Revenge of the Bubbes

It feels like rarely a day goes by without some actor or musician or other creative sort seeking a career boost by proclaiming Israel guilty of genocide. It’s the new “Hey, remember me?” Still, it was a bit strange that Adam Brody waited until the launch of the third season of his hit Netflix show Nobody Wants This to kneel before this particular idol. The show, a rom-com about an LA rabbi who falls in love with a non-Jewish woman, features infamously negative portrayals of Jewish women.

Perhaps he was worried about being typecast. Brody is Jewish and has a habit of playing Jewish characters on screen. Whatever the reason, he squeaked out an awkward, garishly thirsty denunciation of Israel seemingly unprompted.

What happened next was also unexpected. Erin Foster, who created the series using her own conversion story as fodder, gently and empathetically contradicted him. She also put out a statement of support to the Jewish community.

But then the story got even better. Tovah Feldshuh, the stage star who plays Brody’s Jewish mother on the show, shared her unfiltered thoughts with the New York Post:

“To accuse the Jewish people of genocide is wild. It’s right out of Hitler’s playbook. You take the victim and you make the victim the perpetrator.”

She added: “I believe that the perseverance of the existence of the State of Israel is crucial to the well-being of the democratic world and of the free world. Of course, Israel needs the United States, [but] the United States needs Israel, believe you me.”

Then she allowed herself a moment of pride: “With the backdrop of global antisemitism, I am thrilled to be chosen to play a Jewish matriarch. Thrilled and proud, and that will never change.”

Feldshuh said these discussions don’t affect the production of the show, because they’re all professionals and her job “is to love the people on set at my place of work.”

Her correction without embarrassing Brody, who plays her son on TV; her fierce defense of her people; her moral clarity; and her reminder that, no matter what, she loves those around her who may disagree, was the deployment of a particular formula.

She was The Bubbe.

The term means grandmother, but the connotation in the Jewish world is something more. Because, in the Jewish world, the grandmother is something more. Every bubbe is a matriarch, a keeper of institutional family lore and memory, and perhaps most important, the chief justice. The bubbe is nothing if not honest, but I assure you it doesn’t mean she loves you any less.

Feldshuh’s comments are part of a trend I’ve noticed developing recently. Not everyone is comfortable risking the Hamasniks’ backlash or one of Javier Bardem’s blacklists to defend the Jews from the latest blood libel. But those who are comfortable doing so unapologetically have lately been, like Feldshuh, straight-talking Jewish women of bubbe-ish vintage.

A couple days before the New York Post story on Feldshuh, the Times of London interviewed New York literary-scene fixture Fran Lebowitz, now 75. Lebowitz, too, had some thoughts about the general air of anti-Semitism wafting all around:

“There has always been antisemitism to some extent. Lately there is much more because it’s so acceptable. Prominent people do it, hiding behind being anti-Zionist, which some people are. I always say, you can be anti-Zionist and not antisemitic, but you can also be both.”

Lebowitz—certainly nobody’s idea of a right-winger—had some strong negative feedback for Bibi Netanyahu and the war in Gaza. But she also was bothered by “the young people at pro-Gaza rallies” calling Israel “racist.” She doesn’t much like Donald Trump or Zohran Mamdani, though she voted for the latter for mayor because, seemingly, she liked Andrew Cuomo even less. But she also said of Mamdani: “He’s in my face all the time, he’s incredibly arrogant. He doesn’t know what the job is. I don’t think he cares about antisemitism.”

This comes after Dame Maureen Lipman fired back at an actor who quit a West End stage production because Lipman was also in the cast. The actor Gerard McCarthy appeared to be bothered by his proudly Jewish colleague who supports the existence of the Jewish state.

“I will not countenance juvenile, immature posturing,” Lipman said.

And today it was revealed that Lucy Kon, the Oscar-winning producer and documentarian, has been awarded a settlement from the BBC, where she has been employed three times. After October 7, 2023, Kon became a target of anti-Semitism at the broadcaster. “I went from a BBC journalist who happened to be Jewish to a Jewish journalist at the BBC,” she told the Telegraph. “It was like having Jew stamped on my forehead.” She tried to get the Beeb to address its anti-Semitism problem and they reportedly tried to destroy her instead: “The BBC dumped me, isolated me and sent me round the twist.”

An employment arbitrator ruled in her favor.

It would be nice to see the Adam Brody types of the world display a bit of self-respect here and there, but at least we’ll have the honest moral leadership of the strong Jewish women so maligned on Nobody Wants This.

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