‘Nobody Wants This’ Loves The Jews

In a time where it feels like everybody hates the Jews, the Netflix romantic comedy series ‘Nobody Wants This’ clearly loves the Jews. Series creator Erin Foster has received criticism for writing “mean-spirited” and stereotypical Jewish characters, but that criticism is not only unfair, it’s also untrue. Nobody Wants This is the warmest depiction of Jews and Judaism in recent memory. The community should be celebrating its existence rather than nitpicking its obvious but superficial flaws.

In the show, Kristen Bell plays a “sex podcaster” named Joanne who meets cute at a party with Adam Brody’s Noah, a “hot rabbi” who’s going through a dramatic but not overly melodramatic breakup. Their chemistry is instant and undeniable, irresistibly drawing her to the temple where he’s sermonizing. She floats to Wilshire Boulevard like a cartoon cat who smells something delicious on the wind. His family initially balks at her presence, calling her a “shiksa,” which she undeniably is, but they gradually become accustomed to her pretty face.

As a incredibly sexy Jewish man who married a non-Jew, I can testify first-hand that Jewish families, even reform ones like the one in Nobody Wants This, more or less uniformly balk at the idea of the eldest son hooking up with a non-Jew. When the eldest son is a rabbi, that concern increases tenfold. So the central conflict in Nobody Wants This makes sense. And the show softens its edges very quickly. Jackie Tohn from GLOW, who plays the most “stereotypical” Jewish woman in the show early on, is a recognizable human by episode five, feeling like a normal Jewish person living in the San Fernando Valley or wherever she may roam.

Foster, herself a blond sex podcaster who fell in love with a Jewish man, eventually converted to Judaism, so, though I haven’t yet finished the show, I assume that’s where Bell’s character will go. Judaism, in the form of Adam Brody, is clearly attractive to her, but she also seems to like the rituals of Shabbat. In a cute scene, she makes candles with 14-year-olds at a summer camp retreat. She stares moonily at Brody as he recites the Shabbat blessing. It’s every Jewish man’s dream to have a woman stare at him like that while he says the hamotzi.

Brody first entered pop culture as Seth Cohen, the dreamy, nerdy, intellectual son of the main family in The O.C. If you recall, the show was supposed to be about Ben McKenzie’s aimless adopted drifter teen, but brainy Seth, celebrator of Chrismukkuh, is the one who captured bloggers’ hearts. After The O.C. left the air, Brody wandered about in the character-actor indie film mix for decades, but in Nobody Wants This, he’s returned to his roots as a smart-girl dreamboat. Noah is essentially a grownup version of Seth Cohen: Smart and self-effacing, sensitive but not particular neurotic, and always attuned to the needs of his lady. Nobody Wants This is a love letter to his type, and specifically Erin Foster’s love letter to her Jewish husband, and Jews in particular.

Nobody Wants This has its annoying bits. Bell has a sex podcast with her sister, played with a lot of wit and charisma by Justine Lupe, best known to audiences as Willa from ‘Succession,’ but really, there are few humans on Earth less relatable than hot L.A. sex podcasters. Is their episode on “Dil-Dos” and “Dil-Don’ts” really helping people? I don’t think so. Also, how in the world is Rabbi Noah living in luxury in Highland Park? That’s an East L.A. neighborhood where a guy once threatened me with a gun and called me a “clown” because my Boston Terrier pooped in his yard. There’s a kind of upper-middle-class noblesse oblige to the show that threatens to teeter it into self-parody. They wander around neighborhoods that I couldn’t afford 20 years ago, gazing moonily into each other’s eyes.

But the main ensemble–Bell, Brody, Lupe, and the very funny Timothy Simons, Jonah Ryan from Veep–all know how to carry a TV show. The situations are usually funny, the romance is extremely romantic, and the deep affection for Jews, and, in particular, for Jewish men, is extremely obvious. For the last year, I’ve walked around feeling like the world hated me because I was Jewish. But Nobody Wants This gets me in a way that I, and most people like me, want to be gotten. It’s the second such product this year. ‘Between The Temples,’ which I reviewed in this space, loved the Jews. But it was twitchy and neurotic in a way that Nobody Wants This simply isn’t. Erin Foster, the hot rabbis of the world thank you for your service.