In “Nobody Wants This,” the romantic comedy takes centuries-old motifs with a brand new twist – the sweet rabbi

Twenty years ago the tv show “The OC” began invented the word “Chrismukkah”..” The primary character, Seth Cohen, played by Adam Brody, described his interfaith family’s December tradition: “eight days of presents, followed by a day of presents.”

Today Brody is back and starring in a brand new Netflix show. But this time, as a substitute of playing the kid of an interfaith marriage, he’s a rabbi dating a girl “without a Jewish bone in her body” – a girl who at times seems unfamiliar with the fundamentals of American Jewish culture.

“Nobody wants that“is the story of a romance between Rabbi Noah and Joanne, played by Kristen Bell: a blonde, non-Jewish woman who hosts a podcast about her dating disasters. The show used the word “shiksa”“to explain what a non-Jewish woman means to Joanne. However, many consider it so rude that I'm sure my mother will show up at my apartment to scrub my mouth out with soap for even typing it.

Joanne and Noah meet at a celebration where he flirts together with her. They quickly agree that the religious divide between them means they’ll't go on a date.

But after all they do.

In 2024, the most important Jewish movement within the United States, Reform Judaism, decided to permit students with non-Jewish partners to attend rabbinical school – as did several smaller liberal Jewish movements. including renewal, secular humanists and reconstructionists. Conservative and Orthodox rabbis will not be permitted to marry a non-Jewish spouse, and it was not until 2023 that the Conservative movement affirmed that its rabbis would accomplish that cannot have an interfaith marriage.

While some rabbis have only recently turn into capable of have a non-Jewish partner, the essential act of Jewish men dating and marrying non-Jewish women has been a theme of stage and screen for 100 years. As a scholar of American JudaismI write about these depictions of interfaith couples in my book “Beyond Chrismukkah: The Christian-Jewish Interfaith Family in the United States.”

Becoming “Real” Americans

“Abie’s Irish Rose” was published in 1922. premiered on Broadwaywhere it was a industrial hit for five years. The comedy follows a romance between Abie, an American-Jewish soldier, and Rose, his Irish-American nurse during World War I.

The courtship between Rose and Abie is met with disapproval from their fathers, who also do it represented as symbols of the old worlddangerously concerned about preserving their outdated worldviews. Meanwhile, the young couple's love underscores their willingness to go away behind their identities as Catholic and Jewish – each of which were considered “outsider” religions within the Twenties – and turn into “real” Americans.

The rabbi and priest who attend her wedding are also veterans, reinforcing the play's message that patriotism comes first. Abie and Rose's marriage is portrayed as an idealized, romanticized version of the American melting pot.

The piece was just as successful on tour prefer it was on Broadway, although many critics loathed it. It was revived twice on Broadway and made into two movies. Several imitations have been made, including a movie called “The Cohens and the Kellys.”

In the Nineteen Forties, “Abie's Irish Rose” became a radio spinoff, but times had modified. The exaggerated ethnic caricatures were now not considered acceptable and the show was canceled after just a few seasons.

“Bridget loves Bernie”

In the early Nineteen Seventies, CBS created a sitcom based on the premise of a Jewish man – on this case, a taxi driver whose parents own a New York deli – who falls in love with a Catholic teacher who comes from a wealthy family. As in “Abie's Irish Rose,” in “Bridget Loves Bernie,” the younger generation supports the wedding, including the bride's brother, who’s a priest.

The objections all come from members of the older generation, who’re portrayed as tropes – irrational and stuck of their ways. The television show suggests that opposing interfaith marriage is old-fashioned and not likely acceptable.

“Bridget Loves Bernie” received loud protests and was canceled at the tip of the primary season. Many Jewish spectators protested to imagine that interfaith marriage is suitable and even hip.

The show was probably particularly disturbing to the Jewish community because The rate of interfaith marriages increased The Nineteen Seventies saw unprecedented levels of violence, raising fears locally that Jewish assimilation into the broader American culture would prove too successful. The concern was that interfaith couples wouldn’t raise their children Jewish, which might shrink the Jewish community into non-existence. Additionally, Judaism traditionally considers a toddler to be Jewish provided that the mother can also be Jewish That has modified in liberal movements.

While I'm writing in my bookOne critic wrote within the New York Times that a situation comedy about interfaith marriage was as tasteless as one about “the funny adventures of a Jewish family on the way to the gas chambers.”

While CBS denied the show was canceled attributable to the protests, it stays standing The highest rated show was canceled through network television.

The theme of Jewish interfaith marriage as Americans and the resistance to interfaith marriage being outdated also resonates in movies – especially the unique “Broken hearted child” And “Annie Hall.”

Although nobody ever mentions religion within the decades-long series Mad About You, each are a couple of Jewish man married to a non-Jewish woman – and far of the humor comes from the cultural differences between them.

New series, same cliche

Both ideas are also present to some extent in “Nobody Want This” – which also incorporates one other, uglier theme from the archives of interfaith marriages.

In his opening scene, Noah breaks up along with his Jewish girlfriend Rebecca – a girl so eager to propose that she searches his locked desk, finds an engagement ring, puts it on him without his knowledge, after which tries to persuade him to accomplish that despite his doubts. they need to get married. This ex-girlfriend and her best friend, Noah's sister-in-law, appear repeatedly throughout the series, displaying plenty of negative stereotypes about Jewish women as wives and lovers. Noah's mother, who speaks with an old-fashioned accent, claims to know all of his friends and reminds her son: “No one can take a rabbi seriously who dates a shiksa, especially if he marries one.” I don’t mind looking like an overprotective mother.”

These characters reflect negative stereotypes that American Jewish men and girls have long been at odds with one another Historian Riv-Ellen Prell wrote: “the ghetto girl” – a Jewish woman who is simply too greedy, pushy and gluttonous; and men who’re essentially mama's boys. Joyce Antleralso a historian of American Jewry, has written specifically about it Stereotypes from Jewish moms perceived as intrusive, disruptive, presumptuous and over-involved.

Like generations of non-Jewish leading ladies before her, Joanne is what considered one of my interviewees called a “shiksa goddess.” She's blonde, she's easy-going, she's the whole lot that Jewish women are supposedly not. It impresses with its contrast.

In a way, “Nobody Wants This” shows something latest: not only are you able to make a show about interfaith dating, however the Jewish partner can be a rabbi! But otherwise it's old because the hills, or at the very least as old because the silver screen – presenting stories, tropes and misogynistic stereotypes in a shiny latest package.