common for Jews to be working. Like in NBC's Kings that though it was based on the Biblical book the closest it came to a Jewish woman was an odd "Sabbath Queen" as Death in a nightmare episode. So now, I'm also now looking at made-for-TV-movies, time permitting. With so few definitely Jewish women on TV, I’m even commenting on putative Jewish women, who I define as those with clearly Jewish-sounding names with implied Jewish-ness unless specifically denied, particularly if the audience is viewing them as Jewish, and also even characters pretending to be Jewish. (updated 3/22/2010)
I do detailed transcriptions, when I have time, of full dialogue and scene descriptions because I’m annoyed by the snarky or too casual inaccuracy in recaps, such as at Television Without Pity, particularly in reference to Yiddish expressions or religious rituals, that get widely disseminated as definitive, let alone are blithely prone to assumptions and acceptance of stereotyping. So I figure there should be one place on the Web that presents the facts and context about Jewish women characters, by TV season to monitor changes over time, which I mostly define by the Emmy Awards criteria, so now starts around June 1. (updated 6/20/2011)
I have not kept up 100% with sitcoms, most kids' shows, such as on Nick or Disney, unscripted reality shows (like ones that switched a Jewish mother to a gentile family or The Real Housewives of New York City or NYC Prep, or Russian Dolls, let alone My Antonio), "procedurals" (those fiction investigation series without continuing story or character arcs), or Family Guy, or Kyle Broslofski's Jewish mother satired on South Park. (updated 8/11/2011)
2011/2012 Season - Jewish women characters were on Blue Bloods, Bored to Death, Castle, Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Gossip Girl, Happily Divorced, Hawthorne, Mad Men, MI-5 (Spooks), Modern Family, Pan Am, Prime Suspect, The Secret Life of the American Teenager, Southland, TNT’s Mystery Movies, and Who Do You Think You Are. Putative Jewish women characters were on The Good Wife, How To Make It In America, In Plain Sight and Lost Girl.
Big Bang Theory - Mrs. Wolowitz in the 5th Season
Community – Annie Edison in the 3rd Season
Entourage - Mrs. Ari Gold in the 8th Season
Friday Night Dinner – Jackie Goodman in the 1st Season
Glee - Rachel Berry in the 3rd season
Harry’s Law - Harriet Korn in the 2nd season
Hart of Dixie – Dr. Zoe Hart in the 1st season
Joan & Melissa: Joan Knows Best? - Joan and Melissa Rivers – 2nd season
Magic City – Evans family, etc. in the 1st season
NCIS - Ziva David in her 7th season
2010/2011 Season - Jewish women characters were on 100 Questions, Being Human (U.S.), Boardwalk Empire, Brothers & Sisters, Castle, Desperate Housewives, The Good Wife, Grey's Anatomy, Hung, Law and Order: Criminal Intent, Law and Order: Special Victims Unit, Nurse Jackie, Outcasts, Private Practice, and Upstairs Downstairs, and heard on Big Bang Theory. I happened to catch a Jewish actress on the "make-over" show What Not To Wear. (Missing Community.) Putative Jewish women characters were on Californication, Hawthorne, Huge, and Mad Men.
18 To Life – Bellow Mother and Daughters
Entourage - Mrs. Ari Gold in the 7th Season
Glee - Rachel Berry in the 2nd season
House, M.D. – Lisa Cuddy in the 7th season
Joan & Melissa: Joan Knows Best? - Joan and Melissa Rivers – 1st season
NCIS - Ziva David in her 6th season
Skins (U.S.) – Tea Marvelli
2009/2010 Season - Jewish women characters were on Bored To Death, The Deep End, Fringe, The Good Wife, Leverage, Inspector Lewis, Mercy, Nip/Tuck, Private Practice, Psych, The Secret Life of the American Teenager, Three Rivers, United States of Tara, Ugly Betty, and Who Do You Think You Are. Missing Community and heard on Big Bang Theory. Putative Jewish women characters were on Californication, Gray's Anatomy, Heroes, House, Party Down, and White Collar.
Being Erica – Erica Strange – 2nd season
Curb Your Enthusiasm - Susie Greene etc.
Entourage - Mrs. Ari Gold in the 6th Season
Glee - Rachel Berry
House, M.D. – Lisa Cuddy in the 6th season
NCIS - Ziva David in her 5th season
Z Rock – Dina Malinsky, Joan Rivers and others in the 2nd season
2008/9 Season - Jewish women characters were on C.S.I., C.S.I.: NY, Diamonds mini-series, Eli Stone, Gossip Girl, Hallmark Hall of Fame, In Plain Sight, Nurse Jackie, Saving Grace, The Unit, and a Lifetime Movie of the Week. Missing heard on Big Bang Theory. I happened to also catch a Jewish actress on the "make-over" show What Not To Wear. Putative Jewish women characters appeared in 90210, Californication, The Cleaner, Desperate Housewives, E.R., Gossip Girl, Hawthorne, Monk, and Sons of Anarchy.
Being Erica – Erica Strange
Entourage - Mrs. Ari Gold and others in the 5th season
House, M.D. – Lisa Cuddy in the 5th season
The L Word - Jenny Schecter in the 6th, final season
NCIS - Ziva David in her 4th season
Rescue Me – Valerie in her 2nd season
The Sarah Silverman Program in her 3rd season
The Starter Wife - Molly Kagan post-mini-series
Z Rock – Dina Malinsky, Joan Rivers and others
2007/8 Season- Jewish women were on The Cleaner, Eli Stone, Law and Order: SVU, Lipstick Jungle, and House, M.D.. Missing heard on Big Bang Theory. Putative Jewish women characters appeared in Big Shots, Californication, Cashmere Mafia, Canterbury’s Law, Desperate Housewives, Terminal City, and Ugly Betty.
Curb Your Enthusiasm - Susie Greene etc.
The L Word - Jenny Schecter in the 5th season
Mad Men - Rachel Menken and Bobbie Barrett
Mandrake – Berta Bronstein
NCIS - Ziva David in her 3rd season
Nip/Tuck– Rachel Ben Natan
Pushing Daisies– Charlotte “Chuck” Charles
The Riches – the faux Cherien Rich in her 2nd season
The Sarah Silverman Program in her 2nd season
Weeds – Bubbe Botwin
The Wire - Rhonda Pearlman in the 5th season
2006/7 Season- Jewish women characters also appeared on C.S.I., Desperate Housewives, E.R., Grey's Anatomy, House, M.D., John from Cincinnati, Justice, Numb3rs, The Nine, Nip/Tuck, Rescue Me, Rome, Standoff, State of Mind, The State Within, Ugly Betty, The Unit and Waking the Dead.
Brothers & Sisters – Nora Holden
Entourage - Mrs. Ari Gold and daughter Sarah in Season 3B and Entourage - Mrs. Ari Gold and daughter Sarah in Season 4
Heroes – Hana Gitelman
The L Word - Jenny Schecter in the 4th season
Mad Men - Rachel Menken
NCIS - Ziva David in her 2nd season
Rescue Me – Valerie in her 1st season and Beth Feinberg
The Riches – the faux Cherien Rich
The Sarah Silverman Program
Weeds - Yael Hoffman
The Wire - Rhonda Pearlman in the 4th season
2005/6 Season - Jewish women characters also appeared on E.R., Girlfriends, Grey's Anatomy, Nip/Tuck, Sea of Souls and Veronica Mars
Beautiful People - Annabelle Banks
Curb Your Enthusiasm - Susie Greene etc.
Entourage - Mrs. Ari Gold and daughter Sarah in the 3rd Season
Everwood - Delia Brown in the 4th season
The L Word - Jenny Schecter in the 3rd Season
NCIS - Ziva David
Sopranos - Julianna Skiff
2004/5 Season Jewish women characters also appeared on Grey's Anatomy, Judging Amy, Law and Order, Nip/Tuck, Veronica Mars and Waking the Dead.
Entourage - Mrs. Ari Gold
Everwood
Joan of Arcadia
The L Word - Jenny Schecter in the 2nd Season
Numb3rs - The Late Mrs. Eppes
The O.C. - Rebecca Bloom and the Nana in the 2nd Season
Pilot Season
Queer as Folk - Melanie Marcus in the 5th Season
The Wire - Rhonda Pearlman in the 3rd season
2003/4 Season Jewish women characters also appeared on CSI, Judging Amy and Law and Order: Criminal Intent.
Curb Your Enthusiasm - Anna
Everwood
Gilmore Girls - Paris Geller
Joan of Arcadia
The L Word - Jenny Schecter
Line of Fire
Miss Match
Nip/Tuck - Mrs. Grubman
The O.C. - Anna Stern and the Nana
The Practice
Rocked With Gina Gershon
Sex and the City - Charlotte Goldenblatt
Skin
Sopranos- Fran Felstein
Street Time - Rachel Goldstein
Wonderfalls
2002/3 Season
Breaking News
Everwood
Curb Your Enthusiasm
Gilmore Girls - Paris Geller
Law and Order
Sex and the City - Charlotte York
Street Time - Rachel Goldstein
That Was Then
The Wire
2001/2 Season
7th Heaven
2000/1 Season
1999/2000 Season
2011/2012 Season
In the first episode of L.A. Complex (a Canadian series shown on the CW), “Down in L.A.” written by Martin Gero, Mary Lynn Rajskub cameo’s as a version of herself at an improv comedy club. She excoriates a new guy for confusing her with Sarah Silverman because she’s Jewish. The joke is on him as he stutters surprise that she is Jewish – which she’s not. (5/2/2012)
In MTV’s hipster Brooklyn-set I Just Want My Pants Bank, the lead guy “Jason Strider” (played by Peter Vack) announced in the first episode he’s Jewish, but in the second, “Baby Monkeys”, written by series creator David J. Rosen (based on his book that I haven’t read yet), he put dating Jewish women in a negative context, if he doesn’t find the “Jane” who took his pants after a one-night stand: At least then I can start Plan B: becoming religious and finding a nice girl via an arranged marriage. But his blonde best friend “Tina” is even more so: I don’t know. Religious girls aren’t really into personal grooming. I had gym with Tikla Rubinstein – huge bush. (2/9/2012)
In “Time Machines”, the first episode of Michael Feinstein’s American Songbook, which I hadn’t realized is in its 2nd season on PBS’s Great Performances, his mother is interviewed, and her son puts her in a Jewish context. While she kvells he was always “special” (just because he was interested in older popular culture or because he was gay?) so that she treated him differently than his older brothers; he brags that he convinced her to let him avoid being bar mitzvah. (I seem to be more and more commenting on real Jewish women seen on TV.) (2/7/2012)
In Homeland about terrorists at home and abroad in relation to fighting in the Middle East, there’s no reference to Israel, or the Mossad, though this is based on the Israeli TV series Prisoner of War, and only one odd, passing mention of Jews at all. In the 4th episode, Semper I”, written by Howard Gordon and Alex Gansa, when the returned POW’s best friend explains his divorce and what happened to his ex-wife Victoria: She married a Jewish orthodontist in Fort Lauderdale, and she and the kids converted last year. (1/22/2012)
While almost all the episodes of The Sarah Silverman Program are still on my DVR because of my procrastination to transcribe and comment on them, I try to catch shows she guest stars on because she usually plays a Jewish character. But, oddly, in the “Thanksiving” episode of The League, a raunchy FX sitcom I haven’t yet been monitoring, she inexplicably was the sexually know-it-all sibling of one of the gentile guys – maybe so she could end up being happily boinked in the rear by the one Jewish father “Ruxin” (played by Jeff Goldblum). (12/9/2011)
On Lost Girl, on the episode “Dead Lucky”, written by Emily Andras (broadcast in Canada in 2010, but shown on SyFy in the U.S. in February 2012), the supernatural bookie, a “Dark Fae”, named “Mayer” (played with thick Yiddishisms by Aron Trager) has a nephew named “Seymour”, so presumably his teenage niece “Cassie” the Oracle (played by Vanessa Matsui), is also Jewish, but there’s more reference to the mythological Cassandra than to her being Jewish. (2/18/2012)
In the 4th season finale of In Plain Sight (on USA), there was finally definitive confirmation that the marshall’s sister’s rich fiancé “Peter Alpert” (played by Joshua Malina), who had met her at AA, was Jewish, as he was wearing a yarmulke and waiting by the rabbi under the chuppah for her at their planned wedding. His mother “Dora” (played by Randee Heller) was only portrayed in 3 episodes as snooty, nothing particularly Jewish, but that was enough to make her potential daughter-in-law a nervous wreck. (8/11/2011)
In HBO’s How To Make It In America, Jewish men are specifically identified as such in the financing and manufacturing end of today’s garment district, so a viewer can only infer that the influential, aggressive and verbally pointed fashion talent agent representative “Nancy Frankenburg” (played by the ever sexy Gina Gershon) is Jewish. Though she sends her kids to a St. Maximilian's middle school, she’s married to an Israeli and beds her client “Ben Epstein” (Bryan Greenberg). (3/22/2012)
In the 3rd episode of Pan Am (on ABC), “Ich Bin Ein Berliner” by Yahlin Chang, the French stewardess “Colette Valois” (played by French-Canadian Karine Vanasse) revealed bad childhood memories of the German occupation of Paris. Given how little American audiences know about this history, many viewers assumed she was Jewish. In Berlin during President Kennedy’s visit on June 26, 1963, she bristles at an East German courier’s memories of delivering bread from her parents’ bakery to the then Luftwaffe headquarters, has frightened flashbacks at hearing German, emotionally sings the first stanza of "Deutschland über alles" as she remembers being forced to learn it (a bit awkward at a cocktail reception for its Third Reich resonance), and tells her co-workers how her parents left her with neighbors, promising to return for her, and they never did. It could be just as probable that her parents were Socialists, Communists, union organizers, or other anti-Nazi activists, as she explains: I came to Germany to forgive, but I still hate them, and I don’t want to stop. In the “1964” episode, the season, possibly series finale by Nick Thiel, “Colette” is being investigated by the aides of the Middle Eastern Prince “Omar” who is courting her (yeah, it became that kind of soap), and she explains that her parents were in the French Resistance, so that’s why they were killed by the Nazis and she was raised in an orphange. But the prince’s people do more investigating to discover that her last name doesn’t match her parents’: The nuns changed your name to protect you and themselves. They changed your name from Halevi. (Or maybe he said Levy?) She: My parents were Jewish? My parents were not in the Resistance? How did they die? Prince: That’s not important. She repeats her question. He: Dachau. I stayed up all night wondering how I would tell you. She: My whole life I’ve only known lies. Even my own name. He: It doesn’t change who you are now. She: No, but it changes us now. He shows her a photograph: It was taken by the friends who brought you to the orphanage. It’s of her and her parents -- with a baby boy. The Prince explains they found out he was adopted a few days later. (Highly unlikely as circumcised boys were riskier to pass off for a gentile adoption.): As far as we know he survived. While she’s shocked at all the news, which derails the courtship, she smiles that she has a brother. Later at the New Year’s Eve party, another stewardess reacts: You lost a prince, but gained a brother. She tells the handsome, cheating pilot she had earlier broken up with: Tomorrow I start looking for him. But he wants her back and begs to help her look. (updated 3/2/2012)
I watch secret agent shows for the appearance of the inevitably stereotyped, usually sexy Mossad agent. In Covert Affairs (on the CW), “Eyal Lavine” (played by Oded Fehr) returned in the second season to reference Jewish women in absentia in different TV stereotypes, on the kibbutz and in the Holocaust, in “A Girl Like You”, by Normal Morrill. He explained the 2002 incident that drove him to quit medical school and drives him to revenge on a specific terrorist: He assassinated an IDF guard and six kibbutzniks. He was hoping to poison the peace talks. One of the civilians was my sister. I love my country and I would do anything for it, but it was the reason I became a Mossad agent. 9 years, 2 months, 8 days ago. Her name was Sarah, after our grandmother who died in Treblinka. The perky blonde American CIA star argues: Don’t do it! It’s not what your sister would want. But he chuckles in response: You didn’t know my sister. It’s exactly what she’d want. (11/25/2011)
In the New Girl (on Fox) “Kryptonite” episode, by series creator Elizabeth Meriwether, “Schmidt” the womanizer (played by Max Greenfield) helpfully delves into his “Lost and Found” from the women he’s slept with at the apartment. When an unraveled wig is pulled out, he sighs: Ah, Rosh ha Shanah ’06. Nothing Orthodox about what we did that night. None of the many fansites I checked got the joke. (The Jewish references could be courtesy of a co-producer from Queens I’ve known since she was in primary school with my sons.) Later in the season, he commented about his bar mitzvah, which his best friend mocks as having been too expensive. In the episode “Fancyman-Part 2”, written by Berkley Johnson & Kim Rosenstock, he warns the super-model he’s sleeping with who is trying to distract him from work by putting on various outfits: If you want to seduce me, don’t dress like my Aunt Frieda at seder. It seems that every sit com with a Jewish man has such negative mentions of Jewish women in their family. (updated 4/8/2012)
Two genealogical discovery Docu-Series featured women with Jewish ancestors.
On Who Do You Think You Are (the NBC version of the Brit series), Helen Hunt confirmed that her father’s grandmother, who he knew with the last name of “Roberts” in Pasadena, was born into the NYC “Rothenberg” family, which led to a historical discussion, with photos and political cartoons, of anti-Semitism and assimilation. All Hunt had known about this ancestor was that she was wealthy enough to live in a residential hotel; a Jewish woman genealogist shows her they are related through Bavarian Jewish immigrant brothers who made it big selling clothes amidst the California Gold Rush to become financial partners of Levi Strauss, in what became Wells Fargo Bank.
On PBS’s Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Barbara Walters learned that her Polish Jewish immigrant ancestors also changed their name (from the Anglicized “Warmwater”) when they went to San Francisco (after stopping in London, as I’ve learned my father’s family also did). But with Gates’s emphasis on tracking the Y chromosome, there’s no mention of her Jewish female relatives (she recalls her mother lighting Friday night candles as her only religious observance), even though an enterprising researcher finds her grandparents’ NJ graves with informative headstones. Worse, when her DNA reveals 8.1 % European make-up, in comparison to the rest what the geneticists identify as Middle-Eastern, Gates chuckles about “creepin’ and crawlin’ at night” in her family tree, instead of considering conversion, intermarriage, or raping pogroms, even though he specifically shows historical illustrations of Jews “fleeing violent anti-Semitism in Eastern Europe”. He continued to be insensitive, creeping into offensive, when dealing with Kyra Sedgwick. Because her father’s family is so eminent in American history from colonial days on, he expected her to be oblivious to her mother Patricia Rosenwald, who he describes as being from “prosperous Jewish immigrants . . . from another kind of royalty, a princess, a Jewish American Princess from New York City”. While it’s only mentioned in passing that her parents divorced when she was young so that she was apparently raised by her mother, Kyra repeatedly emphasizes to him: “I do describe myself as Jewish. I embrace my Jewish side. . .I want to be half-Jewish. I’m proud of my Jewish heritage.” So why is Gates so surprised when her genetic test confirms that she is 50% Ashkenazi? He did a bit of a mea culpa with Maggie Gyllenhaal, commentary forthcoming. (updated 5/2/2012)
Castle is yet another crime series (filmed in L.A.) set in a NYC with few Jews. So maybe writer David Grae intended the Jewish woman in “Til Death Do Us Part” to be tongue in cheek. A witness reports seeing a woman flee the scene of the crime wearing a Star of David: I’m pretty sure that’s a symbol of El Al. The cops track down El Al flight attendant “Collette Roth” (played by Parisa Fakhri) and accuse her of being a member of Mossad because the victim was poisoned. With a heavy accent and rolled rrrr’s that series fans didn’t realize was typical of Hebrew-speakers, she insists she’s not a spy: We were soul mates., even as she describes staking out his apartment to find clues as to his claimed enemies: I was looking out for him. . . There were r-r-r-ruffians in ski masks! I fought with all my strength but it was in vain. She’s sure they killed him, but it turns out his pick-up artists friends staged it to get rid of “the crazy stalker chick”. (1/22/2012)
In Prime Suspect, “A Gorgeous Mosaic” by Kevin J. Hynes, showed the Typical Jewish Woman in Crime Shows Filmed in NYC: the wife of a Hasid Who Works in the Diamond District. Though only her scarf somewhat identified her as dressed as a modest Orthodox woman, “Mrs. Simon Kesh” (played by Sara Mornell) weeps for her dead husband and his envy of the rich rappers who wore the bling he made for them (presumably inspired by Jacob Arabo). But her own prejudices are detailed by an African-American suspect: That woman asked me what my African name was. It’s like medieval times up in that house. (12/19/2011)
In The Secret Life of the American Teenager (on ABC Family), Jewish women characters were introduced in the mid-4th season episode“Smokin' Like A Virgin”, by series creator Brenda Hampton. “Dylan Green” (played by Ana Lucasey) follows up a party at the lake by calling “Ben” a lot and describes herself on the phone as: My mom’s Jewish. My Dad’s Catholic. Her mother “Natalie” (played by Mindy Cohn) asks her about him and is excited when she declares that he may be her first real boyfriend. But even as she describes her parents as nosey and overprotective, Mom listens in on her only daughter’s conversations with her girlfriends about his past, complicated relationships. They lo jack her, track her down to “Ben”s house, and discover they’ve been sitting around smoking pot. (3/29/2012)
In the “Leap of Faith” episode of Blue Bloods (on CBS), written by David Black, it seemed oddly gratuitous that the mentally unstable daughter “Sandy Huffman” (played by Aubrey Dollar), who is insisting to the Catholic cops that God told her that her step-father killed her wealthy, MS-stricken mother “Caroline” in their Park Avenue apartment, declares I’m Jewish, but it’s the same God. The stepfather “Charles Bynes” (Timothy Busfield) points out she has been hospitalized for mental problems in the past, including attacking an economics professor because she said God told her to, but she’d benefit financially: She may be crazy, Detective, but she’s not stupid. She credits God’s help for the crucial information on the murder and the key clue: I’m sure he has a plan for me. While the detectives joke about the Bible, her references just don’t sound Jewish, par for the course in one of those shows set in a NYC with few Jews. (3/1/2012)
MI-5 (Spooks) (First shown in the U.K. as Episode 9.5 on 10/18/2010, but shown in February 2012 on U.S. PBS stations) “Anna Cohen” (played by Maya Lubinsky) is an ex-Army ex-Palestinian kidnap victim who has serious, revengeful issues with her diplomat father “Levi Cohen” (played by Paul Freeman). (Commentary forthcoming) (2/18/2012)
Southland- “Community” episode (description forthcoming) (2/8/2012)
In The Good Wife “Affairs of State” episode by Corinne Brinkerhoff, the politically ambitious ex-wife of "Eli Gold" (Alan Cummings) is finally seen --“Vanessa” (played by Parker Posey). Despite implications in earlier seasons, not only is there zero reference to anything possibly Jewish about her, even when they argue about their marriage, she is revealed to have committed adultery with a Bin Laden, while doing PR in Dubai for an oil company. She returned in “Live From Damascus”, teleplay by creators Robert King and Michelle King and Leonard Dick, story by Ted Humphrey, to spar about her State Senate campaign. (She: Do me a favor – either stop caring or officially get on board.) But despite her admiration for his aggressive advice how to handle her affair PR-wise, as a challenge to anti-Muslim prejudice, she gives him a peck on a cheek: I miss arguing with you. Win or lose this will be nice., there is still zero reference if she, too, is Jewish. There is certainly more chemistry between them than with his competitor who he slept with, played by Amy Sedaris. (updated 3/2/2012)
I could barely stand watching the first two episodes of Happily Divorced (on TV Land) to see if Fran Drescher’s based-on-her-own-life character “Fran Lovett” would be explicitly identified as Jewish. Evidently she, as well as her mother “Dori” (played by Rita Moreno), and probably her friend played by Renee Taylor, were later in the season, but in order to review I’ll have to make myself watch more episodes sometime when I have absolutely nothing else to do.
Moreno commented in an interview: “We were rehearsing one of the kitchen scenes between Fran and her mother and father, and Fran stopped in the middle of the scene, and she said ‘Have you ever played a Jewish woman before?’ And when I said ‘no,’ she couldn’t believe it. But I’ve always loved doing accents and I’m pretty good at them too. [Fran] said, ‘It’s unbelievable. You are the quintessential New York Jewish woman.’” (10/1/2011)
I only bothered to watch the first of TNT’s Mystery Movies because it was Scott Turow’s Innocent, as adapted by director Mike Robe, and I’ve been meaning to read more of his books. So I was surprised that the victim “Barbara Sabich” (played by Marcia Gay Hayden) was Jewish seemingly for the only reason to portray her as over-protective (when she wasn’t being crazily manic-depressive). Her husband characterizes her as The Jewish Pillsbury when she fussily insists her adult son wear fluorescent gloves while biking. Her murder (or suicide) is caused by her meds ingested with pickled herring and salami, albeit Italian salami. (12/2/2011)
I haven’t gotten around yet to commenting on the 2nd season of Bored to Death (on HBO), when the Jewish girlfriend quickly left, but the opening episode of the 3rd season, “The Blonde in the Woods” by creator Jonathan Ames, came the closest to having the lead character’s mother “Florence Ames” (played by Allyce Beasley) be identified specifically as Jewish. (Could it be because a young woman from Queens I’ve known since she was in primary school with my sons is now a co-producer?) She expalins that he was conceived via a donor from a sperm bank: It was in Fairlawn, near the kosher nosh restaurant. You know, the place with the wonderful kugel.. She notes reassuringly All we know is that he was Jewish and very bright, which is what we requested. He was a member of Menscha. His father “Ira” (played by Richard Masur) corrects her: He was a member of Mensa. Fan sites haven’t gotten her quotes fully correct with their Jewish resonances. In “Gumball”, by Ames and Martin Gero, she defends her son to the cops who want to arrest him for killing a Jockey: He says he’s innocent. He went to Princeton – he wouldn’t lie! (He was framed.) (12/2/2011)
Modern Family (on ABC) used a Jewish woman for a punch line of a joke in the “Door to Door” episode by Bill Wrubel. When the older father takes his Latino son out for a lesson in suburban door-to-door salesmanship for a school fundraising effort, their spiel for Christmas wrapping paper gets several negative responses, including one woman who says apologetically: Actually, I’m Jewish. Even the dad winces when the kid brightly responds: Then you must appreciate a good value! (10/20/2011)
The CW mocked its own Gossip Girl’s reputation for having no Jews on its version of the Upper East Side of Manhattan by running an ad as “Gossip Goy” to promote the episode “The Fasting and The Furious”, written by Peter Elkoff. That was probably to deflect the borderline offensiveness of the episode where everyone was eating and working before the “Waldorf”s” trendy Yom Kippur break fast. In the morning, resident rich bad boy “Chuck Bass” meets a beautiful EurAsian woman with a randy dog in the park, finds out she’s psychologist “Dr. Eliza Barnes” (played by K.K. Moggie), shows up at her office to flirt, but is brushed off when she says she has to get to services. (Then what was she doing at work?) He expresses surprise she’s Jewish, and she, annoyed, explains she converted last year. He, cynically: Good move in your line of work. He pursues her from services that night and brags he gave a huge bribe to find out what temple she attended. She proceeds to give him a zinger of a detailed diagnosis on what he needs to lead a happy and a normal life. He’s shook up and calls her: I don’t need another notch on my belt - -I need help. I’m serious-- if you’ll help me. She has a busy night after break fast, because “Prince Louis” also calls for her help. At least in the next episode, her religion isn’t mentioned when her unethical actions on his behalf are revealed. (updated 11/12/2011)
Hawthorne (on TNT, out on DVD) is set in one of those TV hospitals that has no Jewish doctors (they probably think the Richmond, VA setting is an excuse), but the "Let Freedom Sing" episode by Sibyl Gardner, featured an Orthodox Jewish couple, in a story line that would have made a lot more sense if they were Conservative Jews. As the wife “Sarah Colton” (played by Rachel DiPillo with long brown curls) coos at the doctor’s photos of his kids, the yarmulke-wearing husband (played by Andrew Rothenberg) explains: You can see why she wants to be the youth director at our temple. [sic – Orthodox guy would have said synagogue.] But the doctor has bad news – the cancer has spread to her other vocal chord. She insists: Keep my voice box right where God put it. I stutter except when I sing. . .God’s given me something that that that not only takes away my embarrassment, but I can use to share Him with others. I can’t lose that. Later, she falls to her knees, and sings with her eyes closed, explaining with mordant humor to the interfering teen operating room administrative assistant: I was just praying, but it’s like talking to a wall. [sic – An Orthodox woman would be singing in Hebrew, standing, and swaying in davenning.] The insufferable teen lectures her about what she’s learned about life and God. “Sarah” earnestly justifies her attitude – which would make a lot more sense if she were a cantor in a non-Orthodox environment: I believe my life and my voice are a gift from God. I hope to be a youth director in a few years. Her husband interprets: We walk by faith. But later she cries alone: I asked him to run an errand. I don’t want him to see me like this. . . I’m hurt and really confused and angry! Why do I have to choose between my life and my voice when all I want to do is sing about my faith? (So why would she just want to be a youth director and not a cantor?) The teen suggests she postpone the surgery, as the wife is torn: I can’t just go by my feelings. . . .I have to trust God. . . I have to believe that I won’t [lose my voice]. She hums on the gurney to the O.R. and explains the Psalms: The words have been preserved, but we don’t know the melodies, so I come up with my own. The unqualified teen tells her post-surgery that the doctor tried to save her vocal chords, but the tumor had grown. The wife cries, gets up from her recovery bed to again inaccurately pray on her knees, as the soundtrack plays the Psalm she can never sing again. All of which inspires the annoying teen to get informally baptized by the O.R. doctor. (7/24/2011)
Magic City – Evans family, etc. in the 1st season (Starz) – The premiere episode, “The Year of the Fin”, by series creator Mitch Glazer, is set just at the dawning of January 1, 1959 in Miami Beach – but that’s no excuse for the plethora of Jewish women television stereotypes: the dead first wife (who we find out in the second episode was named “Molly” as if she was her mother), the spoiled little rich girl protesting her upcoming bat mitzvah, and “the necklace of bubbes” on the beach, as one of the adult sons says his late mother described them. The patriarch “Ike Evans” (played by Jeffrey Dean Morgan) criticizes his daughter “Lauren” (played by Taylor Blackwell) as she prepares for the New Year’s Eve performance of Frank Sinatra at his ersatz Fountainbleu Hotel: If you’re going to wear your skirt this short, you better start shaving your legs. More commentary coming as the stereotypes got worse and worse. (4/6/2012)
Joan and Melissa Rivers in Joan & Melissa: Joan Knows Best? – 2nd season (on WE). Will the 2nd season of their “reality show” have Jewish references, as inevitably came up in this promotional interview “A Joan Rivers Moment” with Ralph Gardner Jr. in the 1/23/2012 Wall Street Journal?: “In private, Joan's obsessions sound little different than those of a thousand other Upper East Side mothers. Getting into the right schools—first for Melissa and now for Melissa's 11-year-old son, Cooper. Who knew that Melissa, in her early 40s, attended Park Avenue Christian, a tony preschool, before the family moved to Los Angeles? Joan admitted that she wouldn't reveal the school's full name to her Jewish relatives. ‘I said, 'It's called Park Avenue.'"
While the 1st episode of the season, “Skintervention” had no Jewish references as Melissa tried to convince Joan not to have additional plastic surgery, her mother made a frank, poignant declaration that she’s competing against the likes of Jane Fonda and Betty White as show business age peers, so she has to keep looking the best possible. As presented in the 2nd episode, “High Times”, the only Jewish reference when they are hosting Melissa’s boyfriend’s out-of-town parents, the Zimmermans, is when Joan is, in effect, performing for them, as they expect her to do, while she guides them around Hollywood. In a tour of Madame Toussaud’s Wax Museum, she poses next to a replica to mock: Mel Gibson with a Jew! (commentary coming on each episode -- updated 3/22/2012)
Annie Edison in the 3rd Season of Community (on NBC): I only discovered halfway through this season that one of the ditzy characters (played by Alison Brie) was Jewish. (I’ll have to subscribe to Hulu Plus, buy the DVDs, or wait for the Comedy Central reruns beginning in 2013 to check the earlier episodes.) In the “Advanced Gay” episode by Matt Murray, the satirically extremely prejudiced father of the oldest student in the Greendale (CO) Community College study class pointed her out as “a Jewess”. Then in “Foosball and Nocturnal Vigilantism”, by Chris Kula, she nervously embroidered a cover-up tale that she’s missing a necklace, gold, white gold with emeralds, with my name engraved in Hebrew. It was a bat mitzvah gift from my nana. She was a Rockette. She married a count. Who was blind. He loved her for her mind.
In the annual Christmas episode, “Regional Holiday Music” by Steve Basilone & Annie Mebane, the zealously Christian African-American describes her plans: I will be spending Christmas giving gifts to the more persuadable of our Jewish friends. “Annie” begs to differ: I wouldn’t call an unannounced visit from your pastor a gift. And don’t bother this year. I’ll be at the movies with my bubbie. Another classmate is confused: You’re not taking both of them? “Annie” tries to explain: Well, one’s dead. The rest was a hilarious satire of Glee. “Annie” enthusiastically gets into the spirit of the season as a sexy Santa’s Helper: This is one of the many costume changes I’ll be doing during the show. I guess we’re a shoo-in for regionals, right? When the cute guy she has a crush on protests her participation in the choir and Christmas: Annie, you’re an intelligent woman – and you’re Jewish!, she purrs: Guess I have a lot to learn about holiday traditions. and deliciously sings a la Betty Boop/Marilyn Monroe or Eartha Kitt’s “Santa Baby” in Teach Me How to Understand Christmas. When she lands on his knee, he grinches: At some point you reach a point of diminishing returns on the sexiness., and she pouts that she doesn’t understand. “Contemporary Impressionists” had a funny batch of putative Jewish women at a bar mitzvah fawning excitedly over a strutting “Jeff Winger” (played by Joel McHale) as a fake Ryan Reynolds, but the joke was on his egotism.
In “Course Listing Unavailable”, written by Tim Saccardo, a classmate at the community college dies in a meth lab explosion and Annie implores the study group to discuss his death seriously. The tycoon “Pierce Hawthorne”(played by Chevy Chase) retorts: Why is it always about the Holocaust with you people? (updated 5/18/2012)
Harriet Korn in the 2nd Season of Harry’s Law (on NBC) In the 5th episode, the central, middle-aged bully broad attorney, played by Kathy Bates, suddenly proclaimed she was Jewish, in “Bad to Worse”, written by series creator David E. Kelley. That was news to me after watching the first season, and seemed typical of Kelley just throwing that in to stir the pot in an episode that started out about her defending a teacher of evolution to a creationist pastor.
In “The Rematch”, by Kelley, Amanda Johns and Susan Dickes, “Gloria and Abe Gold” (played by Katherine Helmond and Fyvush Finkel) are a lawyer’s first and oldest clients. The wife proposes the unethical and illegal process of divorce so that her Alzheimer’s husband can afford to be in an appropriate residential facility while she can keep the house. The story line is a bit of an opportunity to rail against how the health care system treats the elderly while Medicare is going broke due to such fraud, but the only reason for the couple being Jewish, with no connection to “Harry”, seems to be so that the ill husband can be a former stand up comic and Kelley can be the self-righteous defender of Jewish stand-up comics’ wives. Far beyond the Henny Youngman/Don Rickles mode, the old comic randomly spouts old routines that raunchily insult his wife (I didn’t get every word to transcribe). When the lawyer offers to pay for 24-hour care, she still tearfully insists on divorce-- turns out there’s a widower she wants to marry. For 60 years I had to hear to those jokes, always at my expense, in the privacy of my own home, at dinner parties. Now it’s all I listen to. How often do I have to listen to my genitalia be referred to as a ‘black lagoon’? I can’t take it anymore, not for a month, not for a day. I want that man gone. . . Chances are he’ll never know. “Harry”s lawyer is disgusted that she not only wanted to lie to the government, but to her lawyer as well. The wife returns to explain: I know how disappointed you must be in me. I’ve spent 60 years loving that man. I’ve been his nurse-- and more his brunt. I’ve never had a life, Tommy, outside of this. I have a chance of one now, however short, with a person I very much love. Is it so wrong for me to know a little bit of that life before I go? The lawyers talk about her case at the end of the day at a bar and sympathize. His lawyer tries to get “Abe” to stop telling jokes so she can explain the divorce, but he slides in and out of patter. I get the house. She can keep the mirrors so she can see what I had to look at all these years. . .We always said we’d wait ‘til the kids are dead. What am I going to do without her?. . .We were happy for so long--and then we met. When I make love to her, I like to think of something nice, like not making love to her. Oh, I have a recurring nightmare about my wife's funeral, like it would never happen. Ha ha hahaha. The lawyers try to explain to him that they’ll make sure he’s taken care of.
In “American Girl”, by Kelley and Lawrence Broch, “Harry” blasts a cop for stopping her driving her rented Mercedes Benz to a quail hunting weekend: I’m rich, white and Republican. She explains herself in a monologue that was a convoluted link to the Jewish American experience: Principles are important. . .My father and I used to go hunting. We’d go hunting once or twice a year. Then one day, on my 12th birthday, he decided he was gong to take me to a private club. We wre both so excited. We got all dressed up in proper hunting clothes, planned to have lunch. When we get to the club, they turned us away because we were Jewish. We were excluded. On the drive home, my father’s hands were shaking. “This isn’t what America is uposed to be.” We’re becoming less inclusive every day. It’s not what America is supposed to be. (updated 11/17/2011)
Dr. Zoe Hart in the 1st Season of Hart of Dixie (the CW) On the 5th episode “Faith & Infidelilty”, written by Deb Fordham, the titular, displaced New Yorker “Dr. Zoe Hart” (played by Rachel Bilson, whose father is Jewish) concluded the episode dealing with the minister and his wife by admitting she was “half-Jewish” to her African-American landlord the mayor, who assured her she’d be welcome at church anyway. Though by Judaism’s criteria that means she’s Jewish, when her mother “Candice” (played by JoBeth Williams) showed up in town in “The Undead & the Unsaid”, by Donald Todd, to reconcile about lying about who her biological father was, there was zero reference to her background. Instead, there was a vague explanation by hunky “George Tucker” (Scott Porter) to his blonde fiancée that “Zoe” just reminded him of things he missed from his New York sojourn. In the episode “Homecoming & Coming Home”, by Rina Mimoun, her best friend from NYC brings her a care package of bagels from Zabar’s. In “The Pirate & The Practice” episode, by Debra Fordham, she fit herself into the town’s unique celebration of “Planksgiving” by publicly declaring herself a “Jewish pirate – Achoy!” with an exaggerated “ch” sound. But, oddly, the December episode “Hairdos & Holidays”, written by David Babcock, had zilch such references at all, even when the hunky lawyer shared reminisces of the season in New York, particularly of the Rockefeller Center tree, which only made her joke about the weather difference, not even when she coached a pageant contestant in Christmas carols.
In the “Hell’s Belles” episode, written by Donald Todd, the doctor is seeking out her father’s heritage by joining the Bluebell Belles, but there’s a vague reference to her mother’s side. In completing the initiation process of being a servant for the members, one comments on her tardiness: I thought you’d gotten caught up in the rapture. Oh, do your people go to heaven? The doctor finesses: With my family, it’s Ft. Lauderdale. Eschewing Southern tradition, she professionally diagnoses the group’s fertility problems as psychological. Very oddly, the “Mistresses & Misunderstandings” episode, written by Beth Schwartz, emphasized how the town folk, especially the ladies, don’t like her, don’t want to be seen with her, let alone be friends with her – but with zero reference to her being Jewish as a possible reason, trying to avoid a frisson of anti-Semitism in this sunny, bucolic Southern town.
In the “Aliens & Aliases” episode, written by Debra Fordham, even her temporary assistant “Tom” is aware of her background when he announces: I brought snacks in honor of our Zoe’s cultural heritage: bagels. Zoe: Or biscuits with the middle cut out. But in “Tributes & Triangle”, written by Michelle Paradise, she is thinking of changing her name from her adoptive father’s, without even consider using her mother’s maiden name before she decides on her biological father’s. This is directly followed up in “Heart to Hart”, written by Rina Mimoun, where her nemesis cooks up a thank you dinner for her adoptive father the heart surgeon coming to operate on her fiancée’s father – of potatoe pancakes, though she calls them something in French that neither I nor any fan site caught so may or may not be accurate, when she added: I thought your father would appreciate a kosher meal. “Zoe” tartly corrects her assumption: My mother’s Jewish, My father isn’t. The Southern belle sweetly, um, as butter, responds: How about you sit next to me and I can learn more about your ethnic origins? By the end, “Zoe” reconciles with her adoptive father and he asks her not to change her last name. (updated 4/23/2012)
Mrs. Wolowitz on Big Bang Theory (5th season on CBS) continued blasting the voice and snarky descriptions of a monster of an emasculating Jewish mother, who I am only now catching up on, let alone that devoted fans find her hysterically funny. In “The Pulled Groin Extrapolation” episode, teleplay by Bill Prady, Steven Molaro, and Dave Goetsch, and story by Chuck Lorre, Eric Kaplan, and Jim Reynolds, “Howard Wolowitz” (played by Simon Helberg) genially tells his unconvinced, blonde, very gentile fiancée that they’ll be living with his mother: Why would she move out? It’s her house. . .It’s a great house. Plenty of room. If we have kids Mom’s there to help. You know, when she tells the “3 Little Pigs” story she really has hair on her chinny-chin-chin. “Bernadette Rostenkowski” (played by Melissa Rauch): I'm not going to live with your mother. Not now. Not ever. “Howard”: Somebody, obviously, has some mommy issues. He proposes: Before we make any kind of decision where we live how about a trial run? Stay here for a weekend. See what it would be like. His mother’s reaction, as usual, shouted through the door (voiced by Carol Ann Susi): If she’s willing to give the milk away for free, who am I to object. . . After all your sleep-overs with the little brown boy, a girl is a relief., a reference to his South Asian Indian friend “Raj” (whose portrayal is as stereotyped as the Jewish mother, and yet more indications that she’s oddly brought in from the wrong generation gap). Among the stream of clichés about what his mother does for him, his fiancée asks: Does your mother always cut your meat for you? “Howard” assures: Only when it’s fatty. Don’t worry, you’ll do it when we’re married. Among even more insults by the mother and about her: Let me know when you’re done canoodling; mama needs a foot rub. The very crude yelling mother announces details of her business from the bathroom, even as “Howard” emphasizes their Jewishness by proclaiming, though this was first shown in October: It’s Latke Night. In what inexplicably to me is the most popular quote on the fansites about this triangle, when “Bernadette” greets him the next morning with Good Morning, handsome!, he assumes it’s his mother. But having prepared his pancakes breakfast-in-bed with her in the kitchen, the sweet, mild-mannered, low-talking “Bernadette” has learned to yell back at her in the same tone, and starts talking to him with a Yiddish inflection, as she heads back to the kitchen for some butter.
In “The Russian Rocket Reaction”, teleplay by Chuck Lorre, Eric Kaplan, and Maria Ferrari, story by Bill Prady, Steven Molaro, and Jim Reynolds, “Bernadette” sneaks out of his bedroom after he announces his unilateral decision accept an offer to be a payload specialist for equipment he, as an engineer, designed for a mission to the International Space Station. His mother is then heard, shouting offscreen as usual: Over my dead body my son goes into outer space! He complains to his friends: She went behind my back and turned my own mother against me! His best friend “Raj” from India, with similar parental issues, commiserates: She’s going to have to convince your mother to let you go into space. Talking to her girlfriends, it slowly dawns on “Bernadette” that she made a mistake: I took our love and threw it under his bus-sized mother! When she goes to his house to apologize, his mother objects to his pretending not to be there, with an oddly adjectival use of a Yiddish noun: What kind of a schmuck play is that? When she overhears them kissing, her warning is again pointedly given a Jewish touch: Make up all you want – your tuchas is not leaving this planet!
”The Good Guy Fluctuation”, story by David Goetsch, Chuck Lorre and Maria Ferrari, teleplay by Bill Prady, Steven Molaro and Steve Holland, put an aural costume on “Bernadette” in a Halloween prank-themed episode. When the usual barking roar of Who’s at the door? emanates from the “Wolowitz” house, “Howard” gleefully welcomes “Sheldon”: That’s not my mom – it’s Bernadette! Even the socially inept, borderline Asperger’s, “Sheldon” reacts to this continuing transformation: Really – that’s very unsettling. (very behind on more -- updated 10/29/2011)
”The Big Bang Theory Star Melissa Rauch On Nerds, New Jersey And Real Housewives’ in Huffington Post , 10/11/2011, Nicki Gostn: “Q: Do you get fan mail from nerds? [Rauch] I do. I also get fan mail from girl scientists and Jewish dudes excited that [co-star Simon] Helberg was dating a girl like Bernadette.”
In the middle of Rachel Berry in the 3rd season of Glee (on Fox), the cast appeared on Bravo’s Inside the Actor’s Studio, and Lea Michelle very specifically explained that while her father’s family was Sephardic Jews, she was raised in her mother’s Roman Catholic faith, with her father accompanying them to church. She noted that she didn’t look like anyone else in her school – but that was because the rest of the girls had plastic surgery. She related that “Rachel” was like her at age 8 or 9, because that’s when she was on Broadway: “It was my oxygen.”
”Rachel” continued to be pilloried with nasty put-downs in a Jewish context that were supposedly balanced by grudging recognition of her singing talent. In the opener “The Purple Piano Project”, by Brad Falchuk, “Kurt” reports on short “Rachel” and tall Finn”s climax from last season’ nationals: 'The Kiss That Missed' already has 20,000 views on YouTube and the comments section is just full of pithy banter, like ‘Why's that T-Rex eating the Jew?’, even as she had the ego crush of facing a roomful of competing college auditioners as talented as she: I've never been so humiliated in my life. . . We have to move to another town, erase our identities and resign to a sad life of community theatre. But she wasn’t the only Jewish girl made a butt of unredeemed jokes. Played by Vanessa Lengies, she introduces herself: I'm Sugar Motta and I have self-diagnosed Asperger's, so I can pretty much say whatever I want. I’m like a diplomat’s daughter. . . I want to be a big, big star. . . When I saw you guys singing and dancing in the auditorium, I thought: I'm so much better than you.. She’s beyond unaware of how spectacularly bad her audition of “Big Spender” was: I worked that song like a hooker pole. African-American “Mercedes” recognizes her advantage: Her daddy is the rich Jew who donated the purple pianos. Dozens of fan sites have not picked up this pejorative quote correctly.
In the following “I Am Unicorn”, by series creator Ryan Murphy, her indulgent father ”Al Motta” (played by Rick Pasqualone) of “Motta’s Pianos” that had repossessed the pianos from foreclosed homes, funds a competing show choir: My daughter is a supernova! At the same time, “Rachel” is waiting to be anointed the role of “Maria” in the West Side Story production: which means I’m going to be even more self-centered than usual. The coach votes for her: She’s Jewish but that helps with the whole Puerto Rican thing.
But in “Asian F” by Ian Brennen, ”Mercedes” does not interpret that “Rachel” gets the lead role based on her talent -- Why is everybody around here always trying not to hurt her feelings?. Out of spite she joins the rival group.
”Pot ‘o’ Gold”, by Ali Adler, continued showing the Jewish girls in a nasty light, without any complimentary balance. “Kurt” jibes about a photo of “Rachel”: Did you airbrush out your jowls? She’s even more egomaniac than usual abut the West Side Story plans: You can’t cancel my musical! I was considering changing my name to Maria! When “Santana” joins the alternative, female glee club, she intimidates “Sugar Motta” as a “Richy Bitch”, who instantly capitulates: I just wanted to be on the winning team for once.
The snide remarks about “Rachel” continued in “Mash-Off” by Michael Hitchcock. Even as she tries to apologize to “Kurt” for running against him for class president, her retorts: You should have thought of me before you walked all over me in your borderline sociopathic climb to the top. He bends a bit when she turns “a riveting twist” to pull out of the race, when she declares, in a bit of a demeaning way: Consider me your campaign slut. “Santana” cuttingly references her in mocking her boyfriend: Finn’s blubber would last for 8 nights of Hanukkah.
In “I Kissed A Girl”, by Matthew Hodgson, even this seeming altruistic concern for “Kurt”s election is revealed to be selfish, leading her to act unethically and get punished: I haven’t been this worried about a vote since [American Idol]. Kurt needs this election to get into NYADA. More importantly, he’s clearly the superior candidate. . .I mean, come on. . .I had to take a stand. . .They’re all so lost in their own worlds they can’t see how important this is to me! Elections have consequences! And the consequence of Brittany winning this election is that I’ll have to move to New York without my best gay. What if I need an emergency make-over, or a last minute soufflé? (updated 4/10/2012))
Ziva David on NCIS in her 7th season (The 9th season on CBS) In the season opener, “Nature of the Beast” by Gary Glasberg, “Gibbs” announces that her probation is over and she’s now a “journeyman” Special Agent. So let’s see how Israeli, let alone Jewish her character stays. Her past was also forgotten in Slate’s Secret Agent Woman: “Why are there so many female spies on television?” by June Thomas, posted on 11/17/2011. A New York Times piece on 2/7/2012 about the show’s robust ratings to achieve 200 episodes didn’t mention her at all.
In “The Penelope Papers”, by Nicole Mirante-Matthews, she makes one brief mention of her past with only a vague reference to her family connections to the Mossad: My father attended every birthday party, but his mind was always elsewhere.
In “Safe Harbor”, by Reed Steiner and Christopher J. Waild, there is a passing reference to “Ziva”’s heritage in an episode about Lebanese refugees who may or may be terrorists. She and the mother, played by noted Iranian actress Shohreh Aghdashloo, find common ground in family ties. “Ziva” concedes: I had a sister and a brother. I also had a mother. They were killed. The mother sympathizes: We come from troubled lands you and I. At the end, “Ziva”, as usual, turns this train of thought into her daddy issue when she confides in her boss: My mother never told me what kind of man my father was. Perhaps she thought I was not strong enough to handle it. “Gibbs” advises: No, she was just being a mom. She: How do you know? He: Perspective.
One of the closest mentions this season to even her Israeli roots was a, um, veiled reference to her Middle Eastern expertise in “Engaged, Part 1”, written by Gina Lucita Monreal. When she translates Pashtun, “Tony” is unusually admiring: It’s her #9 language. Our very own ‘Beauty of Berlitz’. She retorts: Actually it’s #7. “Part 2”, written by Gary Glasberg, had an even odder reference, as she asserts her confidence when they go on a rescue mission in Afghanistan: I grew up in this region. . .I can hold my own. Only because no one knew she was an ex-Mossad agent. Maybe her colleagues have forgotten too. Let alone that in the Christmas Eve- episode “Newborn King”, written by Christopher J. Waild, she made a Christmas reference to “no room at the inn”, but nothing Jewish.
”Housekeeping”, by Scott Williams, dealt further with “Ziva”s romance, opening with her frustratation that “Agent Ray Cruz” hasn’t returned seven phone messages to confirm their New Year’s Eve date. “Tony” teases her about going Some place quiet with someone she can count on, hopefully. But she’s been reduced to the petty lovelorn: That’s the word, is it not-- hopefully. Even if you think you can count on someone, you often cannot. “Tony”: Agent Cruz seems to be having communication issues.. The “Ziva” who used to seem like one of the guys, now talks like a chick flick: I’m losing my patience. “Tony” commiserates, for all those “shipper” fans, other than me, who want them to get together: We have a lot in common in that respect. “Ziva”: I am grateful to have someone in my life just as romantically dysfunctional as I am. “Tony”: Agent David, do you really consider me to be in your life? And her phone rings: What should I say? He advises: Say hello. When a blonde female agent thanks “Ziva” for retrieving an email from her mother, she asks if “Ziva” has plans for family, outside NCIS. “Ziva” : Family? Some day. But that day seems increasingly distant at the moment.
In “A Desperate Man”, written by Nicole Mirante-Matthews, “Ziva” is even more mired in romantic conventions tied up with her daddy issues. She comes in the office asking if the many phone calls from “C-I-Ray” (as “Tony” refers to him) can be blocked to her home and office phone. “Tony” pleads “Ray”s case, having taken his calls: The guy’s desperate. “Ziva”s mad: You’re supposed to be on my side! . . . Stay out of it! . . . He does not appreciate me. “Tony protests” how many women have said that to him and his endless number of dates, as “McGee” ripostes. “Tony” justifies: What about Ziva? She's like a bad Israeli romance novel. She's not exactly the picture of emotional stability. “Ziva” retorts : That is rich, coming from you. “Tony”: You're saying I'm emotionally unstable, Ziva? and “McGee” interjects again. Later, “Ziva” confides to “Tony” more about her relationship – and even tears up over a petty issue: While he was overseas you know we stayed connected as best we could, trying to make whatever we had work. And now he was finally back. We planned this, this lovely dinner but he never showed, Tony. I waited in that restaurant alone for 3 hrs, no text, no call, nothing. When I saw him next, it was just the following morning and he then, he just said he got caught up with work. (incompletely updated 1/26/2012)
Entourage - Mrs. Ari Gold in the 8th season (on HBO). Creator Doug Ellin referenced her just briefly in discussing the final season on Charlie Rose, 7/22/2011, when he was asked the difference between how the character “Ari Gold” he created started out “as a low life” vs. how actor Jeremy Piven portrayed him: “And now he’s one of the great family men we’ve seen on TV. . .In the first episode he was talking about having sex with supermodels, and 8 years later we know he’s never cheated on his wife, he’s home every night, and she controls the family.” Though he wasn’t asked if she gets a name by the finale!
So I was quite annoyed when I got around to watching the final season that the first thing Ellin did in “Home Sweet Home” was break them up! Even as “Ari” pleads how he misses her and wants to come home, she sounds like some Beverly Hills Housewife cliché: I’m still discovering things about myself. . . I’m not ready. . .I’ve been seeing someone. Next, in “Out With A Bang”, by Ally Musika, she explains why she is with celebrity restauranteur Bobby Flay, who “Ari” sneers is just “a cook”: I need exposure to other things. . .He’s a chef. He’s a businessman. He’s kind, and respectful and generous. She’s furious at her husband’s anger and revenge tactics when he declares war on the restaurant, but by the next episode he’s first dating a younger woman and then sleeping with an old girlfriend his “Mrs” was always jealous of. Her name is finally casually revealed in the last couple of episodes: “Melissa”. And even their daughter “Sarah” gets to show off her smarts. There’s more arguments, that I’ll eventually detail, before they reunite by declaring their love for each other in the series finale,. (incomplete but updated 3/29/2012)
Jackie Goodman in the 1st Season of Friday Night Dinner (on BBC America, originally shown on U.K.’s Channel 4) – seems to be an old-fashioned sitcom “Mum” (played by Tamsin Greig, who gets to do a lot more on Showtime’s much funnier Episodes). From the first episode, we pretty much only know they’re Jewish because of the titular get-together of the grown sons with their parents, and the usual symbolism of the menorah on the dining room cabinet. At least the Jewish mother is a red-head for a change. (8/8/2011)
2010/2011 Season
Portlandia (on IFC) was notable for missing a Jewish woman in any of its satirical skits, despite being written by, as described by Eli Sanders in “Bridgetown” in Tablet Magazine, 10/19/2011, about the Portland Jewish community: “Everyone looked great, the picture of relaxed, locavore health, a reminder of the well-known joke from the television series Portlandia—starring Carrie Brownstein, perhaps one of the city’s best-known Jews—about how progressive, affordable Portland is ‘the city where young people go to retire’.” (10/20/2011)
I by chance caught a rerun of the 4th season’s“The Cohabitation Formulation” episode of Big Bang Theory, a year and a half after it’s initial CBS February 17, 2011 broadcast, and was surprised to discover that since the inaugural season Fall 2007 a repeatedly heard but not seen character who seems to reinforce every negative, infantalizing image of Jewish mothers on TV in the ranting telephone calls and shouts of “Mrs. Wolowitz” (voiced by Carol Ann Susi) as she henpecks her live-in engineer son “Howard” (played by Simon Helberg). I wonder which of the six credited writers is so obsessed with Philip Roth’s Portnoy’s Complaint to author her stereotyped lines in the teleplay by Bill Prady, Steven Molaro, and Jim Reynolds, and the story by Chuck Lorre (series creator), Lee Aronsohn, and Dave Goetsch.
On AMC's Mad Men, the audience may have perceived as Jewish the elderly secretary "Ida – 'Queen of Perversions' – Blankenship", who is revealed as the senior partner's ex-lover. Though there were never any specific references, the actress Randee Heller, who memorably laid down her surprising zingers, seemed to think so, per this AMC interview: "Q: Is Miss Blankenship's accent your own? Where does it come from? A: It's really a potpourri. I grew up with grandparents that were from Russia and they spoke Yiddish, so there's a little bit of that. And then my mom and my aunt and my father's family all were raised in Brooklyn. They were first-generation Americans, so we got a little Brooklyn thing going. And then I moved to Long Island, so I have that. It's a mixture of many accents." (10/10/2010)
Even in the fourth season of Showtime's Californication (available on DVD) I'm still only classifying “Marcy Runkle” (played by Pamela Adlon, née Segall) as a putative Jewish woman, though in the 4th episode "Monkey Business", by Gabe Roth and Matt Patterson, she uttered a distinctive Jewish reference in the midst of this typical foul-mouthed rant (what a couple of episodes later her new lover affectionately terms "obscene verbal diarrhea") to her best friend after her "golden showers" on a pregnancy test turned it positive: I can either vaccum this nightmare out of my twat or I can settle in for a burden of a lifetime. How did this happen? Why does Hashem hate me? Her friend asks whose it is, and she explains it can't be her husband's: That's kid's all ripped to shreds. The friend suggests Rick Springfield. Uh uh. He was all about the ass. Plus he never came. I came nine times and he was about a puff of smoke. . .There were a couple of CraigsList casual encounters here or there. But I never let them raw dog me. Shit, it could be an immaculate conception. . . Fuck, I'm not good enough to get knocked-up by God? Some friend you are! . . Do you think I'd make a good mother?. . .That little mutant would be fucking lucky to have me. And she weeps. As a concierge "waxologist", she dropped a Yiddish word in "Lawyers, Guns, and Money", written by Vanessa Reisen, when she showed up at a Hollywood mogul's house to do the whole Kardashian. . .but you don't have to go through the full body "meshugas". (updated 11/1/2011)
Two putative Jewish women appeared in summer season finales. In the "No Exit" episode of Hawthorne (on TNT, out on DVD), story by Adam Fierro and Glen Mazzara and teleplay by Mazzara, bickering elderly couple "Mr. and Mrs. Rickles" (Bill Macy and Debra Mooney) seem to be named in honor of the nasty comedian. His talk is full of Yiddishisms and references to having just having eaten corned beef at a deli; her sarcastic ripostes may have a Yiddish lilt: Threats! Be a man already!. . .If you were made of money instead of hot air, maybe I'd know what luxury was! Married 48 years, they smile at a quarreling doctor and nurse who have been dating, and in reaction they cuddle indulgently. They reunite with a kiss at the end of the episode's crisis. In Huge (ABC Family), the two part "Parents' Weekend" (Part 1 by Gayle Abrams, Part 2 by series creator Savannah Dooley), we meet the parents of "Ian Schonfeld" (Ari Stidham), who had been prominently wearing a Star of David necklace all season at the camp for overweight teens. The parents (played by Phil Abrams and Nealla Gordon) have no particular Jewish identity. They upset their son by first being overly solicitious to each other, which is evidently unusual behavior because their son says they usually argue, even in group therapy, then to announce to him that they will be getting a divorce. (I haven't yet read the book by Sasha Paley that the series is based on to know if there are Jewish characters in the original.) (8/7/2010)
Warehouse 13 (on SyFy) showed in the "Secret Santa" episode by Robert Goodman that even in science fiction shows Jewish mothers are in absentia. The family history of the boss "Artie Nielsen" (played by Saul Rubinek) was revealed when the youngest staffer of his Top Secret Government Agency schemed to have him reunited with his estranged father "Isadore 'Izzy' Weisfelt" (played by Judd Hirsch with a heavy Yiddish accent), who throws out a couple of Yiddish words. They bond over teasing memories about female relatives "Sylvia" and "Trudy", but their old grudges surface. "Dad": You spit on us! Your mother and me, we worked two jobs to send you to Juilliard. And you threw it all away to work for those fascists! "Artie": The U.S. government I work for! They're not fascists! "Izzy": Oh no! You never heard of McCarthy? "Artie": Oh, please! Dad: I couldn't work for years because – what? I had family in Russia? "Artie" ominously: I know all about the family in Russia, Dad. Dad: Is that right? They turn on the young staffer, but "Artie"s Yiddishkeit re-bonds them. "Artie": She nudged her way into existence! Dad: That's very good. Nudged!. . .Arthur, you [say?] your work was necessary and I believe you. . .Enough already, you get an A. You want to work yourself down to a B? It was when you walked away from music that was hard. "Artie" brings out his musical composition and they sit together at the piano, even as the dad continues to good-naturedly keep complaining about how he plays the "beautiful" piece. The dad calls the young staffer "the annoying gentile", but she leads them in grace in Hebrew before Christmas dinner, even as the dad jokingly complains about her doing it wrong. (12/13/2010)
So many crime series set in Florida, yet so few Jewish women! At least in the first season of The Glades, in "Mucked Up", by Lois Johnson, we heard about the bat mitzvah of "Esther Feldman", only because the Latino forensic medical examiner was pleased to be invited so he could network with her father the judge, even though he had to leave early for the case. (updated 10/20/2010)
Similarly, so many crime series set in NYC, yet so few Jewish women. Castle gratuitously stuck one in for humor, in "Anatomy of a Murder", written by Terence Paul Winter. Opening at the funeral of the Orthodox "Ephraim Mankowsky", his coffin falls and along with his body is a pretty, dead blonde. An older woman mourner, identified in the credits as "Tova", played by Cynthia Frost, calmly asks with a Yiddish inflection: Who's the shicksa?, and snorts that the father of 10 drank himself to death. Law and Order: Special Victims Unit also finally had a Jewish woman, in "Penetration" by Christina M. Torres and Dawn DeNoon -- albeit as a rape and murder victim, "Jennifer Briggs", only briefly seen in a photo. She was a 27-year-old accountant with a jewelry firm in the Diamond District who lived in SoHo. After a bad break-up, she joined "Project Mitzvah" which sets up correspondents with Jewish prisoners. But violent rapist "Seth Coleman" (played by Jeremy Davidson, who, ironically, wrote and directed the Holocaust survivors' drama Tickling Leo) faked his way into the program to get a Jewish pen pal. . .I've always had a thing for Jewish girls. They're freaks in bed. On HBO's Boardwalk Empire, there are plenty of Jewish gangsters, notably the real Arnold Rothstein and Meyer Lansky. But even though there was a bar mitzvah scene late in the 1st season, and the other ethnic thugs have families, the only Jewish woman seen, even briefly, was a shocked mother who was called on to translate a mug's profanely scabrous Yiddish taunt of his torturer, even as she tries to protect her young son from what she's seeing and hearing. (updated 12/18/2010)
In the British science fiction import Outcasts (on BBC America, following one 8-episode season on BBC), about Earth refugees colonizing the planet Carpathia in 2040, “Dr. Stella Isen” (played by blonde Hermione Norris) was suddenly confronted in the 3rd episode, written by series creator Ben Richards and Simon Block, by a guy with an envious hang-up on Jewish scientists: You are Jewish? She reluctantly clarified: My family were. My husband is. What does it matter? This plot point may be related to the religious fervor sweeping the colony, even as the president insists it is secular. Her resentful daughter “Lily Isen” (played by Jeanne Kietzmann), who her frantic mom specifies while searching for her that she looks like her father, arrived on the last shuttle from endangered Earth. They reconcile after their years apart: They must have really needed you. Even as “Dr. Isen” asks “Lily” to move into her quarters, she warns: I take my work pretty seriously. I won’t be around much.
Her Jewish identity is not part of her official character bio: “Stella is Head of Protection and Security (PAS), the group that aims to maintain order on the new planet. She has sacrificed everything to save humanity, and desperately misses those she left behind on earth.” (7/8/2011)
In The Good Wife, Alan Cummings is not only surprisingly convincing as the fairly observantly Jewish political campaign manager "Eli Gold", but in "Silver Bullet", teleplay by Robert King and Michelle King, story by Steve Lichtman, he was shown to be straight and a father to a daughter "Melissa" (played by Sarah Steele). He opens the episode with: No. Let me try that again, No. She rejoins: You're so cute when you're being emphatic! Your brow gets all-- He: And the key word here is emphatic. She: Mom said yes. He: Because Mom likes to make me the mean divorced dad. I say no. She: Why? He: Why do I say no? Because I do not want some Palestinian version of yourself blowing you up. She: Dad it's a kibbutz. Unless one of the tractors blows up, I'm going to be fine. Do you know how hypocritical this is? You're the one who always pushed me towards religion. [Note: She conflates Judaism and Israel.] He: Of course I know how hypocritical it is. I'm a parent! It's my perogative. . .Are we having dinner Thursday night? She: Unless you back out. You look happy – are you seeing someone?. . .She smiles flirtatiously as the young pollster enters and introduces himself. She: I'm the daughter. Her father warns him: She's 18 years old! When she calls to cancel dinner plans, he invites a young Latino woman he's been spying on. But the daughter shows up at the restaurant: Hello there. Dad: I thought you couldn't make it, Melissa. She: Change of plans Dad. . . .So you're the reason my dad's so happy. . . And how old are you?. . .I'm so going to Israel.. . .I'll let you two eat in peace. Love you, Dad. Don't forget protection.. When the young woman catches him in his lies, his explanation references his daughter: Because I'm a hypocrite.
That Jewish girls and women so rarely pop up on this Chicago-based/New York-filmed series is noteworthy as the co-creator Michelle King is Jewish (as identified in "The Good Wife and Its Women" by Jan Hoffman, The New York Times, 4/29/2011.) (updated 5/3/2011)
I don't usually watch "reality shows", but I was curious to see the Jewish references in the second time TLC's What Not to Wear made-over a Jewish former TV child star, this time Facts of Lifes star Mindy Cohn. While she was adamant about selecting clothes for comfort, her Jewishness was identified with her past and her "before" image. While her friends refered to "her shlumpy style", including Rachel, a childhood friend, she refers to herself as "the chubby little girl" on the show who now wears "a $300 shmata". She recalls auditioning for her first episode: I just turned 13 – freshly bat mitzvahed. She insists "I like my body. I'm 44. . . I like living Southern California beachy". She argues with the fashionistas as they pretty much throw out all her clothes: "This is hard for me you guys. I live in these clothes . . .I have to let my style reflect the work I've done on the inside." (Therapy?) The fashionistas insist her clothes should let her confidence in her body shine. There's tussles over her saying their rules but violating them – partly because she hates wasting money. But she comes around: "I didn't have to compromise on comfort.. . I can look fun and like a girl and still be comfortable. . . I will take the time, honor myself, and make sure my clothes fit. . .To marry my public and private Mindy image.. . I felt very affirming. . . I hadn't realized that when I wasn't working I had let myself go." (12/18/2010)
Grey's Anatomy executive producer Shonda Rimes' proudly touts her refutation of African-American stereotypes in her several, female-centric shows: To The Wall Street Journal's Amy Chozick, on 5/13/2011, she declared about her production company Shondaland: "I get to have a land, that land is called Shonda. In that land, we're not going to have a black, drug-dealing single mother selling crack. Not on one of my shows." But that land does have only occasional yet stereotyped Jewish women characters. (The scabrous satire Children’s Hospital, on Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim, pokes fun by having a male Jewish doctor with a yarmulke, but I haven’t seen a Jewish woman on the staff in its current, 3rd season that I’ve seen so far.) "Almost Grown", written by Brian Tanen, played on one of the excruciatingly oldest clichés about Jews seen in TV, about what the bar mitzvah means (let alone of emasculating, overbearing Jewish mothers). A son, "Seth", yells at his mother "Mindy Gruberman" (played by Susan Slome): You promised me after my bar mitzvah I'd be a man so therefore he can have surgery to have his man-breasts removed. She gets upset about him You just can't cut off the parts of your body that you don't like.. . .Your father has the exact same chest as you and nobody calls him a woman. (We do not actually see the father, who probably is a lot heavier than the very skinny son.) When the older surgeons get frustrated because they had already spent considerable time talking the mother into going along with the surgery, they instruct a young hunky resident to get her to change back her mind. The son confides to him about how he gets teased and wants them removed before he goes to high school. When the mother insists on consulting again with the senior doctors, the smug resident "Dr. Alex Karev" (played by Justin Chambers) then really chews her out in front of them, including a condescending female surgeon, repeating the gratuitous and inaccurate reference: He's a dude with breasts and he's headed for high school and there's no reason that he should be subjected to the psychological damage that comes from school yard crap. You want your kid to be man? Let him make his own decisions! The senior doctors approve and sneeringly turn to her: Any other questions?. After the surgery (which did have doctor-caused complications), mom weeps and the senior doctor claims to know what she's feeling and interprets for the son: She was scared and now she's just happy you're OK. The son turns admiringly to the arrogant resident: You're the man. "Dr. Karev": No, you're the man. (updated 8/17/2011)
Private Practice had a somewhat less offensive, at least warmer, portrayal of a Jewish mother later in the season (commentary to come). (5/12/2011)
Brothers & Sisters finally killed off vestiges of a Jewish connection from the first season, like any long-running show. In "Never Say Never" by Veronica Becker and Sarah Kucserka, when "Ida Holden" (seen in young photos of Marion Ross) dies off screen. As the family members recall her only negatively, they awkwardly, and inaccurately, prepare for her Jewish funeral, including her daughter shopping for a headstone and her grandsons arguing about wearing a kippah at the funeral, which is officiated by a rabbi: We weren't religious. . . But she was, so we have to wear them. Granddaughter "Sarah" (played by Rachel Griffiths): You think a big send off is going to change how any of us feel about Ida? Her daughter "Nora" (played by Sally Field) researches online how to write a eulogy, but ends up just weeping: It’s the things she wasn't that breaks my heart. Her son Saul (played by Ron Rifkin), who throws out a Yiddish word early in the episode to establish his Jewish cred, has harbored guilt and resentment for never telling her he was gay because he was sure she'd disapprove, but it turns out she left him a sweet letter implying that she always knew: Nothing she wanted for me happened. I spent all my life alone. I thought I was able to hide my loneliness from her. He toasts her and introduces her posthumously to the love of his life (played by Richard Chamberlain). (4/14/2011)
Upstairs Downstairs (commentary on the German Jewish woman refugee character and her daughter forthcoming) (5/12/2011)
In SyFy's U.S., Boston-set, adaptation of the British Being Human (out on DVD), the Jewish werewolf "George Sands" has become "Josh" (played by Sam Huntington) and he gained a lesbian sister "Emily" (played by Alison Louder), in the first two episodes "There Goes the Neighborhood" parts 1 and 2, by series adapters Jeremy Carver and Anna Fricke. She's is surprised at seeing him at the hospital where he works, and she describes her feelings in a Jewish family context. She: Where did you go? He: You found me. Here we are. She: I wasn't looking for you. Jackie broke her arm. He: She's your new. . . She: Girlfriend, yes. He: And her arm's OK? She. I miss you. He: I miss you too. How is everybody? She: Your family. We've been freaking out for the past two years wondering if you were dead or alive. Whatever's happened how can you not say anything to the people who love you? He: I told you not to worry about me. She: Josh, did you ever think that the one thing not to say to Jewish parents is 'Don't worry'? Please, just tell me what's going on with you. He: You wouldn't understand. She: Try it. He: It's complicated. She: Josh, I'm your sister. I'm genetically inclined to love you unconditionally. But I thought we were also friends. He: I really missed you. But I kinda need you not to tell anyone that you saw me here. She: What would I tell them anyway? This has been the least satisfying reunion ever. He kisses her and leaves, but she hangs around, and after work follows him into his new basement transformation room: He: What are you doing here? She: What are you doing here? Two years of nothing! And you can't even talk to me! He's in a panic: I'll come see you, I promise. I just need to be alone right now. She: I know why you ran away. . .You think I'm an idiot? Everything was ahead of you. Cookie cutter life, just like mom and dad. You panicked, I get it. You're not nearly as mysterious as you think you are. . . Why punish me? You were my best friend. Why shut me out? He doubles over in pain: It's complicated. She: Are you sick? He: You have to go! She slams the door and breaks off the knob. He desperately telephones his vampire friend, who is preoccupied with vampire stuff, and even begs his ghost roomie to help, who can't leave the house: I will kill her! Sister: Let me help you! He: You stay away from me!, and knocks her across the room as he starts to transform.
In Part 2, when his vampire roommate saves her from being locked up with him just before he finishes transforming in painful agony, she confides: I can't believe my sweet brother went mad. Our mother did, too, you know. I bet he didn't tell you that. You wouldn't know it now she's back on the tennis court and book club circuit. The 'incident' has been neatly filed away. Just our little family curse. . .Jackie's waiting for me upstairs. God, what if he never gets to meet Jackie? I really wanted to rub it in his face that I ended up with the shiksa goddess. Telling his roomie I'm really glad I didn't kill my sister, the next day he tries to warn her of the danger, but she persists: Your friend said you had a condition. Hey, are you mad at me? I told you something I hadn't told anyone. Next thing I knew, you were gone. . .It's me, Josh, what is such a secret that you can't tell me? I saw it yesterday, didn't I?. . .We're here, we're talking. What did you say to [his ex-fiancée]? Because if you didn't want to marry her and you didn't want to go to medical school. . . Look, Jackie and I are going home tomorrow. I'm not letting you leave us again. . .Let me help you Josh, please, come with us! They hug, but he demurs: My life's different now. I'm different. I don't want you to know me. You can't help me. Just leave me alone. She shows up in the next episode pressing him to visit his family. (updated 11/18/2011)
On Desperate Housewives, the provocative web site mogul, the maternal and entrepreneurial landlady "Maxine Rosen" (played by Lainie Kazan), is presumably Jewish, what with dropping Yiddish in the "Truly Content" episode, by Matt Berry, when she "kvelled" at the success of the cleaning-in-sexy-lingerie housewife, and the following week's "The Thing That Counts Is What's Inside", by Jason Ganzel, when she exclaimed at the hunky husband: Look at that punim!, and earthily rued that she'd "ride" him if she were younger. (updated 10/17/2010)
The season started off with the usual sexy Jewish women on TV – Israelis. Hung (on HBO, out on DVD), in the second season premiere "Just the Tip", by series creators Colette Burson and Dmitry Lipkin, the specially endowed teacher and part-time male prostitute "Ray" has just finished having recreational sex with his naked neighbor "Yael Koontz" (Alanna Ubach) in his broken house, but she has complaints different from his clients: Ray, I'm too old for this. Ray: We should probably stop. She shakes her head: Stop what? You mean sex? There's no problem with good healthy sex. It makes for a fun vibe in the neighborhood. . .I'm not in the army any more. I'm too old to have sex on the floor. He: You were in the army? She: Yeah, the Israeli army. You've heard of it?. . Get a bed and some carpet. Your floor is giving me scabs. And you call that a skylight? Ever hear of hiring a professional? I don't remember that she even had a name in the first season or was definitely identified as Israeli, so maybe that's why he, too, was surprised. In the next episode, she buys him a new mattress as a gift. Later in the season in "The Middle East is Complicated", by Brett C. Leonard and Kyle Peck, a beautiful Arab client "Samara" is annoyed when he mentions his Israeli neighbor's "Middle Eastern" food, and she goes off about Israel not being middle-eastern and their humus as an example of all they took from us. The Israeli storms into his house complaining about her husband's use of prostitutes (He has this at home, why would he do it?) and gets angry at finding the Arab's humus in his refrigerator: Arabs can't make humus for shit. You want humus? I'll make it for you. . .I can't believe I fucked such an idiot. . .I'm sick and tired of Arabs laying claim to what the fuck isn't theirs. If you're naive and uneducated enough to listen then I have no time for you! Fuck you! And fuck your Arab humus! Fuck! The Arab client keeps asking him about the married Israeli neighbor: What else does she bring?. . .You can't fuck me and then fuck her and play neutral. . .Then choose a side. . .You fucked me. . .Now you've got to take a stand. Whose side are you on? Whose humus is better? Whose humus do you like the most? Interestingly, at no point in these discussions is there a reference to Jews.
So it was that much more perplexing that "The Key To It All" episode of NBC's Undercover, by Phil Klemmer, was set in Tel Aviv yet featured not a single female Mossad agent, let alone a Jewish woman tourist in the hotel that was taken over by Russian threats. (updated 1/4/2011)
The last season of the NY-set Law and Order: Criminal Intent (on USA, then NBC) had a slight twist on the sexy Mossad agent stereotype in "Boots on the Ground", story by Marlane Gomard Meyer and Paul Sackstein, teleplay by Meyer. The male victim is first seen buying sexy lingerie, and answers "both" to the clerk's query if the recipient is "sexy" or "classic". The detectives find that a follow-up call was made to send one to "Rebecca Landon" (played by Iranian-born actress Tala Ashe). The detective identifies her as a sabra (so I'll presume here that she's more than putative Jewish, though that's never cited), who served with an "elite unit" in the army, which I didn't quite catch, but I presume was Sayeret Matkal, not known for its female membership, and that linked her to the chalk left behind at the apartment balcony crime scene, which pointed to an expert in urban in parkour: You could scale a city wall. She also teaches classes in Krav Maga, the self-defense system of the Israeli army. With a shared congee tattoo and hacking friendship with the victim, she had passed negative information on mercenary military contractors that they collected on to Wikileaks in their joint effort to stop "the war mongering bastards". His mother the ex-member of the People's Liberation Brigade would have been thrilled if [her son] was in love with someone like Rebecca. "Rebecca", who was not his intended recipient of the lingerie as it comes out that she's married, admits that the reason she killed him was blackmail: I got a call. . .They told me my 12-year-old cousin had died in a hit and run. Next time [he] called, I did what he asked. She describes the fatal fight: It was him or my family. The detective sympathizes: He put you in a position that no one should have to be in. and turns to the jealous planner: You had an innocent 12 year old girl killed in order to force Rebecca to kill. (5/18/2011)
In the unfunny NBC sitcom 100 Questions episode "Have You Ever Had a One Night Stand", by co-series creator Michelle Nader, "Wayne" (David Walton) walks into his favorite NYC bar during Fashion Week and espies blonde "French-Israeli" (i.e. presumably Jewish) super-model "Arielle Goodman" (played by Beatrice Rosen, known as Béatrice Rosenblatt in her earlier French work) from his rich past: I saw her in Monte Carlo. Prince was doing jello shots off her stomach. I've wanted her ever since. She remembers meeting him there, but warns him: I'm going to make you work for it. . .I want you to woo me, Wayne. The good, old-fashioned way. When he proffers plane tickets for a romantic getaway, she demurs: You still think money is the way to a woman's heart? I wanted something from your heart. . .Figure it out because you have one more shot. His friend "Mike" (Christopher Moynihan) recommends he write a poem – in her native language, which stumps him. I once heard her talk in a wacky language. The friend gets a negative response to his query: Was it pretty? . . .OK, that was Hebrew. They write a love poem together, and do an online translation into some kind of gibberish. "Mike" is at dinner at the bar with "Arielle": I can't believe you are making me do all this because I don't have any money. She clarifies: I'm doing this to get back at you because you hurt me. . .We had plans in Monte Carlo and you didn't show up. I waited nearly 10 minutes. She's impressed he wrote a poem in her "native tongue": Wayne, that's exactly what I wanted to hear! Let's go to my hotel and get in the tub and maybe you can read it to me. But when he takes pity instead on the drunk female friend he had bet about getting a one-night stand that night, "Arielle" is left alone at the bar, where "Mike" finds her: He told me had to take a rain check. He rejected me for a second time. So he tries out the Hebrew poem on her and she grabs him for a passionate kiss. No surprise - "Mike" is played by the series co-creator. This show was so dumb, no wonder I don't watch many network sitcoms even for the sake of monitoring how Jewish women are portrayed. (7/8/2010)
Until I belatedly catch up with this 2nd season of Community (was on NBC and re-run on Hulu Plus), I happened to distractedly watch “Abed’s Uncontrollable Christmas”, written by Dino Stamatopoulos and Dan Harmon where “Annie Edison (played by Alison Brie) explained her December Dilemma “minefield” because her mother was Jewish and her father was Episcopalian (not that any of the many fan sites were interested in her full quote). Within the hilarious varieties of animation that the characters are portrayed, a friend muses that “Abed” imagines her as a wind up ballerina in Winter Wonderland animation Because you’re fragile and tightly wound. In the finale song, she sings the line: Christmas can even be a Hanukkah thing. That’s what Christmas is for. (12/19/2011)
Joan and Melissa Rivers in Joan & Melissa: Joan Knows Best? are in effect following-up on Joan's year-in-the-life bio-doc Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work, where she was edited as mentioning being Jewish just once in passing. In the first two episodes of this very staged reality show, such that it borders on fiction, the family ties were the closest inference, and then the show was edited to emphasize their identity more, so they are probably the most prominent Jewish mother/daughter team on TV, and their ratings led WEtv cable channel to renew them for 2012.
In the first episode, Joan confides in her best friend how she never confided in her mother at all, but she expects her daughter to tell her everything. So she was hurt not to know that the boyfriend Jason had moved in. While Joan touchingly says she's moved from NYC/CT to L.A. to make memories with her grandson Cooper, Melissa is not just annoyed that grandma indulged by buying him a surfboard he was supposed to earn with good behavior, but that grandma had also told him to keep it a secret from mommy – which he didn't. Joan neatly tied in promotion with doing a favor to impress him, first getting him a tour of the set of Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? that turned into her being a nervous contestant.
Their Jewish identity came out more in "Kiss My Ash", the third episode. It was a bit uncomfortable first when a staff member sitting in on the weekly "family" dinner butted into a discussion of the family "curse" of women who can't cook, with a mention of that old joke about how do Jewish women make dinner, that the Rivers' kind of icily provide the punch line for: "They make reservations." Melissa similarly played on stereotypes when she attempted to bond with her big, muscle-bound, tattooed concierge cooking teacher -- I went to Penn, you're from South Philly.. He commiserates that his 80-year-old mother lives with him and still treats him like a child. She clucks: The Jews and the Italians. Joan spends the episode both seriously and amusingly disposing of the ashes of a long-time family friend, but gets particularly choked up at the end. She explains to the camera that Jewish custom is to light candles on the anniversary of a person's death, but because she misses her friend so much, she wants to be comforted by lighting a memorial candle for him now. She cries while providing an emotional teaching moment to her family: You have to mourn as you want. Don't listen to other people. Melissa sensitively suggests she say good night to her grandson: New life always cheers you up. (More commentary on subsequent episodes coming.) (updated 3/2/2011)
Joan also guested on the “Joan” episode of Louis (on FX) (commentary forthcoming). She later gave him advice: “I can't stress this enough, always be good to older Jewish comediennes who were nice to you when you were starting out and had your head so far up your own ass that you had to clean out your ears just to see. You're welcome. Now, who do I see about my check?”
In MTV's American version of Skins, the British gay boy "Maxxie Oliver" has become the ethnic gay girl Tea Marvelli (played by Sofia Black-D'Elia). In the second, eponymous, episode, written by the father and son series creator team of Bryan Elsley and Jamie Brittain, she's not yet out to her large, very complicated family. Every room in her house is equally decorated with her mother's symbols of Jews/Israel, and her father's of Catholics/Italians. Though most commenters and fan sites only see her uni-dimensionally in terms of her orientation, in a webisode extra, as is done throughout the episode, she conflates her ethnicity, gender, and sexuality by explaining directly to the camera: I know this girl, she's smart, beautiful, kind, respectful. She loves her family more than anything in the world, and they love her back. She falls in love with someone she's not supposed to, someone she knows her parents would never approve of. And it scares her, because she's afraid to disappoint her family. But sometimes you have to follow what your heart tells you, right, because it's the only unbiased voice in all of us. Happiness in love can't be quantified. And it's not what you make out of it, it's what it makes out of you. Who she loves doesn't change who she is. She's still the same kind, respectful person you know, the person I want to be. It's you mom. You were 16 and you fell in love with dad. We're not that different, are we?
In her self-titled episode, "Tea" invites "Betty" (Blaine Morris), who is still in the closet at school, out dancing at a lesbian club, and they have passionate, Ecstasy pills-fueled sex in her room, waking up entwined. Downstairs together, "Betty" is surprised at the crowded, busy house: How many people live here? "Tea" grins: Just my folks. . .Want to meet 'em? She lays on the double entendres as her father enters: Betty came over. . .She likes to chew things over. Dad is vaguely aware they're on the way to school: Can't be screwing around that late – school matters. Gotta pay attention to that. Amidst the chaos, her senile grandmother (actress not yet ID'd), has a heavy Yiddish accent that implies she's a Holocaust survivor (if she were, say, 16 –like Tea is now--in 1944, that would reasonably make her 80+ today) and is mumbling about past presidents: Nixon didn't know how to. . .No one could take their eyes off Kennedy's smile. . .Tricky Dicky. . on their backs. . . Mom (played by Lori Alter), wearing a chai necklace, recognizes "Betty" and is also pleased that the girls are supposedly studying together: The last time I saw you was at [a] christening! . . .She needs a lot of work because she's very lazy. While Dad first criticizes her brother for his profane phone conversation: Don't use the 'B' word in front of your grandmother!, Mom objects in a whisper to something else he says: You have got to talk to him Marco! We do not use that word here . . .the L word. It upsets Grandma – you know that. And the camera focuses on a bunch of lavender in a vase, a visual reminder that will be repeated. Outside, Dad brags about his daughter to another of her friends, who the family thinks is a lesbian: I got a great kid. She loves her family. She's very open-minded. On the bus to school, "Tea" tells her friends that she's fine with helping out her family by dating a boy, in a way that double plays on both positive and negative ethnic stereotypes of Jews and Italians : No biggie – my dad's friends are kinda important. They're into family and sometimes it's good for my dad if I date someone who knows someone.
After school, "Tea" seems to be trying to speak up to come out at a very noisy family dinner: Mom, if I could say just one thing- for Chrissakes!, but her blonde sister "Maria" (actress not yet ID'd) captures their parents' attention by going into early labor with her third kid. (Dad later shrugs about having to support her kids too: The guy ran out.) Oblivious Grandma just keeps mumbling about past presidents: Clinton could get out of trouble like you could get a pageant queen out of her underwear. . . What's the difference, in Arkansas it's a skill --mazel tov! And she toasts him. Later, "Tea" masturbates in her bedroom to a poster of Audrey Hepburn (who also suffered under the Nazis as a teen during WWII). Her addled grandma walks into her room mistakenly, watches her, gets into her bed, and confuses her with her mother: I don't want you marrying that man. . .Italians! All they want to do is get laid. He'll never leave you alone. . . "Tea" confides about her angst that most commenters seem to only interpret about her sexual orientation, but I think is also related to her ethnic identity: Something's wrong with me, Nana. I want the sex. The girls I sleep with bore me. They're catty, clingy, I don't know. It never feels enough. Is it too much to ask for someone to be interesting? I just want to feel equal. Too much? But Nana is snoring away.
"Tea" justifies her dad setting her up on a date to the guy "Tony" (whose girlfriend is their mutual friend): He has family stuff he has to take care of every once in awhile. . . My dad threw his life away to be with my mom. He didn't care that his family wanted to disown him. Maybe he never wanted that world. He loves her. I can't imagine feeling that way about anyone. Maybe I have a screw missing. Which "Tony" (and most commenters) interpret as a sexual challenge: Maybe it just needs tightening . . You're mysterious. Nobody gets in. . .You think you have it all don't you. But I can match you. You met your match.. I took this as also about her broader frustration growing up within a confused identity and yearning for other kinds of equality. Significantly, she takes him dancing to Marlena Shaw's "Let's Wade in the Water" (available on several compilations of British "Northern Soul" music), which updates a gospel song to conflate Biblical Jewish liberation with sexy, "rescue me" funk. "Tony" thinks that means she wants to screw, but she just ends up laughing at his efforts. The young actor who plays him (James Newman) explained in a 1/25/2011 MTV News interview: "They're kind of brought together by this attraction, and I don't think it's necessarily a sexual attraction. . .I think it's a situation where you have these two people who are very bored, with no one in their lives that really gets them, and on that level, it's like a perfect attraction. . .But on another level, it's a disaster because Tea's a lesbian. It's not a situation where it's like she's a lesbian and then she finds a guy and is like, 'I'm not a lesbian anymore.' She really is a lesbian, and so for her it doesn't work, and for Tony, that in and of itself tortures him."
Coming home, she's confronted by a vengeful drug dealer looking for their friend who owes him money. He responds to her sneers: You're a funny little dyke., but her Dad sees them, and he skulks way. She goes into her grandmother's room (filled with Christian and Jewish decorations) and asks to sleep with her. Grandma asks if she's scared, and that gets her free associating about history again, but specifically within a Jewish context. Unlike most other commenters, I interpret her references as, first, linking Nazi persecution of both Jews and homosexuals, then, with how the Allies, under General Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1st Supreme Allied Commander Europe, didn't try to stop the crematoria, including the decision not to bomb the trains to Auschwitz, where prisoners wore forced to wear color-coded badges by their crimes of identity. While taking artistic license with the blending of pink/purple/lavender, her grandmother sees a continuity of persecution from the Nazis to the so-called Lavender Scare, blaming a man who wouldn't protect Jews within the hot war as one who also wouldn't protect gays within the Cold War, who were both branded in hysterical media propaganda as Communist threats by Nazis and McCarthyites alike:
President Eisenhower let me down. Some kind of war hero. He can kiss my ass. . . I told her, 'This is a free country; no one can hurt you now. We got no ghettos here, Marta.' Eisenhower should have helped us. He should have put a stop to it — but it was on the radio every day. I guess they thought between us and the Communists we were going to tear the place down. They even gave us a name, so every body knew what to hate — 'lavender'. I told her, 'It's a sweet flower; how can a flower hurt anyone?' But people visited. They said that wasn't the way Jewish people behaved. And Marta got so scared that they knew we loved each other. I heard she married a farmer in Wisconsin. Everybody's most particular there. Shame on you, Mr. President! Shame on you! She weeps, and "Tea" does, too: I love you, Nana. Grandma: I know you do, Ruthie.
The next morning, "Tea"s sexual and ethnic identities are again conflated to the audience. Dad calls her outside:: I wanted to ask you something. Is this the guy that called you that name?. . . He called you a kike didn't he? "Tea": Actually, Dad, he called me a. . . He turns back to the creep: That' s not going to fly my friend. Kike, that's an epithet, right there. . . See, this is my daughter and she's precious to me. She's not available to have names put on her, scumbag. She objects. Dad: You're a good person, you should be proud of that, kid. Tea: I love you Dad. And Dad's thuggish associates beat the guy up while discussing how to best run him out of town. "Betty" follows up a kiss in front of the other kids at school with a text, amidst "Tony"'s call: I matched you. I matched you good.. But as a strong, independent young woman who feels nobody does match up to her, she blows them both off for a "wade in the water" dance of liberation, like a contemporary Miriam celebrating across the Red Sea.
[Preliminary summary to be expanded., as I may have missed an episode, so I may wait for the DVD.] During the season, "Tony"s continuing infatuation for "Tea" disrupts the circle of friends, and costs him his girlfriend and earned "Tea" continuing sarcasm from "Betty". In the season finale, "Eura/Everyone" written by Derek Harvie, "Tea" resolves her orientation, at least to her satisfaction. She waits for "Betty", who brushes her off, and calls Tony, with long silences: I just wanted to say I'm sorry. For making you want me. I liked it. I liked that you wanted me. Tony: I love you Tea. She I know. I'm sorry for doing that. She visits "Betty" in the hospital, who is high on pre-op drugs to get her ankle repaired. "Tea" teases how the meds will affect her: Will you forget I hate you? "Betty", woozily: You hate me when you're around boys. What do they have that I don't have? All right, all right. And you totally don't give a shit because you're just a bitch. "Tea": Your wrong Bets, I try. "Betty: Sure you do. I want you here. and invites her into her bed. "Tea" has to go off to help her friends, and she and "Tony" instinctively hold hands at a dance club. But she ends up at "Betty"s room, who is post-surgery unconscious. "Tea" strips, gets into the end of her bed, and falls asleep with a smile. "Tony"s younger sister later says of her: The boygirl. [Tony] loves her as well.
Though after her own episode, the series only seemed to reference her confused sexual identity, at least with "Tony", not her ethnicity, so I don't know if the show's creator was only referring to that aspect in his responses to this hostile interview with AfterEllen: "Skins boss Bryan Elsley talks Tea, Tony and Naomily", posted by Heather Hogan, Assistant Editor on 2/18/2011- "AE: Can you talk a little bit about your process for developing Tea? I know you talked to young lesbian women as she began to take shape. BE: Like lots of the characters in Skins, Tea is based on a person in my life, someone I have known for a little while. She has given me an insight into some of her experiences. And there's a very direct correlation between her and Tea. And, of course, Tea was developed in the teen group, both here and in the UK. . . .AE: Fan criticism aside, do you think you accomplished what you set out to accomplish when you started writing Tea? BE: Yes, I do. I mean, the creation of Tea came out of my friendship with a lesbian who I like and respect and think is an interesting person, and my feeling about Sofia Black-D'elia, who I met and think is a tremendous actress. And, of course, from my teen group and writers room." (updated 3/26/2011)
Lisa Cuddy on House, M.D. in the 7th season, and in what turned out to be her last. Now that "Dr. House" and "Dr. Cuddy" are boyfriend and girlfriend, I anticipate we will see her personal side more, including her Jewish identity, and I'll only comment on those references. In the season's third episode, "Unwritten", by John C. Kelley, they are double-dating with his best friend "Dr. Wilson", who has never been particularly credible as a Jew. Regardless, in a go-kart race "Wilson" is side-swiped by his aggressive girlfriend. "Dr. Cuddy": What is her problem? "Dr. House": She hates Jews! Gritting her teeth, "Dr. Cuddy" puts her pedal to the metal, exclaiming: Never... again.
In "Small Sacrifices" by David Hoselton, an episode that tested "Dr. House"s thesis of "Everybody lies" within relationships with Jewish women, we learned a bit more about "Dr. Cuddy": she lied to the Dept. of Human Resources to get her first management job at 29, adding two years to her age to make her look more responsible, and she has a six-day marriage in her past. Meanwhile, we still learn very little about the putatively Jewish "Rachel Taub" (played by Jennifer Crystal Foley), but she's gotten friendly with a guy in an online support group for cheated-on spouses. She explains to her very jealous husband "Dr. Taub" who checked her e-mails: I tell him things I can't tell you. He: Not things about me, about you, about your new job, about coloring your hair, about how you felt when your mother died. I want to know those things! She: He's easier to talk to. He's open and honest. He makes me feel safe. He: Sounds like you love him. She: I'm not having an affair. He lives in Oregon. I've never met him. I probably never will. He: You're having an emotional one. She: Are you equating what I'm doing with what you did? He: I've done terrible things to you, and I deserve all this now, but you can't pretend what you're doing isn't hurtful. And she storms off, but he follows with an apology. ("House" does the same to "Dr. Cuddy", but they are both, in fact, lying as they do so.) She: You think I'm being selfish and I'm not. He makes me feel better about me and about us. He: That is hard to believe, because all I feel right now is betrayed. She: I never wanted that. He: Good, because just like you asked me to stop my behavior, I'm asking you to stop this. She shakes her head and responds like "Dr. Cuddy": I'm not going to lie to you. He: Is this revenge? She: I don't know, but I do know that it's something I need right now. He walks away and confides in his colleagues: It's not over. I just really miscalculated. I thought she'd forgive me for everything, but all those hurt feelings they just don't really want to go away.
In "Larger Than Life", by Sara Hess, there seemed to be some kind of ironic parallels being made again between Jewish women characters at the opposite ends of relationships, though there's still no references as to whether "Mrs. Taub" is Jewish. The "Taubs" are hot and heavy with sex, with her initiating it morning, noon and night. She claims it's a release from fighting for weeks with my sister whether to put Dad in that facility, but he's more and more convinced that she's really hankering for her online friend "Philip" who she's confided in, even as she insists she's never met him. "Dr. Taub" contemplates their 22-year marriage and his infidelities: I don't know how not not to be with her. to his young student, who calls him selfish. Even as the Taubs keep saying they love each other, he finally confronts her: It's my fault. . .Are you happy? She admits she's not, and he asks for divorce.
"Cuddy" tells "House" to come to her birthday dinner with her mom and warns: She's a handful. Guest star Candice Bergen is "House"s clinic patient, "Arlene": I wish that you would take a second look. I'm tired all the time, and when it's cold I get this weird pain in my shoulder.. . .How do doctors get this idea you're better than everyone else?. . .My own daughter is a doctor. She makes a hobby of dismissing my concerns. He: She sounds smart. "Arlene": Did she tell you to say that? He: I've never met your daughter. "Arlene": That's hard to believe, since you're currently shtupping her. He confronts "Cuddy": I have been going out of my way for months now to avoid old Jewish ladies on the off chance one of them could be your mom – and she's a shiksa? "Cuddy" justifies the casting joke: She converted when she married my dad. . .She's the one who ambushed you to find out what you were like because 'I never tell her anything'. He: I obviously can't come to dinner now. She's crazy and she hates me! "Cuddy": Obviously? I need you to come to that dinner. For two hours keep your mouth shut, and behave like an adult. Yes, you will be in hell, but I will feel better having you there. That is what a relationship is. We average our misery. The dinner starts with Mom criticizing how "Cuddy" is catering to her toddler daughter: When you and your sister were growing up, you ate what we ate, no excuses. . . She was a little vilda haya in the park today. Must have been all that sugar. "Wilson" tries to point out the research that counters that myth. Mom shuts him down: I'm sure it's very interesting. I didn't read any studies – I just raised children. Turning to "Cuddy": It's not your fault. How are you supposed to keep up with what she ate? You work all day, you're never home. Then she turns to "House": So, say you two got married? Would you convert to Judaism? "Cuddy" tartly interrupts: We haven't got that far, Mom. "Wilson": That's actually a really interesting question. "House": I'm an atheist. Mom: Honey, half the Jews I know are atheists. It's about community. "Cuddy": House is not big on community. Mom: Why; do you call him House? It makes it sound like you're not serious. His name is Gregory. I'm just trying to help you think about the future. You're a certain age now. The parade of boyfriends can't be as amusing as it was. You need to settle down, like your sister. . . I just don't want Rachel growing up thinking you're a slut. "House" starts telling her off, but Mom freezes – he sneaked a sedative into her drink. "Wilson": I'm relieved. Your mom is quite a handful., but "House" knocked him out too. The next morning "House" warns his staff that Cuddy's mom is in my office and she is really mad. She has settled in, reading his files and sticking her feet up on his desk, and speaks up first: I think we both know I owe you an apology. . .I know I can be a bit difficult. . . In the clinic, you were a complete schmendrick. But once you knew I was Lisa's mother, you held your tongue. That's because you love her. I still think you're a pain in the ass with a God complex, and I'll kill you if you hurt her. But I'm glad she has you. He: We don't have to hug now, do we do? Mom: What do you think? I have a train to catch. . .I'm coming down with a cold. Every time I stay with Lisa or her sister one of those rugrats gets me sick. Children are awful! He reflects on her to "Cuddy": You know, you turned out remarkably normal considering the genes in play. She: Thanks. He hands her a birthday present of a sedatives bottle for when her mom visits again. She: You are a sweet, sweet man.
In a TV Guide interview with William Keck, 12/13/2010, "Candice Bergen Visits House", she described her character as "'a gentile who would prefer to be a Jew. She considers House a goy unable to commit to her daughter.. . .[Cuddy's sister Lucinda] is the good daughter.' . . .Adds exec producer David Shore, 'Arlene's a tough-as-nails woman who's very hard on Cuddy. They love each other, but boy, do they drive each other crazy.'" (More commentary on additional episodes with the mother forthcoming.)
Their relationship was further explored in "Family Practice", albeit with only the briefest Jewish context when the mother calls "House" "that goyishe doctor". (description forthcoming)
In "Fall From Grace", by John C. Kelley, "House"s best friend, the Jewish "Dr. Wilson" makes a veiled Jewish reference when he argues with "Dr. Cuddy" about how she should handle "House" after their break-up: Appeasement is never the answer in the face of naked aggression. It won't be long before his tanks are rolling down your Champs-Élysées.
In "The Fix", story by Thomas L.Moran, teleplay by Moran and David Shore, "Dr. Cuddy" made an unusually explicit Jewish reference. When "House"s African-American #2 warns her about his latest hijinks, she sarcastically remarks: Ma nishtana. . .All those years of medical school and you never went to a seder?. . It's 'Why is this night different from any other night'? And she walks away from him. (updated 5/9/2011)
Ziva David on NCIS in her 6th season (The 8th season on CBS, out on DVD.) Her co-workers' light sexual banter with her continues to be a factor in why the series has become a strongly reliable hit, even as the writers grapple with "Ziva"s changed status into a U.S. citizen. But to continue to see her as sexy, they usually present her more as an Israeli than as a Jewish American woman. In the season opener "The Spider and the Fly", by Gary Glasberg, her colleague "Tony" is curious about e-mails she is getting from a guy she may have been with when on assignment in Florida, but in her usual befuddlement over American pop culture and slang, she doesn't get his references to "looking balmy": I do not know where you are looking. I do not have tan lines., insisting she was lying in the sun just before I came, and came up with thoughts about the case. His curiosity about "the guy from South Beach" persisted in "Royals and Loyals", written by Reed Steiner, as she insists: He's just a friend. But she very uncharacteristically giggled while reading her e-mail, piquing "Tony" even more: Señor South Beach? I'm glad there's someone out there who makes you smile. I'd like to meet him. She's amused: If and when you meet my friend, and I emphasize if, what will you say? He chuckles: "Be careful. Handle with care. Contents -- priceless." He went on to tease her about the British agent she was assigned to liaise with, though, as usual, she didn't get his movie reference to Bond: I'm not into bondage. I can assure you. But he insists the Brit will perceive her as sexually as he does: I'm just watching the pheromones oozing from your body. She protests: I don't see anything He persists: That's because they are invisible. It's just a musky scent given off to attract the opposite sex. She keeps objecting: You're being ridiculous. He combines pop culture references with his perceptions of her: It's true. First your 'Miami Vice', and now your 'Prince Albert In A Can'. Oh, they can't help it – you're just a walking Israeli love machine. Her boss drops a more serious reference to her origins when he revises his instruction to her about the British agent: Watch him like Syria, not Switzerland. In "Worst Nightmare", by Steven D. Binder, she is the only one not surprised by a young woman suspect's affair: I find older men, well, attractive.
"Dead Air", by Christopher J. Waild, reverted her to Israeli to keep her sexy, and treated her as an immigrant with Daddy issues. In this October episode about suburban domestic terrorists, it opened and closed with paeans to baseball. "Tony" rhapsodizes about World Series season: Baseball has seeped into the native consciousness in this country. She frowns: I do not feel seepy. "McGee" is a bit condescending: Maybe you just have to be born here. She shrugs: It's just a game. "Tony" goes on about Field of Dreams: It speaks to the immigrant experience. She is still bemused: I did not become an American citizen because of baseball. As "Tony" goes on, she interrupts him before the case interrupts them: You know, baseball is actually very popular in Israel. They even started their own-- She is confused when they describe a private gated community as representing the American Dream: A picket fence would provide neither security nor privacy. They send her in undercover with her old Mossad identity to take over contact with the isolationist vigilantes: I'm afraid [bomb supplier] is out of business. In his line of work, competition can be a killer. . . .I'm Ziva David – the competition. Her colleagues follow her progress through binoculars. "Tony": How is Miss America doing? Who's she supposed to be again anyway? "McGee": She's playing herself. From five years ago. Before she started at NCIS. "Tony": Sassy rogue Mossad agent. Sometimes I miss that little minx. "McGee": It's only temporary, until we find what our suburban terrorists are planning. "Tony" is critical: She's not doing a very good job. Her body language is all wrong. Classic 'Ziva' would have been more reckless. Her hair would have been more wild. She was very sexual then. "McGee": You think Ziva's less sexual now? "Tony": Compared to the Ziva I shared a bed with five years ago, yeah. "McGee": But you guys were undercover. You were just putting on a show. You were just putting on a show, right? "Tony" just clears his throat. Meanwhile, she is cannily doing her job in a way that plays on an intriguing blend of political shibboleths. She explains to the suspect that the bomb maker's line of work made him an enemy of Israel. Getting rid of him was for country. Doing business with you—now that's for money. I believe I have something that you need. The amateur terrorist is intrigued: A Mossad profiteer working on American soil? Where exactly do your allegiances lie? She: That does not matter. It is not my job to police America. I have other customers. [Bomb maker] had a thriving business. Good luck. Back at the office preparing for another meet, she nostalgically takes out her old set of knives, as "Tony" teases her about "a complete relapse". She's surprised: You did not like me then? At the next meet, her contact comments approvingly: I see you have quite the famous father. She: I see you did your check-up on me. Let's get down to business. She dismisses the other guy's work and demands more money. So he introduces her to the rest of his merry band of conspirators at a backyard BBQ. They explain their motivations by expressing their admiration for Israel (in a secular context, but sounding similar to the evangelicals in Waiting For Armageddon): In a way, you're fortunate. When Israel spends money on its military, it's usually to protect itself. We send money half-way around the world. She parries: You're not fighting a war on your own soil. The others protest (and I didn't get down their whole litany of complaints, which oddly sounded more like liberals than conservatives): Oh, but we are! Crime. . .illiteracy. . .The only threats our government takes seriously are the violent ones. . .Some of us here have decided to become a threat ourselves.
Later, she speaks very personally to the conspirator's daughter: Fathers, they sometimes make mistakes. Mistakes that require a lot of forgiving. Protecting "Tony" from the exploding bomb, she tackles him, ending up on top. He: This is nice. I miss the old Ziva. She smiles: I can tell. He: Don't flatter yourself. That's just my knee. She is surprised how dedicated the bomber was to coach a baseball team. "Tony": You'll understand eventually. She: Will I? She goes to the baseball diamond and picks up a ball and mitt. She calls out: Hey 'Gibbs' – have a catch? "McGee" is surprised at her skill: So you do know a little something about baseball. She grins: Yeah, my father taught me. As her new father-figure, "Gibbs" grins and throws her the ball – a la Field of Dreams.
"Broken Arrow", by Frank Cardea and George Schenck, continued to use "Ziva"s antecedents, even as it opens with her being thrilled to receive My United States of America passport! Her boss explains why he selected her for an assignment at a Turkish embassy function over "Tony": I'm sending another agent who speaks several languages and looks better in a dress. A higher-up is put off by just how good she looks: Does Agent David carry a weapon? "Gibbs" assures him: She is a weapon. She is charmed by "Tony"s con man father, who asks his son: What is your current relationship with her? "Tony": Ziva? We're co-workers. We don't have a relationship. It's strictly business. Dad: Then you won't mind if I make my move , if the opportunity presents itself. But even though she is undercover as his arm candy "Sophia", a notorious Turkish arms dealer recognizes her as "Ziva", daughter of "Eli", who is now working for the U.S., but she is able to put him out.
Two-part Sweeps Week episodes dealt specifically with her changing identity and relationship with her father. (I seem to have not gotten around to transcribing a key background episode from last season, October 2009's "Good Cop, Bad Cop" by Steven D. Binder, where some of these characters also appeared as "Ziva" dealt with the repercussions of barely surviving the mission her father sent her on.) In "Enemies Foreign", by Jesse Stern, she draws guns on two terrorist suspects, but when the man and woman speak Hebrew to each other, she recognizes them as Mossad agents. As "Tony" says sardonically: Oh good, the Israelis are back. The lithe, blonde (i.e. not stereotypically Israeli for TV) female officer (played by the Israeli actress Sarai Givaty) introduces herself: Liat Tuvia. In Hebrew Liat mean you are the one for me, Tony. "Ziva" sneers: In Israel, it is one of the most common names. "Liat" sneers back: Only grandmothers are named Ziva. "Liat" also stumbles over American idioms with him: You are very tongue and ear. "Ziva" corrects: She means tongue in cheek. But "Tony" is eyeing "Liat": Don't put words in the girl's mouth!. Her colleague "McGee" also appraises her: Clearly this is the new Ziva, your replacement in the Mossad. "Ziva" seethes. The very handsome officer "Malachi Ben-Gidon" (played again by T.J. Ramini, a Brit whose father was Palestinian) is amused: Did you think we would not move on after you left us? She turns on him: You left me! "Tony" plays peacemaker: Let's not get hung up on who left, right or wrong.
Back at headquarters, she takes "Liat" to the ladies' room (throughout the episode these Israelis speak English to each other): Outsiders are not allowed unaccompanied in this building. "Liat" again sneers: Congratulations on becoming American. You must be very proud. "Ziva": I am. "Liat": And your family? How do they feel? "Ziva": Y'know, you were personally selected by my father to fill a vacancy in his roster, not his bloodline. And trust me, the second part is not something you want to covet. She recites "Liat"s resume and compares them competitively. "Liat": But I'm not done. Benefit of youth. See, I would expect you to look into past content. But you seem to only care about my abilities with a gun. "Ziva": You have a pet cat named Bill. I happen to like cats. "Liat": Still, I feel this measuring contest would be more at home in the men's room, don't you? Back in the interrogation area, "Malachi" announces that her father is coming to a conference in a couple of days. "Ziva" is aghast: You're lying! My father has not left Israeli soil in 12 years! "Liat" retorts: We're not lying!
"Gibbs" meets with her dad (again played by Michael Nouri), who muses over the late intelligence director who was responsible for bringing our two organizations together. And for bringing my daughter into your life. I'm not here for her. "Gibbs", who has been her replacement father-figure: For Ziva. She has a name. "Eli David": I'm aware. I gave it to her.. . ."Gibbs": You didn't have to make the trip. Meanwhile, "Ziva" and "Liat" find they share a philosophy, doubtless from their training. "Ziva": It is not about the size of the gun. and "Liat" finishes her thought: It is about the will of the shooter. The director asks "Gibbs": How's our own David handling it? "Gibbs": Her father left her to die in a desert. Director: So it's a problem. "Gibbs": Would be for me. Won't be for Ziva.
When "Ziva" and "Liat" prepare security precautions to protect "Eli" from those trying to kill him, "Tony" watches them: Trained killers looking for killers. "Tony" grills "Malachi" about "Liat": Are you her first? Partner, I mean. "Malachi": She is young. What she lacks in experience, she makes up with a passion like I have never seen. "Tony": Am I sensing something between the two of you? "Malachi" smiles: Nothing serious. "Tony": So the two of you haven't slept together yet? "Malachi": Of course we are sleeping together. Just it's nothing serious yet. "Tony": I have to get back to Israel. "Malachi" grins: Next year in Jerusalem, my friend.
"Ziva" and "Liat" talk while on patrol. "Ziva": Given my father's many enemies, we would have been better served with advance notice. "Liat": Do you include yourself? Among his enemies? I wonder if protecting him from assassination is an appropriate assignment for you? "Ziva": Let us find out., and she plays her father in a mock test of their security plans. "Gibbs" bemusedly calls her "Director David" for the test, but she corrects I would imagine he would move more slowly. "Liat" shows up the inadequacies in their plans: A three man team is one thing, but we shouldn't be so naïve as to assume that means only three guns. I'm 'dead' now, but so are you. "Tony" teases "Ziva" about "Liat" besting her, using his usual movie comparisons: I've seen it a million times. The pretty popular girl gets all jealous when the hot new transfer moves in and steals all the spotlight. She's so disconcerted that she reverts to misunderstanding an idiom when "McGee" explains how he's "hung a net" to track down the terrorists. "Ziva": I do not know who Annette is, or why you are so proud of killing her.
The lab tekkie "Abby", who "Ziva" has uncharacteristically been attempting to bond with in earlier episodes, pulls her aside: You should see your Dad. "Ziva": How would that help the case? "Abbie": It wouldn't. Have you even spoken to him? "Ziva" : No. . .What does it matter to you? "Abby": Do you think it's just by chance that he came back into your life? I mean, what about Gibbs and his father, and Tony? Just there comes a point, you know, in your lifetime where - where they come back into your life. Because - because they matter to you, and you matter to him. I suppose that sounds complicated, but believe me, it's not nearly as complicated as knowing they're never ever coming back again. Meanwhile, her father is digging it to "Gibbs": You have a way of making my family disappear. And "McGee" is admiring him: I got to hand it to your father, Ziva. He has who knows how many guns trained on him right now, and he is completely oblivious. "Ziva": No, he's aware. He is always aware of what he does. Not caring about the consequences is what makes him who he is. "Ziva" and "Liat" then very effectively team up to bring down two of the terrorists. "Ziva": You did good. "Liat": So did you.
The captured Palestinian terrorist "Karif Yasin" (played by Israeli actor Oren Dayan) gives a passionate, and not unreasonable, rant against what the Mossad chief has done to his people: Eli David will be eliminated. . .It's war. . .You do not know who he is.. . .He will be lying dead on the street. "Gibbs" concurs, to a point: Yeah, he's a son of a bitch. But I'm not going to let you murder him on American soil. "Ziva" is waiting at the car to take her father to the conference with the NCIS director. Dad: I understand you volunteered for this detail. "Ziva": Yes, to protect my director. Dad: OK, let's go. "Ziva" gets unusually emotional: That's all you're going to say to me? Dad: What is the point? I know that face. You made the same face when I told my brother he could not buy you a pony. Ziva if you want to talk. We will talk. I'm not going to beg. "Ziva": Why not? You know, confronted with the prospect of your own death, another man would want to talk. Dad interrupts: A lesser man! "Ziva" slams the car door: A human man! Dad: Ziva, you are not dead. You are living your life, making your choices. If you choose to let me be part of your life, I would welcome that with open arms. I am saddled with responsibilities that you cannot possibly fathom. The safety of our nation. And every one of our neighbors wants us dead. I don't have the luxury of allowing my feelings to dictate my actions. "Ziva": You do not have any feelings! Dad: I have no feelings?... There was a time, Ziva. When I was quite different. When my house was filled with the sound of children laughing. You and Ari and Tali. There was a time, Ziva. Yes. His guard confides in her: His heart is hidden for a reason. She drives the car fast to avoid an attack. Her director to her dad: Most fathers teach their daughters to drive. I blame you for this. Dad: This she learned from her mother. When the guard lies dead, the fate of her father is left in a cliffhanger for the end of sweeps week.
In the concluding episode "Enemies Domestic" by Jesse Stern, "Liat" is furious about the attack: Someone is going to pay for this!. . .You know, our safe house in Tel Aviv is a concrete bunker - 100 feet below ground. "Ziva" retorts: Meaning this would never have happened there? Because there's no violence in Israel?. . .Are you blaming me? "Tony" and "Malachi" try to get them to focus on the evidence, as they find "Eli David"s blood. "Liat": Why do you assume he was kidnapped? "Ziva": Because it's the only option where my father is still alive. The two women continue to glare at each other. "Liat": He was walking. . .He made a tourniquet to take care of his wounds. He was not abducted. "Ziva": No he fled the scene. "Liat": No, he eluded his attacker. "Malachi" interrupts: He left us a trail to follow. "Liat" finds a message in Hebrew in the dirt, and rubs some of it out. "Malachi" identifies the message as knesset, the Hebrew word for "house or home". But "Ziva" guesses what the original message was, and she explains the Golem to "Tony", who mixes it up with "Gollum" from Lord of the Rings: Golem is a supernatural being from Jewish folklore. He was created from mud to protect the Jews. The mystics etched the word 'emet" into his forehead. When the task was completed the letter 'aleph' was scratched out, changing the word to 'met'. Do you understand what I'm saying?. . . Liat is an overachiever – she erased the entire word. "Ziva" explained to "Liat" how she figured out to go to the nearest synagogue (a really big, decorated one). [Rachel Gostl gave me the clearest and most succinct explanation: "The words that had been written were 'Bet Knesset'; the Mossad agent erased 'Knesset' to change the meaning of the message. "Ziva" told the story of the golem to illustrate how removing a small part can change the entire meaning. When you erase the aleph in 'emet', you get 'met' which means death, sort of the complete opposite of 'emet'."]: But just one question: why did you not trust me? "Liat": You're not with us. "Ziva" yells: Abba! Show yourself! "Liat" protests: Are you an idiot? "Ziva" makes an odd reference to the Passover game: We're not looking for the afikoman! He can hear us if we call him. "Liat": Yes, but you don't know who else might hear. But "Ziva" yells again: Abba! The two women take off their jackets and get into a serious fight – until "Eli" appears: Stop it! What are you doing? "Ziva": He's coming with me Malachi. "Liat": He's not going anywhere. "Eli": Liat, you do not answer for me. "Ziva" tells him his guard is dead and "Director Vance" nearly so. Everyone has questions for you. "Eli": Take me to NCIS. You will have your answers. "Ziva" is skeptical about his explanation: And maybe my father is lying. That is what he does. "Liat" is more sympathetic, and more than a bit flirtatious: When your whole country could be wiped away any day, you don't take tomorrow for granted. "Tony": That's terrifying. "Liat": It was meant to be comforting. The techie "Abby" cites why "Eli" is the probable suspect: He knew how to do it. He just confessed to knowing how to build the murder weapon. I mean, how many people know how to build a homemade claymore mine? "Malachi": In this room? He, "Liat" and "Ziva" join her in raising their hands.
There's flashback sequences to when the NCIS director "Vance" first met her father, on a 1991 assignment in Amsterdam. "Vance": So what wakes an Israeli up in the morning? "Eli": My wife. Though not for several months. "Vance" gets a background briefing on "Eli": We called him 'Mogen David – the star of David'. He rocketed up the ranks of the Mossad. The report says he's involuntarily inactive. He went off the deep end after his wife ditched him for someone else. "Eli" asks "Vance": Who will cry for you if this will accidentally blow-up, turning us into smears on the wall. "Vance": Who'll cry for you? "Eli": I have children. "Vance": Why would you lure a hit team here? "Eli": Because Mossad told me I could kill them. The Russian turned an Israeli sailor. Bled him dry for information, then sent a hit team to dispose of my fellow countrymen. My wife could no longer live with what I do. She took my family, my children, to ensure that they do not grow up to be like their father. This I cannot fight. I need a target. "Vance" later asks: What's your daughter's name? "Eli": I have two – Talli and Ziva. At the end, "Eli" puts a small Israeli flag on "Ziva"s desk: There have been times when I felt this job takes a piece of me. I worry they may be gone forever. "Ziva": Sometimes life--surprises you. "Eli" comes closer: Those are the moments worth living for, my Ziva. He kisses her on the forehead, and leaves.
"False Witness", by Steven D. Binder, was in effect the winter holiday episode, and "Gibbs" seemed a bit thick when he asked "Ziva" where she would be having her Christmas turkey. Her answer was not only not a gentle rebuke, but it's what we do on Christmas too: I'm going skiing. . .with my friend from Miami. . He lived in the French Alps for awhile and he says he misses the snow. Her colleagues continue to be curious about her boyfriend in Miami when she asks for extra days off to spend time with him, in "Ships in the Night" by Reed Steiner and Christopher J. Waild: He travels. . . .That's why I'm using comp time to visit him for three days. "Tony", oddly, teases that he's probably Cuban, which she denies. In the follow-up "Recruited", by Gary Glasberg, the colleagues gossip about her days off, even as "Tony" blithely claims: I have better things to do than to obsess over the whereabouts of our "Little Miss Fancy-Pants.. She calmly reveals, with a smile, more about her personal life than usual amidst their teasing: He came to me. We went skiing again, this time to Vermont. . . He enjoys nature, and I discovered that he's a fantastic cook. He made this delicious osso buco. . . He is an experienced man who knows how to appreciate life. . . .His name is Ray. I promise you, Ray is a good man.
In "Freedom" by Nicole Mirante-Matthews, after bemusedly fending off "Tony"s continuing jealousy about "Renaissance Ray", "Ziva" shows uncharacteristic sympathy with a military battered wife she suspects of murdering her marine husband by citing her experience as a tortured prisoner: I know what it's like to be under the control of a man. To feel like you have no power. And the only way to get that power back is to shut down. You tell yourself you must shut down. You tell yourself to never show emotion to anybody. I know what that's like. It's the only way you can survive. I also know what it's like to seek revenge.
At some point I will describe/transcribe her romantic relationship with “CIA Agent Ray Cruz”, which I was slow to do because I’m in a minority, non-PC view compared to other fans. I appreciate actor Enrique Murciano as a hunk, who was a prime reason I used to watch Without A Trace, but I was a bit disappointed with the hints first that her lover was Latino, only because I was hoping she’d keep dating Jewish and/or Israeli men, despite that her earlier such boyfriends kept getting killed off. (updated 1/26/2012)
Rachel Berry in the 2nd season of Glee (on Fox, Season 2 out on DVD) is pilloried with nasty put-downs that are eventually followed by a modicum of sympathy, opening with—"Finn": Rachel is what you'd call a controllist. Rachel: I'm controlling – controllist isn't a word. The second season premiere "Audition", by Ian Brennan, continued in that vein with club members calling her "an ambitious little freak" and her motivations attacked for dirty tricks against a talented new foreign transfer student from the Phillipines (including sending her to a wrong address at a crack house), who she first thought would make a good back-up singer, but she then saw as potentially taking solos from her: You didn't do this because you love Glee Club. You did it because you love yourself more. While her boyfriend defends and protects her, her apology is mostly in singing "What I Did for Love" (from A Chorus Line).
In "Britney/Brittany", written and directed by series creator Ryan Murphy, she's an overly possessive girlfriend now that she's won the former quarterback: I want to be the only thing that makes you feel good about yourself. She expands on that later: The only way this relationship is going to work is if we're both losers., but he assures her he'll let everyone know she's his girlfriend even if he is back playing football. She finally apologizes for her jealousy and they end up walking hand in hand down the hall. To her boyfriend's shock when changes to sexy outfits: I had a very vivid Britney Spears fantasy at the dentist, and since its made be feel free to be out of my own way. I've always been afraid to dress like a pretty girl because I never really felt like one before. Now I realize it's OK to feel like it now and again. Maybe it's a good thing., garnering unusual compliments from Mean Girl "Santana" who goes from accusing her: Hey dork, did anyone ever tell you that you dress like one of the bait girls on To Catch a Predator? to Well, congratulations. Normally you dress like a fantasy of a perverted Japanese businessman with a very dark specific fetish but I actually dig this look. Yeh. Gay "Kurt" is also approving: It seems that Britney has really helped you blossom. But it gets pointedly sneering that the only straight guy who has a positive reaction is the annoying "Jacob Ben Israel" with the big Isro—that "Brittany" calls "a Jewish cloud"-- who is driven to a sweaty, exaggerated sexual frenzy at the mere sight of his crush dressed like that.
Even if this is PR-ese, the parallels between perceptions of the Jewish actress and her character resonate in these interview quotes from Marie Claire, November 2010, around a cover story and series of sensual photos in designer outfits: "My acting teacher and music teachers didn’t really like me and they kind of ignored me. . . I was told by agents and casting directors I wasn't right for TV. I didn't feel that but I was told it and you believe it. I was always working on Broadway and auditioning for TV - things like Law & Order - but there was never anything. . .The minute I read it, I wanted to play Rachel because I felt like I understood her, and that she was part of me. . .Glee has made me feel beautiful. Now when people say that I don't feel like they're lying."
"Grilled Cheesus", by Brad Falchuk, dealt directly with religion, and was somewhat less mocking of "Rachel". Her boyfriend "Finn" finds religion in the Jesus image on his grilled cheese sandwich, and bends his knee to this icon for football success and: Rachel's a prude. . .but they're still girl boobs and I'd like to touch them. . .Please answer my prayers. But when he proudly announces his new faith in Jesus Christ the two Jews in the Glee Club are startled. "Puck": I'm a total Jew for Jesus. He's my number one Heb., but he' doesn't want to be bothered. "Rachel" is so upset that she sits "Finn" down in her room: Let's talk about your new-found love of Jewish and how it affects me. I want this relationshpo to go the distance, but I need to know that when I'm 25 and I've won a bunch of Tony's and I'm ready to have intercourse and babies that those babies will be raised in a certain way.. He mumbled under his breath: You're not going to have sex until you're 25? She: I want my children to be raised in the Jewish faith. Both of my dads' peoples were slaves once. I need to know that my children will be free to workship in the way that I decide is right. He: Sure, of course, yeah, they should totally go to Jew church and wear those hats and eat that salty stuff on their bagels She's grateful: I'd like to give you something in exchange for what you've given me. - second base, and he credits his new icon: Rachel's boobs are really awesome. Later, the club talks about singing spiritual songs on behalf of gay "Kurt" who is facing a personal crisis with his father's serious illness, but they are thwarted by his protests against religion in public school. "Rachel" takes this personally: I found the most perfect song to sing, and now its being torn away from me like Sophie's daughter! "Rachel" takes "Finn" outside so she can sing him her selection because Yentl was outside when she sang this song in the movie. --"Papa, Can You Hear Me?" "Rachel" later joins two other classmates at the hospital to pray for the father, as "Mercedes" explains: Rachel, Quinn and I are taking turns. We're from different denominations. "Rachel" explains to the angry "Kurt": We just wanted to do something.
In the episode "Duets" by Ian Brennan, with the theme of sympathy for people who are different and "special", the series continued its mix of both zapping "Rachel" big time and sympathizing with her a bit, here amidst a singing competition. "Rachel" confesses to her boyfriend: I'm not really a nice person. I'm selfish. I'm only really generous if there's something in it for me. "Finn" cheerfully agrees: Yeah, but I still like you. She: You're so kind and open. It's made me want to be a better person. But because they've together sung a lovely version together of Elton John and Kiki Dee's "Don't Go Breaking My Heart" that they both decide would be bound to win, she explains to him how they can encourage the new guy to stay in the Glee Club so they'll win Nationals: We have to throw the competition. . . . He: Wow, Rachel, I'v never seen you like this. I'm impressed. She: Like I said, You inspired me. He: Technically you're doing this because it'll help us win Nationals so there's something in it for you so it doesn't really count as doing something nice. She: I'm just going to ignore what you just said. . .We have to find a way for the new kid to win the competition so he sticks around. Later she plots with him: Being the IT couple is so much harder than I thought. . . I am so stumped on how to lose this thing. In order to lose, "Rachel" and "Finn" giggly scheme to pick a lousy song and peform it offensively. (So they sing a love song ,"With You I'm Born Again", inappropriately dressed as a priest and a Catholic school girl.) "Finn" assures the new kid he no longer has feelings for the head cheerleader "Quinn": I'm with Rachel now. I mean she's a lot shorter than Quinn and she talks a lot, but I'm in love with her. "Quinn" also cites her in considering whether to partner with the new guy: What I need is to find a way to torture Rachel. So "Quinn" is very suspicious when "Rachel" promotes the partnership as a way for her to be "on top of the proverbial pyramid in every aspect of your life": What's your angle? . . Me winning means you losing and you'll do whatever it takes to make sure that doesn't happen, so what is in it for you? "Rachel": I agree, you're probably not going to beat Finn and I. But I just thought as the team captain, it would be good for the team to have healthy competition for 2nd place. While "Rachel" feigns surprise to the club at the outcome of the vote, "Finn" whispers congratulations when the other duo wins: We did it Babe. To make nice, both in the plot and, I think, to mollify the audience's impression of her, at the end "Rachel" approaches "Kurt" at his locker: I think that you and I are a little bit more similar than you think. "Kurt": That's a terrible thing to say. "Rachel" commiserates from personal experience: I know you're lonely. I can't even imagine how hard it must be to have feelings in high school that you can't act on for fear of being humiliated, ridiculed or worse. But we're going to win Nationals this year. And you know how we're going to do that? Because we have you. "Kurt": That's true. She: That's 12 people who love you just for being exactly the way that you are. I know you're lonely, but you're not alone. So, I was wondering if you would maybe want to sing a duet with me. I think you'll be really happy with my song selection - it's sort of everything both you and I love. He: But the duet competition is over. She: I thought this one could be for me and you.. The episode ends with their triumphant performance of "Get Happy/Happy Days Are Here Again", as originally done by Barbra Streisand and Judy Garland, with Michele superbly, full-on channeling a schmaltzy La Streisand, complete with sailor blouse and holding hands. (Wasn't it odd that Oprah managed never to use the J-word when Barbra had her final guest appearance on the show, even with their look back with Redford at The Way We Were, and had to be hastily reminded to add that the design book she was promoting could be given as a Hanukkah gift as well as for Christmas?)
In "Never Been Kissed", written by Brad Falchuk, the cheerleaders in the glee club snarkily comment they are surprised that "Rachel" is quiet and not bossing them around as usual. She testily explains she is fulfilling the teacher's assignment of opposite gender behavior, but zings they are sewing the sequins on the costumes wrong.
From Dave Itzkoff's interview with Ryan Murphy in The New York Times online 11/20/2010: "Q: You’ve said the bullying storyline won’t be contained to just this episode. How will you work the other characters into it? A. At the beginning, it is about the Chris Colfer character [gay Kurt], certainly. But as we get deeper into the episodes, it will be about how all the other kids are tortured and bullied. The kid in the wheelchair. The Jewish girl. Because they stick up for Kurt, they will all get increasingly tormented. So it’s not just about gay bullying – it’s about all different kinds that happen in schools. And how really, also, it’s about how educators struggle with what to do and when and how to do it. That’s something we are spending a lot of time and energy exploring – the teachers’ culpability and how, hopefully, we’ll shed a little light on the stress and struggles they go through, that in so many school districts, their policies are wrong."
In "The Substitute", by Ian Brennan, the series continued the annoying practice of condemning bullying of "Kurt", but tittering at put-downs of "Rachel" that are supposed to be compensated with recognition of her talent. With "Mr. Shue" out sick, she takes over the club: What solos would you like to hear me perform at Sectionals? They rebel, and "Kurt" begs the sub, "Holly Holiday" played by Gwyneth Paltrow, to take over. When she takes attendance, "Santana" mocks: I'm Rachel, [Finn's] loud girlfriend. The sub immediately sticks it to "Rachel": You suck! You're like a total drag! Has anyone ever told you that? "Puck" passes by: I have! "Rachel" later concedes: Maybe I should be more like you – all fun and forget about the consequences. Sub: Frankly, yes, you should. At least sometimes. When was the last time you did something just because it would be a blast? I mean you have all these great ideas. When was the last time you actually did one of them? . . .I used to be just like you, trying to get everything so right, hanging on so tight. (She's seen in geeky flashback.) "Rachel": What happened? Sub: I got punched in the face. "Rachel" agrees she needs to perform an upbeat number: I kind of need a partner. The sub grins with her 'catch phrase': I thought you'd never ask! They do an exuberant song and dance duet of "Nowadays/Hot Honey Rag" from Chicago, ending with a hug. "Rachel" throws her support to bring back "Mr. Schuester: I used to think I was the best thing in this school. But I was wrong. It's Mr. Shue.
"Furt", written by Ryan Murphy, continued the bullying protest, and even revealed a scintilla of misgivings for picking on "Rachel". She agrees with the rest of the group that "Kurt" is depressed, in her selfish fashion, and argues that they should help him: He's barely even competing with me for solos. Similarly, when he announces he's leaving for another school: I've never been so disappointed in you before. . .Does this mean you're gong to be competing against us in Sectionals? In another story line, she confesses to "Finn" that she didn't really have sex with "Jesse". "Finn": I had a feeling, considering how much of a prude you are with me. Not that I'm complaining. She smiles: Now we can save it for each other. So he warns her nemesis "Santana" to keep secret that they had sex: If Rachel found out, she'd break up with me. "Santana: And this would be bad because? He responds chivalrously: Because I'm in love with her and I don't want to hurt her feelings. "Santana" sneers: That midget? She's like an anchor dragging you down. He: Stop it Santana! That's my girlfriend!. She: Then maybe I'll tell her. If you two broke up, we'd be free to see each other, right? Later, "Rachel" comes in all dressed up for "Finn"s widowed mother's remarriage. "Finn": You look amazing! I just really love you! She glows with a "Me too." In "Finn"s toast, he calls their coupledom "Finchel". There's a bizarre side story where the cheerleader coach "Sue Sylvester"s mom shows up to attend her daughter's just plain odd solo wedding after years away from her family claiming to have been a Nazi hunter: And to think I was going to send you to Israel for your honeymoon. They love me there.
"Special Education", by Brad Falchuk, continued to mock "Rachel" in a way it condemns treatment of other characters, even while appreciating her talent and empathy from "Kurt", albeit with a Jewish jab. She starts announcing that she has made the selection for her solos for Sectionals, when the Glee Club teacher interrupted that he's changing the focus to dance. She: What – they're going to dance in front of me while I do my solo? "Mr. Shue": You are not getting a solo in this competition, Rachel. "Mercedes" is, well, glee-ful: Finally! So what song do I get to sing? When he announces who will be duetting, "Rachel" calls them "Ken and Barbie" and "Quinn" snaps back: You used to just be dislikeable, but now I feel like punching you every time you open your mouth! "Finn" supports "Rachel", calling her "the star quarterback", and arguments ensue. "Santana" attacks: Your boyfriend is a hypocrite. "Rachel": Like you even know what that means? "Santana": It means your boyfriend is full of crap, Hobbit. "Rachel" confronts her: You know what, ever since the wedding, you've been up my butt and I'm sick of it! "Santana" points to "Finn" for defending "Rachel": Oh yeah? Well, that's not what you thought last year in that motel room. That's right, Yentl. Your sweetheart – he's been lying to you. Because he and I totally got it on last year. "Rachel" is upset: Just tell me if it's true. "Finn": OK, I'm sorry I lied to you. But I just thought that if I told you the truth you'd get so mad at me. To tell the truth, you're kind of scary. She: Don't you see that it's a lot worse now? Why her?. . .Do you think she's prettier than me? The guidance counselor interrupts – it turns out they're talking in her office: Don't answer that! "Rachel" explains: My dads went to couples' counseling because one of them put up wallpaper in the den without asking the other and they said it was the only thing that kept them from killing each other. We need your help. That's why I set up this counseling session. The counselor suggests they use their talents and try singing to each other, like betrayal songs by the Eagles. But "Finn" argues: Why are you so caught up with who it was? She: Is it because she's hot? He: Yes, sure, she's super hot. She: As a therapist, is it therapeutic for me to slap him right now? The counselor quickly: I'm not a therapist. Maybe you should storm out.. And "Rachel" does.
She ostentatiously walks into the next Glee Club with duct tape over her mouth (and wearing a loud polka dot outfit) and confronts "Mr. Shue": You silenced my talents. I'm merely protesting. . .My talents are wasted in this club. My star shines too bright and I think you're threatened by it! He's having a bad day himself and very uncharacteristically explodes: I'm tired of this Rachel! You have a terrible attitude! You are a lousy sport! And it is not OK any more! She rises: Well, I'm upset! I'm furious about this! A couple of things, actually. (And glares at "Finn".) "Mr. Shue" expands: I'm sorry you're disappointed, but you could also make the choice to be happy that we're part of a glee club that is bursting at the seams with talent. There's an awful lot of 'my' talk going around. 'What's in it for me?' 'What solo am I going to sing?' Now when we go to Sectionals we're going to be good sports. . .When [others] win we're going to congratulate them because that's what we do. Out in the hallway, "Santana" blows a kiss to "Finn", and blows by "Rachel": Did I tell you he bought me dinner after? "Puck" stops by and is uncharacteristically empathetic: Rachel, are you OK? She: Are you talking to me? Are you going to steal something from me? He explains how his recent ordeal being locked inside a port-a-pottie for 24 hrs. has affected him: I promised God that if he got me out of there I'd start being nicer to people. No way I could do that, so I changed it to just Jews. He sympathizes about her "boyfriend troubles" and they walk down the hall arm in arm, with she complimenting his muscles.
Her lonely practice is later interrupted by "Kurt": Don't bother spying on me to get a leg up on solos. I'm getting to Sectionals in my mind. But he's there to ask for help with his solo audition: Because even though we hate each other, we've had our moments! And I could use your expertise. And no one knows how to kill a ballad quite like you. You are as brilliant and talented as you are irritating. She: This might be my only chance to sing for a little while, so I'll give you a couple of tips. She nixes his Celine Dion selection, and urges him to do a more personal choice: Do you ever fantasize about your own funeral? He: No. She: Of Finn throwing himself into the grave out grief and all the heartfelt speeches and the regrets.. He: That's insane. She: Clearly no one in the Glee Club appreciates me. So is it wrong for me to fantasize about them finally realizing how amazing I am and it being too late? And there's only one song that expresses these feelings. She takes center stage, and then she and "Kurt" exchange verses of, this is very funny, Evita's "Don't Cry for Me Argentina". Wherein, "Kurt" is told that the goal at his new school is to fit in, not stand out. At the competition, she helps him get ready. He: How come you were never this nice to me when I was your teammate? She: Because you were my only real competition. They hug it out and from the audience she reminds him to smile.
But it turns out he already knew about "Finn"s infidelity, and she confronts the Glee Club: Everybody knew but me! "Santana": Nobody tell you anything because you are a blabber mouth, and we all just pretend to like you. "Puck": No, I kinda like her. "Finn": It happened when you were dating another guy so you don't really have a right to be pissed at me. OK, I shouldn't have lied about it. But that's not what you really care about. What you really care about is the Santana of it all. She: Who are you right now? Guys, you're going to have to find somebody else to mindlessly harmonize in the background, because I'm not going on stage with him! But the teacher gives a pep talk to them all, and they tie winning Sectionals, and she even hugs "Finn" in all the excitement. Back at school, she's walking the stairs with him: When I started Glee Club, Mr. Shue said being part of something special makes you special and somewhere here along the way I lost that. But winning at Sectionals reminded me of that. "Finn": So we're part of something special, you and me? She says "Yes." He: I love you. No more lying. Ever. Hug. She: There's something I need to tell you. Last week when we were fighting? I was so mad at you that I wanted you to feel as bad as I felt. I'm so sorry, but it will never happen again. (We see the flashback of she and "Puck" making out for a bit before he decides he can't betray "Finn" again.) But "Finn" is mad: I thought you were a lot of things, and I loved you because and in spite of all of them, but I never thought you were mean. She: I'm saying I'm sorry. Didn't what you did with Santana kind of cancel this out? He: We weren't together then! I didn't cheat on you. How could you do this to me? She: It was a mistake! Maybe we should go to another counseling session. He: You can't have couples counseling if you're not a coulple. She: You're breaking up with me? He: What you did was really bad Rachel, and you knew how sensitive I would be about this after what happened with Quinn. He walks away. She calls after him: You said you'd never break up with me! He: I never thought you'd make me feel like this. Back at class, "Mr. Shue" announces: I think we should celebrate the best waywe know. So Rachel, how would you like to solo? She: I don't really feel like a solo right now. She defers to "Mercedes", walks out, and tears down "Finn 4Ever" from inside her locker.
"A Very Glee Christmas", by Ian Brennan, lamely didn't even try to deal with the December Dilemma. "Rachel" tries to win back "Finn" by creating a winter wonderland on stage, explaining: Being a Jew, I don't usually give Christmas gifts, but given how much you care about the holiday, I can make an exception. She offers him a I.O.U. to pick any song for her to sing. He declines, but she: Just like Broadway, the show must go on. Besides, the AV Club worked so hard on the snow. But instead of a generic winter song, she sings a schmaltzy 'Merry Christmas, Darling'. She keeps pursuing "Finn" with more Christmas songs: Last Christmas I asked Santa to give me you., but he keeps backing off: You mess me up Rachel. Can't you see how screwed up I am about this? I've had two girlfriends and both cheated on me. You can ask Santa again next year, but I'm officially breaking up with you. She invites the glee teacher to share Christmas Eve at her house: We're going to eat Chinese and watch "The Main Event". Was the plug that the inventor of the movable legs for the paralyzed kid is Israeli supposed to make up for the lack of even a token mention of, or conflict about, Hanukkah? I was so disappointed that there wasn't a Hanukkah song on the album either.
Michele sang "America the Beautiful" during the Super Bowl, but there was no reference to her Jewish identity in the bruited post-episode "The Sue Sylvester Bowl Shuffle" by Ian Brennan, and even her personality was somewhat on its best behavior. While she first objects to the football team joining the glee club for the week in loyalty to our two dads --I will not be in the same room with known homophobes!--she quickly lets her preening ego win out over her principles: As offended as I am by their appearance here, I will not let anything get in the way of a performance., and she does a sweet duet of Lady Antebellum's "Need You Now" with "Puck" intended to make "Finn" jealous.
In "Sexy" by Brad Falchuk, the only references to "Rachel" are cutting remarks by "Santana", about how she wears tights to how she takes over temporary chairmanship of the Chastity Club: Because you take over everything? (More commentary coming, particularly on "the Jewish nose" episode.) (updated 3/11/2011)
18 To Life (Canadian Broadcasting Corp. summer import to the CW, which was scheduled to run 6 weeks of 2 episodes a week, but pulled it after just 3 weeks. CBC ran the full first season and renewd it for a 2nd season.) In this Montreal-set sit com, created by and mostly written by Derek Schreyer and Karen Troubetzkoy, about 18 year old next door neighbors rushing into marriage, "Ben Bellow" the groom is from a secular Jewish family, whose father converted. Mom is "Judith" (played by Ellen David, who has also gone by the name Ellen Cohen), and also has two daughters, the younger "Wendy" (played by Arielle Shiri) living at home and "the big sister from Downtown" "Monica" (played by Kaniehtiio Horn). The joke is that the gentile family is easy-going, leftist hippies, while the Jewish family is conventionally straight-laced, so both are initially against the marriage. As "Judith" protests the engagement in the first episode "A Simple Proposal": Why are you doing this to us? . . .We're not going to stand by and watch our only son ripped from our arms!.
Here's the CBC's character descriptions of the Jewish females:
"Tom's mom, Judith, has a way of making Ben believe all her ideas are his, which makes her the real power of the house. Though her primary role has been Ben's Wife, Judith has had a few jobs over the years. When Ben was struggling to complete the bar, she ran a successful mail order business from home that more than paid the bills (though Ben's conveniently forgotten this episode of their lives). Still, she is much more comfortable exuding control from places that are hard to see. Judith is a traditionalist, and if the term may bother her feminist neighbours, well, she'll pour it on even thicker to rile them."
"Tom's older sister is the practical one, when she's not over-imbibing. The consummate latté-swilling city gal, Monica will bend over backwards to convince Tom of his mistake. Yet to discerning eyes, Monica's Sex-In-The-City lifestyle doesn't look too hot. One day Monica will discover she's actually upset her little bro beat her to the punch. But until then, she'll aim plenty of scathing barbs at Tom without spilling a drop of her latté."
"If there's one person who could prevent Tom from growing up, it'd be his little sister Wendy. Theirs was (and still is) a relationship of Three "T's" - teasing, tickling, and torturing. A rebel in sheep's clothing, Wendy relishes taking Tom down a notch or three. Growing up, Wendy and Tom enjoyed playing "blame the other", a game at which Wendy was particularly adept. But they're also fiercely loyal. Wendy's a precocious teen, possessing an adult vocabulary and insight that at times can be disconcerting. Though she has big ambitions in life, for now she enjoys being a kid, something she hopes Tom doesn't forget himself."
Are Jews in Montreal known to be right-wing conservatives? In the third episode, "It's My Party" by Jenn Engels, "Judith" fondly reminisces about meeting her husband at an anti-nukes rally – when he was attacking the demonstrators. "Monica" is portrayed as money-conscious, planning to "invite all of Mom's rich friends" to the bridal shower, rating the guests by net worth, and anticipating which expensive gifts she can take as her cut for planning the party; the mother of the bride sarcastically calls her the fraught sobriquet "princess". "Judith" confesses she hadn't told her friends about the marriage: Then maybe I wouldn’t have to tell them when my 18 year old son gets divorced., then relenting and inviting them over for a "Mazel Tov!" when she hears just how the bride has loved him since childhood.
"Goy Story" by Skander Halim, who also wrote Pretty Persuasion, was full of exaggerations that seemed to be intended to be realistic, not satiric, but I recognized echoes of how my nephew finessed between his mother and his bride:
"Judith" has invited the couple over for dinner: So Jessie, how do you like the matzo ball soup? "Jessie" responds sweetly sarcastic: It needs some bacon bits. "Tom" quickly adds: She's kidding! "Judith" is casual: I knew that – joking's in our DNA! She and her husband kibbitz about various Jewish comics, but she moves on: You know, Jessie, there's probably a lot you can learn about our people. "Jessie" takes a big breath: You know, guys, there's no way I would ever conv- "Tom" interrupts quickly: converse about something like this without keeping an open mind. "Judith": So you'll both come for dinner next Friday? Because I've invited Rabbi Goldstein, that's the rabbi who converted your father. . .So what's the technical term for a divorced Jewish woman? A plaintiff!
The couple talk in the library. "Tom": I'm just saying, if you come right out and say you're never converting, there's going to be huge drama. "Jessie": If I don't press and crease my jeans there's huge drama with your mom. . . So you want me to let her think there's even a possibility? That doesn't solve anything. It just delays the inevitable. "Tom": Yes, but the inevitable takes so much longer when it's delayed. "Jessie": But isn't that incredibly disrespectful to your religion? "Tom": Disrespectful to the rabbi, maybe. But to the religion, solid. It's just a white lie. Not even white – translucent. [The rest of the episode revolves around hiding and revealing various lies – including the ridiculous one that somehow his dad has been hiding from his wife all these years that he didn't go through with the circumcision.] "Jessie"s mom lectures her against organized religion as oppressive, so insists on joining them for dinner, where she turns her nose up at paper plates and plastic utensils – how classy and wasteful! "Judith" explains: It just so happens that the rabbi keeps kosher and we do not. It's a religious observance. The in-law snorts: Good to know you kill trees to go to heaven. . . Why are you trying to brainwash my daughter? "Judith": I am merely trying to expose her to a different way of thinking. I mean she's an open-minded, intelligent girl, like – there must be someone. What's [her father's] mother like? "Judith" excuses her elder daughter as she proudly serves dinner: Here comes my famous kugle!. . .Wendy is at a Young Conservatives rally. The mother-in-law whispers: Do you see Jessie? This is how they rope us in.
The Rabbi addresses "Jessie": Judith said you expressed an interest in our faith. "Jessie": Actually, I think she expressed that interest for me. Her mother interjects: I just have to get this out there. It is possible to live a life without being bound by religion. "Judith": If you like to drift around aimlessly with no direction or purpose. The in-law: All right, Jessie is not converting! "Jessie": All I'm saying is that, while I respect your religion, I'm not really comfortable with the intention of this dinner. Her mother: Some of us feel religion has wreaked havoc the world over. Suddenly, the older sister "Monica" shows up and her brother asks her not to make things worse: Tom, please, what kind of manipulative, self-serving bitch do you think I am? But she starts hinting at her father's lies, asking the rabbi about the brit and circumcision, for a silly discussion that leads to exposure all around, including "Tom" blurting out about his wife: She has no intention of converting. Never did! "Monica" grins at the shouted chaos: Best family dinner ever. L'chaim! (updated 9/3/2010)
Entourage - Mrs. Ari Gold in the 7th season (on HBO) While I still haven't gotten around to commenting here on the previous season of my favorite Jewish couple on TV, this season's opening episode "Stunted", written and directed by series creator Doug Ellin around a theme of macho posturing, had what I think was the first time one of the boys commented admiringly about their marriage. As "E" faces his own nuptials, he stops "Ari" from his sarcastic jokes about his wife: You're the perfect picture of marital bliss. The Mrs. is seen a couple of times on the phone demanding that "Ari" join her at a school parent/teacher conference: I like it when we do these things together! She's almost mollified with a promise of a fancy dinner when he cancels again – almost.
"Buzzed" by Ally Musika introduces jealousy for one of the first times in the series, as the Mrs. catches "Ari" congratulating a comely, ambitious colleague in the office– when he was supposed to be shopping with her for a vintage chandelier. This becomes a key incident for "Ari" for the season, as he risks his business and reputation to appease his wife to prove his fealty to their marriage. In "Dramedy", by Ellin, his kids warn him before breakfast that their mother is mad at him. Their daughter warns: You have have done something wrong! He nervously pleads with the Mrs. in the kitchen: Tell them, honey, that we're all good. Mrs.: What am I so upset about?. . The slut who ruined your best friend's career and marriage is still working in your office. I still don't understand why you didn't fire her last year! And if that wasn't enough, for some reason you were spinning her around as if you'd just won Dancing With the Stars. Why were you spinning her around, Ari? He explains his excitement over getting an NFL team for L.A. But the Mrs. persists: I don’t like that gal, Ari, I don't like her one bit. But that night when he announces what he did at work, she's taken aback: What? You fired her? Now I feel bad! "Ari" shows his priorities: She'll be fine. What about us?
In "Bottoms Up", by Ally Musika, the "Golds" are having uncomfortable sex in bed, with the Mrs. yelling "Ow!" several times, until she pushes him off her: Why are you so angry? He apologizes, and admits he's mad at the woman he fired, who is on a revengeful tear through Hollywood. Mrs. is annoyed: You were thinking about her while you were having sex with me? Do you have some kind of confession to make? He explains how she's been raiding his clients: Baby, that's what marriage is for, to have sex so you can bang out your anger. I'm sure you've done it to me. But the Mrs. walks away. He confesses that he has been neglecting some of his clients due to the NFL deal. Mrs: Yeah, you've been neglecting some other people too. He: "Baby we were just having sex! Mrs: You were having sex! He pleads for her to come back to bed: Baby, you can't leave me like this! How am I gong to work? Mrs: Work yourself Ari. That evening, the Mrs. comes home to a hallway strewn with rose petals, leading to "Ari" in a petal-filled bed: I saved the most important meeting of the day for last. Let me show you how much you mean to me. Mrs: Maybe I want to hear it. He: Can I do it after? I still have blue balls from this morning. Mrs: You lost your hustle. He: I love you! You are the most important person in the world to me! I owe everything to you! You're beautiful! She smiles: OK, you can tell me more after we're done. And she strips to reveal scanty, sexy lingerie. As they kiss in bed, with her thonged ass prominently in the lens (that ties together the theme for the episode), the phone rings. She answers it: I'm giving you a taste of your own medicine. He gets bad business news, so that even when he gets back to kissing her she asks: Are you angry? I'll take a rain check. and walks away with a swaying wiggle.
In "Hair", by Ellin, the Mrs. comes to the office after he has gotten awful news about the public revenge the fired woman is taking. Ironically, the Mrs. comes in criticizing him for how he talks to his new assistant, as the ex-employee claims to have tapes of how he talks to employees. The Mrs. has come in with swatches to redecorate his office: I would like you to be involved. It would give us something to do together. We never do anything together. He disagrees. Mrs. Not any more we don't. . .Since the merger, I don't feel good. . .Because you're never home, and with this NFL thing. . .I feel like you've been keeping a lot of secrets lately. He promises her dinner to talk about it all, but she's waiting in the car when he stops to deal with his biggest client's latest disaster.
In "Tequila and Coke", by Ellin and Ally Musika, "Ari" has to deal with his image vs. the truth about his relationship with his wife. He explained to "Lizzie", the woman he fired: My wife wanted me to get rid of you. . .She wanted you gone. "Lizzie" retorts: I wouldn't have pegged you for bending to your wife's demands. He gets uncharacteristically serious: I talk a lot. . .The tapes could be a problem for my family. . .The NFL is nothing compared to my wife and kids. When he confesses to a studio executive that he's been faithful to his wife, she's surprised: You are actually one of the good guys – despite what people say. There's a side joke of a phone call to singer Lenny Kravitz on the phone in full Jewish regalia in a synagogue, explaining: My niece's bat mitzvah is Saturday and I've got to help her get her voice right. The Mrs. forcefully leveraged the collision between her husband's personal and professional lives in "Sniff Sniff Gang Bang" by Musika, in the aftermath of the release of tapes revealing how he talked to employees. She's sulking in the dark bedroom. He comes in complaining about the bed in the guest room. She: I didn't tell you to sleep in there. I told you I didn't want to have sex and that's how you took it. He: You said you didn't want to talk and you didn't want to have sex. What else is there to do in here? She abruptly sits up: Do you want to talk? He: I'd rather have sex. She: Well, let's talk. I am so embarrassed and humiliated! He goes on about his workplace: As I am. She quotes from the web postings: Horrible things that you said! He: You knew the man you married! She: Now the whole world does! The kids at school, their parents, my mother! He: So this is about everyone else? She: No, this is about us. She gives as an example when she called his office that day. How many calls did you take before me when all this blew-up? I was on hold for ten minutes! He: I came here. She: Three hours later! That's what I mean – you put the business before family. He: Baby, you and the kids mean everything to me. Nothing else matters. You tell me what you want me to do. She: Honestly, I don't know. She walks out of the bedroom. At the office, he puts off others clamoring for his attention: Now I have bigger problems – like with my wife. . .I'm going to a meeting with my wife.
So they end up at another session of couples therapy (with the Dr. played by Nora Dunn). Mrs: It just came to me – I should look at this as a blessing. 'What can I do?' he asks. So what are all the things I wanted him to do that I have never said? Dr: It’s nice to see you have finally found your voice. He: When has she not had her voice? Dr: I have never heard this kind of pro-active conviction from her side. He: She's always had conviction. That's why I love her. She: Ha! He: What – do you doubt that? She: Since the merger you’ve been elsewhere. He: I've been very stressed. Dr: Do you not think he loves you? He: C'mon now! Don't be ridiculous! She: Would you let me answer please! Yes – I know he loves me but- He: Wait, is this about what happened to her, or other things? Dr: Please let her speak. She: Please let me speak! I know he loves me. . . His phone rings. I know he loves me but it's always on his terms. I'd like to lay out mine. Dr: What are they? She: First of all, no Blackberries in the house! He: Don't be ridiculous! She: I knew you'd say that! So my solution is have callers contact your assistant and he—and only he—may call the house. He: I will try that if she lets me check that message right now. It must be important. We can try that. Dr. Fantastic! She: And no more promises you can't keep. Dr: Let' s stay away from the abstract. She: OK, If you break another promise, or lie to me, I'll have to seriously review our relationship. Dr: Do you hear what she's saying? He, quietly: Do you really feel that way? She: I do. Dr: Sorry, we're going to have to end now. He: No and fuck you, with that fucking clock! She: And I want you to work on your anger, too! Dr. suggests meds. She: I've begged him to take Zolof! He: Baby, I'm who I am, but I love you. I don't want to break any more promises, so I won't make them. . .Do I get to make any requests? She: Such as? He: No more therapy! She: I think more therapy! I think twice a week. You are not getting off the hook. He: OK, therapy every day if you want. Here, let's have Doc move in with us, but please let me check this message. She: Fine. He: Can I please go? She: Go! He leaves. Dr: We'll talk about this next week.
In the penultimate episode of the season, "Porn Scenes from an Italian Restaurant", by Ally Musika, the Mrs. tries hard to enforce "Family Night" with no business calls at a bowling alley with their kids. She also tries to share some time with "Ari" during a suit fitting as he again keeps insisting I'm all yours. but runs out into the street to a famous client. But that night the conflict comes to climax at the famous Wolfgang's restaurant. "Ari" keeps dashing to a hidden phone, whi.e the Mrs. keeps trying to calm him. Disrupted phone conversations lead to a confrontation in the middle of the restaurant with his female nemesis. At first, the Mrs. supports him by frostily blowing her off: You must be the one who sent the tapes of my husband., and tries to get the two to agree to meet the next day, and him to sit down. The nemesis tries to explain that a disgruntled assistant was really the source for the tapes, but at this point "Ari" is shouting and "Mrs." is so mortified that she grits her teeth and stalks out.
In the season finale, "Lose Yourself", by Doug Ellin, the "Golds" marital crisis is paralleled with his main client's meltdown. When that client annoys "Mrs." by not showing up as promised to their son's Little League game, "Ari" scurries around preparing a surprise 40th birthday party for her. John Cleese points out the futility of his plan: She hates your guts. . .You do not want your wife walking into a surprise party when the only thought your wife has in her head is about killing you. "Ari" comes home early to find "Marci" (played by Illeana Douglas) there to comfort my ailing sister, who is in tears: She married a scumbag! Mrs. interrupts her husband and sister shouting and cursing at each other: Yes, Ari, I'm ailing badly. Do not speak to my sister like that! Fuck you! Are you going to call her a whore? Are you going to to fuck another woman? Fuck you! and she storms upstairs, despite his repeated apologies. He pleads and bribes the sister to get her out of the house for the party prep and then to be back in time. But the sister returns alone: She's not coming. I had to tell her. I didn't want her walking into an ambush. I'm going to get some of her things. Mrs. herself calls from a bar: I'm sorry. I can't face all those people. He pleads that he'll clear the guests so that it'll just be the two of them, repeating how much he loves her, to no avail: Just come home! But she persists, dislodging the rock of his life and the most romantic and stable Jewish couple on TV: I need a break, Ari. From us. I need some space. I'm going to pick up the kids and go to my mother's. (updated 10/1/2010)
2009/2010 Season
I have an extra category in my commentaries on Jewish Women in (and Missing from) the Flicks, and I could add "missing" for a TV show this season. In the confusingly mixed-message series Drop Dead Diva on Lifetime: Television for Women (summer Sunday nights. 1st season on DVD), I kept wondering if the plus-size lawyer "Jane Bingum" (played by Brooke Elliott), known for being brilliant and aggressive, was Jewish before her dead body was inhabited by the soul of a vacuous skinny ninny. But I couldn't figure out why she sounded Jewish until I saw Janice Rhoshalle Littlejohn's TV Guide interview with the show's creator Josh Berman from 7/27/2009: "Berman says the series is less about being big in a model-size world than about the struggle for identity. 'I don’t know anyone who hasn’t felt like an outsider at some point, whether it’s a weight issue or an ethnicity issue or religion. . .My grandmother, who I based the character on, was actually a Holocaust survivor—she was 14 years old in America and all by herself—so talk about feeling like an outsider.'” . (updated 7/8/2010)
United States of Tara (Showtime, Monday nights at 10:30 pm and On Demand) in its second season gave us the oddest putative Jewish woman on TV yet, surpassing the faux Cherien Rich. "Dr. Shoshana Schoenbaum" (spelled several ways even on the official site) first appeared in the 2nd season's "You Becoming You" by Dave Finkel and Brett Baer. Referred to as the former Manhattan therapist of the gay neighbor and writer of a self-help book, she becomes an additional alternative personality projection of Overland Park, Kansas suburban housewife "Tara"s dissociative identity disorder, complete with New York accent and Yiddishms. (6/2/2010)
I missed the first half of the first season of Party Down (on Starz, Friday nights and On Demand if your cable system is more reliable than my TimeWarner Cable), so I've been catching up to find hints if the woebegone "comedienne that happens to make ends meet as a cater-waiter” "Casey Klein" (played by Lizzy Caplan) is supposed to be Jewish (my nephew was sure she is). The closest hint I've gleaned so far is in the 2nd season's "Nick DiCintio's Orgy Night", by John Enbom, Dan Etheridge, and Rob Thomas, when she tries to explain to her ex-boyfriend his new girlfriend's feelings for her pet fish through commentary one can infer comes from the classic Jewish children's book The Carp in the Bathtub, by Barbara Cohen and Joan Halpern. Another actress reduced to naked waitressing commiserates with him: I got 'too Jewey' once…and I was auditioning for The Diary of Anne Frank. (updated 10/10/2010)
A putative Jewish woman showed up in NBC's Heroes, "Lauren Gilmore" (played by blonde Elisabeth Röhm, whose character suddenly became Jewish in Law and Order back in 2005 and whose "Bitsy Epstein" didn't strike me as even putatively Jewish earlier this year in the "New Beginnings" episode of the new 90210). In "Once Upon a Time in Texas", by Aron Eli Coleite and Aury Wallington, she gratuitously complained that because of her secretive work with the company, that was then bagging and tagging those with special abilities, she had to lie to her mother why she couldn't attend her nephew's bar mitzvah.
The actress said in a TV Guide interview she will be a recurring temptation for an office romance this season of "Villains" for "Noah Bennet" aka “Horn-Rimmed Guy” aka HRG, who here turned down her offer to turn their co-worker friendship into a motel tryst: "She’s just a bad-ass kind of guy like him, but a girl. . .[they] have a past, that I can’t say is exactly romantic, but there’s definitely love between us. There was a period in time when they were incredibly close – nothing happened but they were really close – and you could see that there was a real bond between them. [Something] was almost going to happen, but he was still married at the time. So she erases her memory of when it started to become a little hot and heavy between them. . .What I love about the storyline, is that it’s the question of soul mates. If you know nothing about somebody, do you still sense them? Once her memory is erased it’s still undeniable. I think we are meant to be with certain people. Whether we remember all the details, it’s just a deeper connection. . . and because I worked with him, I really understand him, and that sort of brings him to life in another way. . .The emotional relationship between HRG and Lauren is really well-written and really well-realized. And then of course there’s all the intensity of the plot and the action that goes along with their mission together professionally. So it’s got a little Mr. & Mrs. Smith to it." When she returned in "Chapter 10: Thanksgiving", by Adam Armus and Kay Foster, she's living in D.C. and working for the C.I.A.. They meet in the supermarket where she helps HRG shop and then prepare dinner for his daughter, his Ex, and her boyfriend, even as he keeps telling them she's just an "old friend". She's wry when the Ex first presumes she's the hired help: Mistaken for a domestic. That certainly breaks the ice.. Later she defends him: I think Thanksgiving dinner was his way of showing [the daughter] that she has a family who loves her. When he suggests they follow up with Christmas dinner, she deflects: How about a movie? and gives him her phone number. She made another putative Jewish reference in "Chapter 11: The Fifth Stage" written by Tim Kring. She and HRG are setting out on a movie date (She: Who said anything about sex?) when she agrees to help him out: Working for the CIA has a few benefits, like waterboarding terrorists, some pretty decent bagels, and the ability to triangulate cell phone calls. He confesses to her that she had the memory of her feelings for him erased: You chose the high road. She: So now you're single, playing the field and you thought you could re-ignite the flame?
In "Chapter 13: Let It Bleed" by Jim Martin, "Lauren" may be the first political liberal in the series. When a restaurant owner recognizes her sardonically as "The Iron Maiden", HRG explains: Just a little nickname you earned back in the day. It's a compliment. But later she stops him as he ratchets up interrogation of a suspect: Noah Stop! Torture doesn't work! I may have been the Iron Maiden back in the day, but I have changed. You may think I'm shoving my liberal agenda down your throat, but you are losing your target with your emotions. . .These medieval tactics are getting you nowhere! (updated 1/6/2010)
The Simpsons celebrated their 20th anniversary, 450th episode in "Once Upon a Time in Springfield, by Stephanie Gillis, with a twist on the usual putative Jewish woman – she sure seems Jewish, but she's not. "Princess Penelope", voiced by Anne Hathaway with a very thick Long Island patois, is set to marry her life-long crush "Krusty the Clown", My Borscht Belt Baby, under a chuppah, when Krusty’s father, "Rabbi Hyman Krustofski" surprisingly announces: “We are gathered here today to marry a Jew and — a Congregationalist? Is that even a thing?. (updated 1/15/2010)
I was late to The Big Bang Theory bandwagon, as it hadnt’t occurred to me to watch for a Jewish woman, so I’m slowly catching up with the stereotyped presentation of “Mrs. Wolowitz” in this season by watching repeat episodes in syndidcation. But I noted when Mayim Bialik was introduced at the end of the third season (May 2010) as “Dr. Amy Farrah Fowler”, because she frequently plays a Jewish character. Ironically, she was first a punch line in “The Bat Jar Conjecture” episode, initially broadcast in April 2008, teleplay by Bill Prady& Robert Cohen, story by Stephen Engel & Jennifer Glickman. “Raj” suggests asking the girl from “Blossom” who went from being an actress to getting a PhD in neuroscience to be on their Physics Bowl team. “Leonard” nixes with: We are not getting the girl from “Blossom”!
Bialik herself makes the connection in her blog (where I’m tempted to ask her if she’s discussed the portrayal of “Mrs. W.” with the writers) and in a 12/22/2011 interview, with USA Today’s Whitney Matheson abput her character becoming a regular on the series: “But I'm a Jewish person who only wears skirts, so I'm very happy that Amy seems to keep the level of modesty that I like to keep in my personal life. (Laughs). . . Obviously, that What Not to Wear gave me a lot of publicity, and it really kind of put me back in certain people's minds. But that was kind of the funny thing -- then I get cast as this frumpy-to-the-max character who basically breaks every fashion rule that Stacy and Clinton have ever given to anyone.”
Even as none of the press notices, in promoting Beyond the Sling: A Real-Life Guide to Raising Confident, Loving Children the Attachment Parenting Way, she noted about her book tour (where she also celebrated Purim in NYC, including the pre-fast): What I Learned: “4. Bling. I love wearing a Magen David, and I don’t really care if it doesn’t ‘match’ the look of the outfit. I like being seen in it and it makes me feel really protected and ‘myself’ in situations that can challenge even the most confident of people.” So it was interesting that Barbara Walters on The View brought up her observance only off-screen as one of her “Top Ten The View Moments: . . 8. My dress. Barbara asked me off-camera about my clothes and said she was surprised to see me dressed ‘like that’ because she knows I am… conservative. That’s code among Jews for tznius… I know The View has featured some kind of negative stories about religious Orthodoxy and Orthodox women in particular in the past. I smiled at her and said, ‘I’m covered knee to elbow. I came to observance late in life and this works for me.’ She smiled back and said, ‘You look beautiful.’ Kind of an amazing moment.” (updated 3/18/2012)
In House, M.D. this season, "Dr. Chris Taub" (played by Peter Jacobson) is back on the team, and while it's still not 100% sure if his wife (played by Jennifer Crystal Foley, daughter of Billy Crystal) is Jewish, the "Ignorance is Bliss" episode by David Hoselton skirted suggestively with a couple of Jewish women stereotypes about money and castrating their men. When a colleague rags him about what his wife thinks of him again quitting a lucrative practice, he ruefully notes that he's been relegated to the living room couch. He finally brings it up with her after a long day at work, while she's reading in bed: We have to talk about this. She: It's late, I'm tired. He: I know it's a big pay cut, but I'll always have a chance to make money, but I won't always have a the chance to do this job. She: That's what you think? That it's about money? He: So it's about that I didn't consult you before I took this job? She:That was offensive. But it's not about that either. He:So then – can ;you give me the first letter? She:When we got married, you were an intern working 30 hour shifts doing grunt work and we both put up with it because we knew it was leading to something better. In your private practice you called the shots. But now you're 40 years old and you're still doing grunt work. He: Is that what this is about? You think I'm a wuss? She: He made you miss Thanksgiving dinner. And to prove her point his beeper goes off. He then puts in action "Dr. House"s maxim of "Everybody lies.": he takes a photo of "Dr. House"s bruised face from his colleague's punch and tells his wife she was right, that he was the one who told off the boss and insisted on ground rules. She's first worried: Is he OK? Are you going to be fired? Arrested? Wow! And then she gives him a big sexy kiss and he gets mighty lucky.
In "Black Hole" by Lawrence Kaplow, they are arguing, he thinks about couples therapy. She: We're arguing over the fact that we never do anything together any more. . .I love you but if you start talking to me again like I'm on the witness stand I swear I'm going to break your neck. . .What do we do gether just the two of us? He tries to keep it at going out to dinner, but she keeps arguing, and complains about her to his colleagues. Later they exchange sexy texts, including while she's grocery shopping – but unbeknownst to her, when she arrives at the hospital for some afternoon delight in their car, "Dr. House" is the author. Her husband covers up by pleading for trust. Though she's a bit suspicious that he's made out in the car with someone else (and the episode continues to show hints that he still might be untrustworthy), at least there was one of the biggest visual clues yet that she too is Jewish. After he proposes to re-new their vows, they together look through their wedding pictures where he is wearing a yarmulke at a presumably Jewish wedding.
It continues to be a mystery that the series keeps portraying "Dr. Taub" as a ladies' man, when, come on, Jacobson is quite plain compared to the lovely Ms. Crystal Foley, and he's no longer a rich plastic surgeon. But in "Open and Shut" by Sara Hess and Liz Friedman kept the story line going, what with a patient who is in an open marriage. She's surprised he tells her about the patient: You're bringing this up because. . .? It's more interesting than your other cases? . .You don’t usually mention your patients. . . Is an open marriage something you want? . . All this time. . . There's somebody else? Be honest. . You want to. . .But it never occurs to me to act on it because I'm married. You are enough for me. Aren't I enough for you? By this point she's weeping over her restaurant dinner. Later he insists to a colleague that Rachel is worth it. because I'm 5'6", have a receding hairline. His wife later confronts him: Know what the worst part was when you had that affair? It wasn't the sex. It was the lies, realizing that the narrative of my life was totally wrong. You weren't struck in surgery, you weren't out. . .I don't want to go through that again. She then proceeds to set stringent rules for his affairs, and he's taken aback by her permission. She responds: It's what you want isn't it?. . .You want that thrill. . .But I love you and I really believe that you love me and we've got a llive together. At this point, I either walk away or I try to accept who you really are. "House" gives "Taub" a hearty "mazel tov" at getting his wife's blessing. But later "Rachel" weeps while meeting "Taub" at their car. I can't do this! I'm sorry. He claims he doesn't need anyone else. But later he kisses a nurse in the same garage. (5/15/2010)
Lisa Cuddy on House, M.D. in the 6th season: Once again in this series "Dr. House" made a comment about "Dr. Cuddy" being Jewish without any acknowledgment on her part. In the unusual "5 to 9" episode by Thomas L. Moran that focused completely an A Day in the Very Busy Life of Dr. Cuddy, there was no Jewish paraphernalia glimpsed in her apartment or any Jewish references made by her. However, when she asks "Dr. House" for advice on her tough, brinksmanship negotiations with an insurance company, his rejoinder is: Despite what you may have learned at Hebrew School or from Jimmy Cliff, sometimes the bigger they are, the harder they kick your ass. (2/10/2010)
A putative Jewish woman was in the second episode of White Collar (on USA) In "Threads" by Clifton Campbell, there were only clues that the beautiful witness to a murder by an Israeli counterfeitor during Fashion Week in NYC might be Israeli, whose many tangled necklaces possibly included a Star of David. Played by frizzy-haired Carmel Amit with a possibly Israeli accent, "Tara" explains she was at the party because she wants to be a model: I came here to get an agent, make contacts, not this. She helped the FBI by recognizing that a contact was speaking Hebrew on the phone. When she wears a sexy dress to trap the bad guy, she tries to allay her nervousness: If only I could wear it on a runway. Her handler keeps reassuring her how beautiful she looks and encourages her: Who's to say you won't one day? (11/3/2009)
Even in the third season of Showtime's Californication I'm still only classifying “Marcy Runkle” (played by Pamela Adlon, née Segall) as a putative Jewish woman, though she described a nice dress as "a schmata", in "Mr. Bad Example" by Gina Fattore and Matt Patterson. Maybe if I was more convinced I'd bother to describe in detail her drug and sexual escapades (including bedding her teen crush Rick Springfield) and transcribe her profanity-laced dialogue. (updated 1/20/2010)
In the two-part 5th season episode "Hostage Takers" by Raymond Khoury of the 2006 British spy thriller Spooks, but shown this year in PBS syndication as MI-5, a dead Jewish wife was the reason the analyst "Neil Sternin" (played by Matt Day) betrayed the U.K. He helped a Mossad plot to thwart the U.K.'s effort to sell nuclear technology to the Saudis because his wife had been killed in a terrorist attack in Tel Aviv. He is so motivated for revenge that he even leaves his computer to kill another agency geek who has discovered his role, before killing himself. To balance the uneasy trust issue of Jews with dual loyalties, the Jewish government bureaucrat who supported the deal, along with his wife, are among those taken hostage by Mizrahi Israelis posing as Al Queda types. (2/10/2010)
On NBC's Mercy "There Is No Room for You on My Ass" St. Patrick's Day episode, by Peter Elkoff and Colleen McGuinness, "Heather" (played by Kate Middleton) the wife of "Mike", one of the very Irish Flanagan brothers, is suddenly and quite gratuitously revealed to be Jewish. This provides fodder for a lame joke where he claims that the family meeting in a circle isn't an intervention for his PTSD sister, but could be "like that dance at Jewish weddings". Even his wife is incredulous that he means the hora. "Heather" loudly defends her sister- in-law: What the hell did she do that was actually so terrible? She shot an armed robber. She beat up some skel who pimped out her kid. Instead, as long as the family is gathered together, she screeches nastily to her husband: Let's talk about something that is terrible. Like his porn addiction! He is a chronic masturbator and it is ruining our marriage! He yells back: Well, I have got to have sex with somebody! Unnecessary and unfunny. (3/22/2010)
In the Pilot of Deep End, written by David Hemingson , "Rachel Blau" (played by the ubiquitous Noa Tishby) is a potential client for the Los Angeles law firm from a Tel Aviv-based foundation working for peace in the Middle East that is "hunting for stateside representation". She talks fast Hebrew to a handsome young associate, who happened to be wearing a yarmulke because he was just back from a brit. She calls the Aussie a nice Jewish boy like you. . . We're cut from the same cloth, which is the only thing I care about in selecting a law firm. Except the closest "Liam" can bring himself to telling her he's not Jewish is to sheepishly say I like bacon. When he brings the papers to her hotel to sign, she supports TV's stereotype of beautiful Israeli women by sexually assaulting the guy. He protests: This is inappropriate. . . I actually worked kind of hard on this. She purrs: Let's just confirm that. . . Ooo., as she discovers the uncircumcised truth with her busy hand. She sends him a bottle of champagne and a note about silence is golden. (1/23/2010)
The Secret Life of the American Teenager, in its third season episode "Til It's Gone", story by series creator Brenda Hampton, teleplay by Elaine Arata and Jeffrey Rodgers, managed to find the most cliché Jewish woman possible. "Dr. Jeff Zegay" (played by My Boys hunk Reid Scott) is in bed with his older girlfriend, a blonde Evangelical Christian pastor's widow, as his phone keeps ringing – it's his mother and he keeps ignoring it. The girlfriend suggests: We could have sex while you talk to your mother on the phone. He's sarcastic: Ooo, a Jewish boy's dream! but she doesn't get the sarcasm. He explains that his mom calls him a lot ever since his brother died. And then post-coitus his mother walks into his bedroom! Played by Annie Abbott with a Yiddish inflection: This is the widow? I thought you were dead Jeffrey! You didn't answer the phone! "Jeff" is surprisingly calm: I was going to call you in the morning. Mom: You should have answered the phone! The girlfriend: I told him to answer the phone. Mom smiles: Good! Thank you. Your husband and my son have only been gone six months, but I like you. Life goes on! Do you have children? . . .Do you want more? .. .Something to think about. Good night. And next time, pick up the phone or you know what will happen! After she exits, the girlfriend moans with embarrassment. "Jeff" is still calm: Don't be. She's a liberal Democrat. No judgment. Unless you're a Republican. . .Oh no. . I’m glad we had sex before I found out. But she confesses to cheating on them by voting for Obama, just like she cheated on her late husband.
I guess Hampton and Rodgers figured they then compensated with "The Rhythm of Life" episode. I had specifically been watching this season to see if Mayim Bialik's eccentric and forceful guidance counselor "Dr. Wilameena Bink", with her internet degree and controversial past of going to the prom with a student, was Jewish and I thought early on she clearly established she wasn't. So where the heck did this impassioned speech come from that shamed all the gossiping mothers and daughters standing around at the Mother and Daughter Dance she organized that she opened with a very funny version of "The Chicken Dance" and closed with this monologue: It has been a wonderful evening, but it's time to say good night. But not so fast. I have a few things I need to say before we go. My grandmother and her sister spent three years in a concentration camp when they should have been in high school. And they survived. They survived, they said, because every night, rather than sink down in to the horrors that were going on around them, they imagined that they were once again dancing in their living room while their father played the violin. And they found the courage and the will to live, driven by the memories of dancing with their mother, and wanting so much to have just one more dance. When they told me that story I thought wouldn't it be great if I could get a bunch of girls together with their mothers and dance? Create some kind of special memory that just might get us all through high school? That's possible isn't it? To take each other by the hand – mothers and daughters and dance away the pain that goes on every day in our hallways? Granted, it's not a concentration camp and there's no war going on here, but there are wars and there are wars. If you've ever been made fun of or you've ever made fun of another girl, join me on the dance floor won't you? If you've ever wanted what another girl has and resented her for having it, join me. If you want to do what the other girls are doing because you don't want to feel insecure or left over, stupid or inferior, join me. If you've ever wanted a guy just because he was going out with another girl because you wanted to hurt her, join me. If you've ever wanted a guy not because you're interested in him but because you wanted to beat out the other girl in some sort of bizarre race for the guys, join me. Join me, mothers and daughters. Join me in stopping the meanness and competition that goes on every day in our hallways. Not only do women have the power to unite and stop all the wars going on in the world and I believe we have the power, but have the power to stop the wars within. And there can be no peace until there is peace within. This is for Grandma Sadie and my Great-Aunt Pearl. And she grabs a mom's hand to lead them in a circle dance to "Hava Nagila". (updated 2/20/2010)
The sci fi conspiracy series Fringe (on Fox) has had continuing dark hints of revived Nazi science since its first season. But "The Bishop Revival" by Glen Whitman and Robert Chiappetta was the first to link it to targeted Jewish genocide. The episode opens at the Milton-Staller (presumably inter-faith) wedding in Brookline, MA. "Nana Eve Staller" (played by Magda Harout) arrives with her daughter and brushes aside plea to take it easy in order to get inside quickly. Meanwhile, her daughter-in-law welcomes her son's bride "Shelley": I'm so happy you're joining our family. David is lucky to have you. Family is very important to me. That warmth becomes ominous foreshadowing. The grandmother is horrified by the sight of an uninvited young bespectacled blond man and points at him accusingly: It can't be! It can't be true! It's him! It's him! And then she and all 14 of her direct descendants collapse choking to death as their blood turns blue (an illegitimate grandchild is unaffected). The investigators find she has concentration camp numbers tattooed on her arm. Later the audience can see a photo of the staff of a pre-war German lab – and there's the face of the same guy who released the poison in the air.(2/10/2010)
Nip/Tuck also had a woman Holocaust survivor in the penultimate episode of the series "Edith and Walter Krieger" by Brad Falchuk. So what don't "Edith" (played by Hildy Brooks) and "Walter" (played by Harold Gould) don't like about themselves? (That's each episode's usual opening line.) She speaks up first: We want our tatoos removed. . . It just occurred to me when I was watching a documetnary on the TV about Buchenwald and suddenly I was overwhelmed. And I thought, well, we have lived such a great life, we've survived so much since there. So I want to erase this obsession with terrible things from the past.. "Walter": You can see she's a remarkable woman! Their daughter "Allison" (played by Amy Pietz) interjects: That's not what you said in the car, Dad.. He tries to hush her, but she persists: How can I keep my mouth shut when Holocaut deniers are more vocal than ever? When so many survivors have passed? Why would you two want to erase one single reminder? "Edith":