October brought us the long-anticipated second season of Netflix’s hit show Nobody Wants This. Last year, I wrote about my disappointment in the program’s portrayal of Jewish women. I wondered if season two would fare any better—and to my surprise, it did.
The show’s creator, Erin Foster, loosely based the series on her own life. The show explores the interfaith relationship of podcast host Joanne (Kristen Bell) and Rabbi Noah (Adam Brody). In season one, the non-Jewish women were portrayed as fun and carefree, while the Jewish women were nit-picky and irritating. That stereotypical portrayal received significant backlash, and it seems Foster heard the criticism loud and clear.
The character of Esther (Jackie Tohn) who was happily-unhappily married to Rabbi Noah’s brother, Sasha (Timothy Simons), undergoes a complete transformation. Her husband’s emotional affair jolts her into realizing she may not be as convivial as she once was. As she reconnects with her past self, she reclaims her independence and joy.
Last season, Esther was positioned in stark contrast to Joanne: naggy and explicitly “not fun,” while Joanne was effortlessly entertaining. In season two, we see Esther’s character go through a strong evolution. Her shifts range from the small—changing a dinner-party playlist from Solange to Ms. Lauryn Hill’s Doo Wop—to life-altering, like asking Sasha for a separation. Doo Wop may be Lauryn Hill’s trendiest song and Sasha may be a loveable oaf, but by pursuing her own bliss, Esther is freed from the confines of the Jewish American Princess stereotype and becomes far more dynamic (even if the romantic in me hopes she ends up back with Sasha).
Rabbi Noah’s ex-girlfriend, Rebecca, is finally humanized. When the pair meet for a relationship post-mortem, we learn that Noah had been leading her on by naming their imagined future children, calling her his “forever family,” and even planning a trip to Portugal two weeks before calling it quits. Where season one painted Rebecca as erratic and manipulative, season two reframes her shock and anger as justified. It is unclear whether this reversal was engineered in response to critics or part of Foster’s long game. Perhaps I should have been more patient.
In Judaism, it is never too late to make things right. Just over two months ago, we gathered for Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. In its second season, Nobody Wants This performs a kind of teshuvah, a rehumanizing act of moral repair.
Rabbi Noah’s mother, Bina (Tovah Feldshuh), does not receive the same character reversal, remaining firmly opposed to Joanne. In episode two, she appears to soften when she sees her son’s girlfriend encouraging him to embrace his emotions. But the moment is short-lived. When a friend comments that the couple is “really tied together,” Bina claps back, “And I’ve got the scissors.” As in the previous season, Joanne’s relationship with her prospective mother-in-law takes one step forward and two giant steps back.
But perhaps this storyline is holding up an uncomfortable mirror. Maybe we, as Jews, need to be more honest about how we treat outsiders. If Foster wrote Bina based on her own experience marrying into a Jewish family, then perhaps we should take that portrayal seriously and examine how we can be more welcoming, as our tradition so often instructs.
We do get glimpses of Bina’s capacity for kindness. She comforts Joanne’s despondent sister, offering the wise insight that “if you are hurt by what [a] person said . . . it is because you think these things are true.” Bina is not inherently cruel; she is afraid. Her son’s relationship with a non-Jew threatens her, and she is not alone. For generations, Jews have worried that intermariage would dilute an already small population. I will never forget a fellow Birthright participant yelling at me from across a hotel conference room that her grandparents hadn’t survived the Holocaust for my parents to intermarry. This fear runs deep. Yet a 2021 Pew Study found that “the offspring of intermarriages have become increasingly likely to identify as Jewish in adulthood.” The data suggests that intermarriage is not erasing us. In many cases, like my own family, Jewish identity emerges stronger.
Rabbi Noah experiences his own reckoning when he loses out on a promotion due to his interfaith relationship with Joanne. He’d been gunning for the senior rabbi position for years. Unhappy in the shadow of Senior Rabbi “Big Noah” (yes, they’re both named Noah), he leaves in search of a new spiritual home. He is soon hired by what seems to be a Humanistic congregation called Ahava.
Unfortunately, that is where the show makes its most glaring religious misstep. During Rabbi Noah’s job interview, Senior Rabbi Neil (Seth Rogan) praises him for a Tu B’Shvat sermon that “completely changed the way [Neil] mourned.” I was momentarily confused as Tu B’Shvat celebrates the environment and has nothing to do with mourning, until I realized he meant Tisha B’Av, the sombre day marking the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem. It is an understandable mistake for a layperson, but not a rabbi, no matter how atheist. Perhaps Rogen was improvising, as he’s known to do, but it’s disappointing that a show about a rabbi didn’t have anyone on set to catch the error. (Erin Foster, if you’re looking to hire a clergy consultant, I’m available!)
Later that episode, Noah wishes his Purim party guests “mazel” (luck) instead of “chag sameach” (happy holiday). It’s a small slip, but a telling one: mazel isn’t a catch-all Yiddish term Jews toss around at random. A little input from a Jewish professional would have gone a long way.
Still, the show redeems itself beautifully in the final episode. As Noah and Joanne contemplate breaking up, a quintessential rom-com montage unfolds. Noah relives his favourite moments with Joanne, while she recalls her favourite experiences with Judaism—lighting Shabbat candles, dressing up for Purim, eating challah (that one’s easy; it’s objectively the world’s best bread), and watching Noah’s sermons. I teared up, moved by the beauty of Jewish life.
In the end, season two of Nobody Wants This repairs its earlier caricatures of Jewish women with tenderness and nuance, and continues its landmark celebration of Jewish joy.
Maybe season three will have all that and accurate Judaism.
October brought us the long-anticipated second season of Netflix’s hit show Nobody Wants This. Last year, I wrote about my disappointment in the program’s portrayal of Jewish women. I wondered if season two would fare any better—and to my surprise, it did.
The show’s creator, Erin Foster, loosely based the series on her own life. The show explores the interfaith relationship of podcast host Joanne (Kristen Bell) and Rabbi Noah (Adam Brody). In season one, the non-Jewish women were portrayed as fun and carefree, while the Jewish women were nit-picky and irritating. That stereotypical portrayal received significant backlash, and it seems Foster heard the criticism loud and clear.
The character of Esther (Jackie Tohn) who was happily-unhappily married to Rabbi Noah’s brother, Sasha (Timothy Simons), undergoes a complete transformation. Her husband’s emotional affair jolts her into realizing she may not be as convivial as she once was. As she reconnects with her past self, she reclaims her independence and joy.
Last season, Esther was positioned in stark contrast to Joanne: naggy and explicitly “not fun,” while Joanne was effortlessly entertaining. In season two, we see Esther’s character go through a strong evolution. Her shifts range from the small—changing a dinner-party playlist from Solange to Ms. Lauryn Hill’s Doo Wop—to life-altering, like asking Sasha for a separation. Doo Wop may be Lauryn Hill’s trendiest song and Sasha may be a loveable oaf, but by pursuing her own bliss, Esther is freed from the confines of the Jewish American Princess stereotype and becomes far more dynamic (even if the romantic in me hopes she ends up back with Sasha).
Rabbi Noah’s ex-girlfriend, Rebecca, is finally humanized. When the pair meet for a relationship post-mortem, we learn that Noah had been leading her on by naming their imagined future children, calling her his “forever family,” and even planning a trip to Portugal two weeks before calling it quits. Where season one painted Rebecca as erratic and manipulative, season two reframes her shock and anger as justified. It is unclear whether this reversal was engineered in response to critics or part of Foster’s long game. Perhaps I should have been more patient.
In Judaism, it is never too late to make things right. Just over two months ago, we gathered for Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. In its second season, Nobody Wants This performs a kind of teshuvah, a rehumanizing act of moral repair.
Rabbi Noah’s mother, Bina (Tovah Feldshuh), does not receive the same character reversal, remaining firmly opposed to Joanne. In episode two, she appears to soften when she sees her son’s girlfriend encouraging him to embrace his emotions. But the moment is short-lived. When a friend comments that the couple is “really tied together,” Bina claps back, “And I’ve got the scissors.” As in the previous season, Joanne’s relationship with her prospective mother-in-law takes one step forward and two giant steps back.
But perhaps this storyline is holding up an uncomfortable mirror. Maybe we, as Jews, need to be more honest about how we treat outsiders. If Foster wrote Bina based on her own experience marrying into a Jewish family, then perhaps we should take that portrayal seriously and examine how we can be more welcoming, as our tradition so often instructs.
We do get glimpses of Bina’s capacity for kindness. She comforts Joanne’s despondent sister, offering the wise insight that “if you are hurt by what [a] person said . . . it is because you think these things are true.” Bina is not inherently cruel; she is afraid. Her son’s relationship with a non-Jew threatens her, and she is not alone. For generations, Jews have worried that intermariage would dilute an already small population. I will never forget a fellow Birthright participant yelling at me from across a hotel conference room that her grandparents hadn’t survived the Holocaust for my parents to intermarry. This fear runs deep. Yet a 2021 Pew Study found that “the offspring of intermarriages have become increasingly likely to identify as Jewish in adulthood.” The data suggests that intermarriage is not erasing us. In many cases, like my own family, Jewish identity emerges stronger.
Rabbi Noah experiences his own reckoning when he loses out on a promotion due to his interfaith relationship with Joanne. He’d been gunning for the senior rabbi position for years. Unhappy in the shadow of Senior Rabbi “Big Noah” (yes, they’re both named Noah), he leaves in search of a new spiritual home. He is soon hired by what seems to be a Humanistic congregation called Ahava.
Unfortunately, that is where the show makes its most glaring religious misstep. During Rabbi Noah’s job interview, Senior Rabbi Neil (Seth Rogan) praises him for a Tu B’Shvat sermon that “completely changed the way [Neil] mourned.” I was momentarily confused as Tu B’Shvat celebrates the environment and has nothing to do with mourning, until I realized he meant Tisha B’Av, the sombre day marking the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem. It is an understandable mistake for a layperson, but not a rabbi, no matter how atheist. Perhaps Rogen was improvising, as he’s known to do, but it’s disappointing that a show about a rabbi didn’t have anyone on set to catch the error. (Erin Foster, if you’re looking to hire a clergy consultant, I’m available!)
Later that episode, Noah wishes his Purim party guests “mazel” (luck) instead of “chag sameach” (happy holiday). It’s a small slip, but a telling one: mazel isn’t a catch-all Yiddish term Jews toss around at random. A little input from a Jewish professional would have gone a long way.
Still, the show redeems itself beautifully in the final episode. As Noah and Joanne contemplate breaking up, a quintessential rom-com montage unfolds. Noah relives his favourite moments with Joanne, while she recalls her favourite experiences with Judaism—lighting Shabbat candles, dressing up for Purim, eating challah (that one’s easy; it’s objectively the world’s best bread), and watching Noah’s sermons. I teared up, moved by the beauty of Jewish life.
In the end, season two of Nobody Wants This repairs its earlier caricatures of Jewish women with tenderness and nuance, and continues its landmark celebration of Jewish joy.
Maybe season three will have all that and accurate Judaism.