Erin Foster Addresses the Depiction of Jewish Women in Nobody Wants This: 'We Need Positive Jewish Stories Right Now'

Erin Foster created a Netflix hit with her new series Nobody wants thisseries that’s climbing Netflix’s most-watched charts — and making fans fall in love all over again with star Adam Brody. But it also has its critics.

Foster received backlash for the show’s portrayal of Jewish women. Brody plays Noah, a rabbi who falls in love with agnostic podcast host Joanne (Kristen Bell). His Jewish family does not exactly welcome her with open arms. While the show’s portrayal of Noah’s immigrant mother touches on several stereotypes, most detractors are concerned with the portrayal of his controlling and nagging sister-in-law, Esther, and Noah’s marriage-obsessed ex-girlfriend Rebecca, who begins wearing an engagement ring she finds hidden in his locked desk drawer. .

In the scene at the end of the first episode, Noah finishes his sermon and is approached by mothers and aunts who introduce their daughters and nieces to a handsome, single rabbi. One even boasts, “She just got over the shingles!”

Joanne (Kristen Bell) and Noah (Adam Brody) in the temple scene in Nobody Wants This.

Stefania Rosini/Netflix

The series “offers a fantasy of the ideal Jewish man in Noah” but “seems to despise Jewish women, who are portrayed as nags, harpies, and the story’s greatest villains,” Esther Zuckerman on TIME wrote. Jessica Radloff from Glamour she wrote that she told her mom, “I can’t imagine a single guy watching this show who would then say, ‘I really want to date a Jewish girl!’ We come off as controlling, marriage-hungry women who want to plan dinner parties and alienate anyone who doesn’t share those same dreams.”

The story is inspired by Foster’s life. She converted to Judaism before marrying her current husband, Simon Tikhman. In an interview for Los Angeles Times, she explains it the story of the Netflix rom-com was very intentional.

“I think we need positive Jewish stories right now,” she explained. “I think it’s interesting when people focus on, ‘Oh, this is a stereotype about Jews,’ when you have a rabbi in charge. A handsome, cool, pot-smoking young rabbi. That’s the opposite of how people view a Jewish rabbi, right?”

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Simon Tikhman and Erin Foster.

Charley Gallay/Getty

The Favorite Daughter co-founder continued, “If I made Jewish parents, like, two granola hippies on a farm, then someone would write, ‘I’ve never met a Jew like that before. You obviously don’t know how to write Jews, you don’t know what you’re doing, and that doesn’t represent us well.'”

Foster said she hopes the 10-episode season will offer a lighter look at Jewish culture while educating viewers about its challenges.

“What I really wanted to do was shed a positive light on Jewish culture from my perspective — my positive experience brought into Jewish culture, adding a little fun [and] educational moments about the things in Judaism that I love without it being heavy,” she added. “Because I don’t think people want that on the show.”

In addition to having an atypical Jewish rabbi as the show’s star, Foster said she also wanted to show the common challenges people in the Jewish community face.

“It’s important that Noah’s parents were immigrants in the show because immigrant culture is very different from American Jewish culture,” she said. “Simon’s parents fled the Soviet Union because they were Jewish. It’s a very different experience from someone who grew up in LA and wasn’t exposed to the anti-Semitism that he was. So something different. It’s a much more sensitive topic and it’s much closer to their hearts.”

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“That’s why I don’t feel that parents are so stereotyped,” she added. “Immigrant culture can be very insular and fearful of foreigners, and for good reason. I wanted to play into that, because it’s an extra layer of cultural differences between these two people.”

Given the current war between Israel and Palestine, Foster said she didn’t feel like the right person to use the show to make a statement about the conflict.

“We’re definitely not a show that deals with the political climate of what’s going on in the world right now,” she explained. “People don’t come to see that on our show, and it wouldn’t be appropriate for me to address that issue because I didn’t grow up Jewish. I have my point of view on that, as a person in the world, but it shouldn’t be part of the show. I don’t think it’s right to speak for so many people.”

Simon Tikhman and Erin Foster.

Ella Hovsepian/Getty

Foster admitted that, unlike Joanne and Noah’s family, she and Tikhman “have a great relationship,” and while she wanted to show the struggle that many people go through when they aren’t Jewish and their significant other is, she’s happy that it wasn’t something through what she had to go through.

“Honestly, they never had a problem with me because it was a great honor for them to convert to Judaism,” she said jokingly. “Introducing someone to the Jewish faith was the daughter-in-law’s ultimate move; it bonded us so wonderfully.”

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Nobody wants this is now available to stream on Netflix.

Categories: Trends
Source: HIS Education