there are different types of prejudice. My sense—backed up by the initial reception of the Seinfeld pilot (“too New York, too Jewish,” according to an exec)—is that Seinfeldian reticence, Jewishness-wise, was more about trying not to confuse viewers with particular- ity that might go over their heads, than with a fear that if people took George Costanza to be Jewish, this would empower antisemites. Put another way: if Seinfeld were too distinct- ly Jewish, it would not only repel the haters of urban Jews, but would also simply not reach as many non-Jewish viewers as it would if it kept the specificity under wraps. They might pass on a Jewish sitcom not because they necessarily disliked Jews, or doubted that New York Jews could be real Americans, but because they didn’t think it was intended for them. The show itself took the stance that antisemitism was a thing of the past, mock- ing Jerry’s Uncle Leo for his paranoia, seeing Jew-hatred everywhere. It’s hard to imagine a show doing this in an era when virtually every Jewish communal institution devotes itself to ending Jew hate. If the 1990s were hazy about the Jewish- ness of their Jewish pop-culture characters, they were all the more so about the very existence of non-Ashkenazi Jews and Jews of Colour. It might surprise you (or not, depending your own Wikipedia usage) to learn that Jerry Seinfeld, unlike his television counterpart, had a Syrian Jewish mother. And if you really want to get into the weeds of invisibly Jewish Seinfeld trivia, which I think I have by now established I do: Brian George, the actor who played Babu Bhatt, the Pakistani restauranteur who calls Jerry a “very bad man” in scenes whose racial sensitivity was a bit lacking even by 1990s standards, was “born in Jerusalem to Jewish parents of Lebanese, Indian, and Iraqi des- cent, who had immigrated to Israel.” The 2020s can be a sanctimonious time, an era in which the humorless-on-both-sides battle between ‘woke’ and ‘anti-woke’ dom- inates cultural conversations. A hyper-focus on identity, across the political spectrum, has not necessarily translated to friendlier times for marginalized people. If we are living in great times for feminism, how is abortion newly illegal in much of the United States? If things have never been better for the LGBT community, what’s with the intensity of right- wing transphobia and resurgent homophob- ia, not to mention the hostility to drag? But I will say this for our times: I think audi- ences of today would be ready for a Jewish George, a Jewish Rachel, and even—why not?—a Jewish Babu.
identity conversations, a character having a Jewish vibe but not actually being Jew- ish would make no sense. In the 1990s, ambiguous, hinted-at, now-you-see-it-now- you-don’t Jewishness was everywhere, and even greeted as a sign that we’d arrived. Like coded gayness, coded Jewishness was the best anyone could hope for, at least from mainstream entertainment. It implied a soci- ety where one could be too gay or too Jewish, which is to say, a society rife with prejudice. This sort of evasiveness about Jewish identity would never happen on screens now.
as they come. Right? While Silverstone herself is Jewish (as all the circa-that-era articles about how did you know that some Jews are blond? Reminded us), as is movie creator Amy Heckerling, not to mention her handsome if quasi-incestuous love interest played by Paul Rudd, Horowitz was not an explicitly Jewish character. Thus the Jewish Chronicle headline, “Cher Horo- witz is not Jewish.” But is that definitive? The source is a JTA interview in which Heckerling says Clueless was not meant to be “a Jewish story,” but rather a retelling of Jane Austen’s
The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel is definitively about Jews, though some non-Jewish casting choices have caught flack. Broad City depicts Abby and Ilana going on a Birthright-style trip to Israel. Crazy Ex-Girlfriend does not leave viewers—even those unfamiliar with star and creator Rachel Bloom—wondering about Rebecca Bunch’s Jewishness. A musical sitcom with a song called “JAP Battle” does not leave the viewer guessing the protagon- ist’s origins. Nor, for that matter, does the movie title Shiva Baby , a buzzy 2020 com- edy, inspire Jewish journalists to investigate whether this is or is not a film about Jews. While coded identity always speaks to a sense that society is not ready for (aka is big- oted against) members of a particular group,
novel Emma in then-modern-day Los Angeles. Horowitz, per Heckerling, is based on “‘the daughters of people in show business in L.A.’” Does this make her a non-Jewish character, case closed? Or merely a Jewish-coded one? It is easy to miss the forest for the trees in this discussion and to find oneself trying to ascertain which of these characters is or isn’t Jewish per the show’s universe. For one thing, there is not always a consistent answer, regarding Jewishness or any other trait. (Does Frasier Crane drink beer or is he too snooty for that? Cheers and Frasier offer different answers.) What actually matters, I think, is the way in which this nebulous cat- egory of coded Jewishness functioned. In 2023, a time characterized by forthright
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