Editor’s note: This article was originally published on May 29, 2026. We are republishing it on Aug. 31, 2026 with updated information regarding the release date on Netflix.

October 7 pulled the rug out from under so many feet and shattered so many conceptions of reality.

In the new season of “Fauda,” which was completely rewritten after the day’s events and the ensuing war, Doron Kabilio (played by Lior Raz), the covert operative and hero of the international hit show, is trying to piece together what happened on that day. I mean that quite literally: He seems to have lost all recollection of everything that happened to him on October 7 itself.

Here’s what we know about the season so far:

When is season 5 of “Fauda” coming to Netflix?

Season five premiered in Israel on Yes on May 18. It is slated to come to Netflix on Sept. 8.

What happens in season 5?

Like the actor who plays him, Doron rushed down South to the Gaza border to help where he could. After an injury, he lost all memory of what exactly occurred in the eight hours he spent there; the only thing he remembers is the “distinct smell of flesh.”

Two years later,  he joins Steve (Doron Ben-David) and Eli (Yaakov Zada-Daniel) on a mission for revenge — reluctantly. When Captain Ayub pulls him back into the mission, Doron is dealing with PTSD. It’s very much a “just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in!” moment.

Much of season five doesn’t seem to take place in Israel. Like previous seasons, “Fauda” goes international. Doron, Steve, Eli and Salem (Bian Anteer’s new character, a Bedouin from Rahat whose son was murdered on October 7), are hunting down October 7 perpetrators in Marseilles, France. They are on a private “off grid” revenge mission to find the Hamas operative responsible for the killing of their loved ones; Eli’s wife and children were also viciously killed on October 7. Doron, however, firmly believes that revenge will not bring anyone’s loved ones back, even if he reluctantly joins the mission.

In Marseilles, Doron meets Melanie Laurent’s Anne. The “Inglourious Basterds” actress long dreamed of acting in “Fauda,” and called the experience a “dream.”

This season not only takes on the events of October 7, showing them in graphic details, but also the anti-war protests outside of Israel. It was shot in Budapest and also in the area of the Gaza envelope (to the protest of locals, who felt that shooting the show on the grounds of trauma would actually trigger PTSD for those still dealing with the visceral aftermath of that day). It seems to be a season that centers trauma and revenge.

Does season 5 of “Fauda” take on the story of the hostages?

The answer to that is no. While some of the hostages who returned from Gaza did visit the set of the show last year, the show’s writers and producers, who were writing the script for the season while the hostages still hadn’t all returned, decided to avoid the topic.

“We’re not prophets, we couldn’t guess what the reality would be like when the season came out,” producer Liat Benasuly told Makor Rishon. “We didn’t touch sensitive subjects like the hostages and their families when everything outside was [still] burning.”

How did October 7 actually influence the shooting of season 5?

Aside from the season being completely rewritten, one of the show’s stars, Idam Amedi, was injured in action during the Israel-Hamas war. He only stars in one scene this season. The first episode of this season is dedicated to Matan Meir, who worked on the show, and was killed in action during the war, and the partner of co-creator Avi Issacharoff’s stepdaughter, who also lost his life during the war.

Benasuly said it took a while for that rewrite to happen — “for a few months, we put everything to the side,” she explained.

“This isn’t another season, it’s the season of post October 7, and we’re all still under the influence of October 7,” Issacharoff said in an interview. On social media, he shared that this is the season the creators are perhaps most proud of, and that it’s hoping to bring the pain of October 7 to the world.

“There was a day of shooting in which we focuesd on what happened to the characters on October 7. We left it broken and shattered… At a certain point, I felt like I couldn’t be there. To speak these texts, to experience these experiences. It was hard not just for the actors, but for me and the creators in the editing room who watch these scenes over and over again,” Benasuly recalled.

What has the critical reception to season 5 been like in Israel?

A Walla review said that this might be the show’s best season. A Haaretz review gives the new season two stars, calling the writing lackluster at times and saying that after watching the first couple of episodes, one is left with a sense of queasiness. Over at Mako, reviewers praised Laurent’s performance and the show’s cinematography. Israel Hayom called it “the season of revenge Israel asked for.” Time Out review also stressed that in this new season, “Fauda” gives up some of its complexities and two-sidedness, and worried that this new season, which brings forth unbridled Israeli pain, might be less popular than its previous ones abroad, since the world has so little room for that pain.

The post The New Season of ‘Fauda’ Tackles October 7 appeared first on Kveller.

My mother had a marvelous talent for filling our home with joy. She rarely passed up an opportunity to welcome the stranger, inviting Jews and non-Jews alike to family celebrations. In our home, the openhearted sharing of Jewish culture and tradition built bridges that have lasted for decades. The best illustration of inclusion was our father’s Haggadah, marked up with guests’ names, to ensure that everyone was involved in the retelling — and that no one could quietly escape a reading part. When I ask friends what they remember about being guests in our house, they mention the long Passover table set with carrot tsimmes, beet-colored horseradish and charoset; the comfort of Shabbat prayers and age-old traditions; the lights of the menorah and the fresh latkes sizzling in my mother’s electric frying pan. And nobody forgets her gift bags of homemade zemelach set out on the hearth. 

More than anything, my friends remember being included.

Since my mother’s death, I have become the family hostess, doing my best to carry on her tradition of generous hospitality. Opening my heart and table to friends who are new to Jewish culture demystifies ritual, deepens empathy and creates the kind of honest conversation that brings people closer, while setting a positive example for the next generation. 

Most recently, I invited two non-Jewish friends to attend a Tisha B’Av sorrow circle with me. They were both deeply grieving the loss of a sister, and I thought they might find comfort in a room where sadness was not only accepted but welcomed. At the end of the evening, they said, “This is exactly what we needed. When can we come to temple with you again?” Their response touched me. I had extended an open hand, and our friendships deepened.

Last year, a Baptist pastor attended our Passover seder. Afterwards, he told me that reading the Haggadah gave him material for a month’s worth of Sunday sermons, especially in its insistence that each generation tell the story as if they themselves had come out of Egypt. He then joined us for a Friday evening service, his first time ever in a synagogue, and thanked me for offering a meaningful opportunity for cross-cultural contact and understanding.

Why carry on my mother’s tradition of inclusivity? Because each invitation widens the circle of empathy. When one friend tells me after Shabbat services that she was moved by the beauty of the prayers and the warmth of the congregation, something opens in our relationship. When another says a High Holiday sermon felt as if the rabbi were speaking directly to him, misunderstanding gives way to recognition. And sometimes sharing my Jewishness is as simple as making a pot of chicken soup — still my most reliable form of interfaith dialogue.

It is intimidating to extend ourselves beyond our comfort zone, and it can be just as intimidating for guests entering unfamiliar traditions. Cross-cultural hospitality does not have to be complex. Keep it simple: Offer guests context in advance, give them a sense of the timeline, provide English translations for prayers, explain ritual foods, invite them to join in readings and encourage questions. You might ask guests to bring a reading or poem from their own tradition to share. A little orientation goes a long way; nobody wants their first question to be whether they are holding the prayer book upside down. 

It also helps to think in advance about how to navigate polarizing questions, which may surface in today’s high-stakes climate around Jewish identity, safety and belonging. A host does not need to have every answer, but can listen generously, name boundaries when needed and steer the room back toward curiosity rather than debate. When people sit together in community it encourages honest and respectful dialogue. 

As it turned out, years after attending our family seder, my friend Tina married a Jewish man. She told me recently how grateful she is for those Passover celebrations with my family because they helped her create a seder for her husband and his children. This is the ultimate kvell for me. I thank my mother every day for teaching me the quiet power of the goodwill gesture: One open door can become another, carrying understanding from one table to the next.

The post Why I Invite My Non-Jewish Friends to the High Holidays appeared first on Kveller.

Rosh Hashanah imagery is limited to apples and… well, that’s about it. Honey, of course, but it’s hard to make a puddle of gloop into a recognizable image. Shofars, maybe, but as of publication no one has quite figured out how to make those aesthetically pleasing. So here we are, offering you 20 apple-themed items to elevate your Rosh Hashanah, whether you’re hosting a dinner and want to dress up your table, bringing a gift to a Rosh Hashanah host or looking for a wearable ode to the holiday. Happy shopping and chag shameach!

The post 20 Apple-Themed Items To Elevate Your Rosh Hashanah appeared first on Kveller.

As Labor Day nears, summer will soon come to a close… but what if it didn’t?

That’s the premise of the new movie “Tiny Fugitives,” set at a Jewish summer camp and starring a rag-tag team of tween boys and Johnny Knoxville. The movie will hit theaters this September and looks to be a raucous comedy full of summer camp hijinx.

In a trailer released this week, a young boy narrates a summer camp manifesto deeply familiar to anyone who lives “ten for two” — that is, just getting through the school year so you can spend two glorious months at camp. “Sleepaway camp, where all your problems melt away,” the voiceover says. “Us camp people are just different.”

A montage of bear hugs, Color War antics and dancing on a table in a cafeteria that looks eerily similar to my own summer camp food hall ensues.

The summer camp scenes are then juxtaposed with the same boys at school, where a bully smashes food in the face of Jacob (Benjamin Pajak) while Max (Aaron Harris) laments about the specialness of camp to a teacher or guidance counselor played by Rob Yang, who explains that no, “They did not have Jewish summer camp in Korea.”

“There is nothing waiting for us back home,” Jacobs then says. “What if we never went home?”

The boys hatch a plan to stay at summer camp beyond their allotted session, but no worthy plot can go on without an equally worthy antagonist. Enter: Johnny Knoxville’s Bob, a 50-year-old lifetime counselor determined to keep them in check.

Knoxville is of course best known for the “Jackass” franchise, in which he and his friends perform a series of stunts ranging from recklessly daredevil to severely grotesque. It’s a perfect match for a movie centering around a group of 12-year-old boys, whose penchant for potty words (to put it mildly) and sex talk (a new acronym is coined for “over-the-pants hand jobs”) runs rampant in the trailer.

There’s also some promise for sweet moments. Eagle-eyed viewers may notice what looks like a mock wedding, complete with a chuppah and a towel being worn like a tallis. And the fact that it’s a coed camp means there’s a possibility for some tweenage love (anyone who’s ever been to summer camp knows that camp relationships can get very serious, very quickly).

The film is directed and co-written by Michael Lewen, who has previously produced “Trainwreck” and “The King of Staten Island,” and who I am assuming is Jewish based on the fact that many of his friends wished him “Mazel tov!” on Instagram posts about his wedding and the birth of his son, Judah.

It was co-written by Jacob Kaplan, whose very Jewish Instagram content has had the Kveller staff laughing for years (please see here, here and here). He also acts in the film and serves as an executive producer. This is Kaplan’s first feature film.

The young cast is full of impressive up-and-comers. Benjamin Pajak has previously appeared in “The Life of Chuck” and on Broadway in the Tony award-winning musical “The Lost Boys” alongside Shoshana Bean. Aaron Harris was in “Matlock” with Kathy Bates.

“Tiny Fugitives” is coming off the heels of another Jewish summer camp movie that delighted Jewish viewers this summer — “The Floaters,” starring Jackie Tohn and directed by Rachel Israel. Are we entering the golden age of Jewish summer camp cinema? As we celebrate the 25th anniversary of the one that started it all — “Wet Hot American Summer” — this year, I for one say this is a very welcome new era.

“Tiny Fugitives” will be in theaters Sept 18, just in time to watch it and atone for laughing at a little boy trying to explain what third base is.

The post A New Jewish Summer Camp Movie Starring Johnny Knoxville Is Coming This September appeared first on Kveller.

I thought we’d reached peak Jewish HomeGoods at Passover this year. The gefilte fish garland and Dayenu tabletop pieces took Jewish holiday decor to a whole new level. I was curious what HomeGoods might do for Rosh Hashanah, if anything. It’s not exactly a holiday known for its vast merchandising opportunities, aside from perhaps a new outfit for synagogue.

But it turns out the best of Jewish HomeGoods was still to come! HomeGoods does indeed have a whole line of decor for Rosh Hashanah — and while I have some questions, there’s a lot to like. Let’s see how they did.

Round Challah Cake Stand

Let’s begin with the most perplexing item in the entire collection: the Round Challah Cake Stand. Its surface is covered with a faux braided round challah (sprinkled with sesame seeds), honey and apple slices. This is basically the Jewish version of a decorative fruit bowl… except there’s no room for the fruit. I’ll give it an A for accuracy, F for functionality.

Rosh Hashanah Glassware

There is an elaborate array of Rosh Hashanah glassware: a pitcher, stemmed wine glass, lidded glass jar and plates. They’re embellished with beautiful Rosh Hashanah imagery, including red and green apples, honey jars, honeycomb, pomegranates and shofars. There are even three-dimensional bedazzled bees attached to each piece.

What’s glaringly absent, however, is a matching honey jar. After years of seeing glass honey jars in HomeGoods Hanukkah and Passover assortments, we’ve finally reached the holiday when we actually need one, and yet it is nowhere to be found!

Ceramic Apple and Honey Figurines

These little ceramic apple-and-honey characters are too cute.

My favorite detail isn’t technically part of the decor; it’s their apple-shaped paper “Shanah Tovah” tag. I haven’t taken ours off because it’s giving me major Rosh Hashanah Beanie Baby vibes. These should be plushies! There is precedent: HomeGoods gave us a plush egg and matzah duo for Passover.

Apple and Honey Basket

The Apple and Honey Basket is filled with faux apples, a faux honey jar and even a faux napkin. Without the “Shanah Tovah” tag, this is essentially generic fall decor.

Why isn’t it an actual basket? We eat a new fruit on the second night of Rosh Hashanah, so a basket for pomegranates, star fruit, prickly pears and more would have been both festive and functional.

Shanah Tovah Tabletop Decor

First, credit where credit is due: They got “Shanah Tovah” right.

One script-style version incorporates pomegranates, albeit in more of a muted apple red than a deep pomegranate hue, while a block-letter version replaces one of the A’s with a beehive. I’ve got to give them points for creativity on that one. The whole thing gave me déjà vu from the Passover Dayenu pieces.

And maybe that’s an upside: We’ve officially reached the copy-and-paste era of Jewish holiday decor.

Pomegranate Taper Candleholders

Pomegranate taper candleholders have also made their way onto the Rosh Hashanah endcap, mostly in gold, although shiny maroon versions have popped up at some HomeGoods locations.

Taper candleholders aren’t exactly the first thing that comes to mind when I think of Rosh Hashanah. But they’re definitely beautiful and could make great paperweights for the sukkah.

Rosh Hashanah Garland

This last item is slightly harder to review because it doesn’t exist. After HomeGoods gave us a beaded Passover garland (gefilte fish, matzah, roasted eggs and karpas, oh my!), I hoped we’d get one for Rosh Hashanah. But alas, no garland for the new year.

Luckily, my kids have taken matters into their own hands and 3D-printed a sample for our guinea pigs’ High Holiday photo shoot. It came out beautifully and proved that while some of the HomeGoods items above may not be super useful, they make excellent guinea pig decor.

I may have a few notes, but seeing Rosh Hashanah get this much real estate at HomeGoods is actually pretty incredible.

So please, HomeGoods, keep it coming. I’ll figure out where to store everything later.

The post We Actually Kind of Love the Rosh Hashanah Decor at HomeGoods appeared first on Kveller.

Editor’s note: This article was originally written and published in December 2021. We are republishing it on Aug. 26, 2026 in honor of Dolly Parton, who died yesterday at age 80. May her memory be a blessing.

No matter where we went, we couldn’t escape it. It was almost as if the Christmas spirit was following us.

Lights shone oppressively bright and blinding red and green while a gigantic Christmas tree loomed above us, projecting light and sound shows about a reindeer that I do believe was looking for lost gifts, and which ended with a loud booming voice wishing the crowd a “merry Christmas.” In one square a bluegrass band was performing yuletide classics; in another, carolers sang in front of a replica church with the fierceness of a Broadway ensemble cast. Booths were brimming with Christmas paraphernalia — hats, socks, ornaments — and everywhere, everywhere, was playing seasonal classics on repeat.

We were a family of New York Jews in Dollywood.

It seemed we were in enemy territory, surrounded and outnumbered at Dolly Parton’s theme park in the heart of Appalachia, during the peak of the Christmas season, and yet strangely enough — against all odds — we were loving every minute of it.

You may be wondering how we ended up in this predicament. Well, I first heard about Dollywood on a podcast (I feel like this would be a way of telling you I’m Jewish without telling you I’m Jewish), and it captured my imagination, as Dolly Parton is often wont to do. As my family of four planned our first road trip across the nation, from Brooklyn to Nashville, where my husband’s uncle lives, I couldn’t help but think that we had to, absolutely had to, stop and make a pilgrimage to the land of Dolly and pay our tributes.

Parton, of course, transcends religion and politics (even though she is definitely always pro-vaccine and LGBTQ-friendly — in fact, Dollywood is a queer site of pilgrimage). But the state of Tennessee, on the other hand, does not, and neither does most of the South. As we drove our way through the heartland, we passed giant crosses, a Trump store (selling what, I couldn’t tell you) and many a Jesus-y billboard.

We showed up at the park an hour before opening, and parked our car in parking lot B (for butterfly, of course.). As we walked in, it was clear we weren’t in Brooklyn anymore, with maskless crowds speaking in lilting accents (which were, honestly, gorgeous, I love me a Southern accent). And then there was Christmas, which, as I previously established, was absolutely everywhere. In New York, I’ve always found places to escape it. But here, it was impossible; not even the public restroom offered a reprieve (also my son was scared of the automatically flushing toilets, so I couldn’t really hang out there very long).

In the decade since I came to America from Israel, I’ve struggled with Christmas. A lot. I grew up in a Jewish state, where Christmas fanfare was very different and very limited. My first Christmas here I felt assaulted with the season. It was all so much. I love my Jewish holidays, but I had never seen anything quite like Christmas in America: the grandiosity, the auditory and visual overwhelm of green and red and songs and merch and shopping and everything. Simply put, I became the Grinch. And I was proud of it. In fact, I’ve written about it more than once.

Of course, my aversion to Christmas was about more than an irritation. Though I was irritated at the commercialization and the reminder of Christian hegemony, as someone who is trying to raise Jewish kids, I have to admit that, more than anything, I was scared. I was scared that nothing I could offer them could compare to this.

But something strange happened when we were in Dollywood, with my own Jewish family, the one I started with my Jewish husband who, ironically, I met on friggin’ Christmas Eve. Upon entering the park, my older son immediately started singing Hanukkah songs. As the sun was setting, a group of carolers with microphones were chanting Christmas hymns outside the replica of a small-town church to an adoring crowd, and we stopped by them. “Do you want to watch it?” I crouched in front of my son. He stared for a minute or two, then gave a deep, heartfelt sigh and beckoned me to walk away.

It turns out, he wasn’t feeling the Christmas spirit. He was enjoying Dollywood — the rides, the oversized Nathan’s hot dog (his favorite food, which followed us from Brooklyn, it seems), the old-time train that billowed black smoke and whistled loudly, his first experience of listening to bluegrass music performed live, the warm cinnamon bread we waited an unreasonable amount of time for (it was delicious! Like a more yeasty babka!), the toys in the gift store, the ridiculously large statue of an eagle (AMERICA!) we stopped to take our photos in front of. But while he made observations about Christmas, he still kept coming back to those Hanukkah songs.

But something even stranger happened to me. I found myself singing along to the Christmas songs playing in the background (mostly written by Jews, to be fair). I watched the Christmas tree show while giggling (it was a bit much), and I felt zero irritation or worry about it all. It was fine. Everything was fine. I was raising Jewish kids — and part of raising Jewish kids means raising them to be confident in spaces where they don’t see themselves represented. To not lose the joy or pride of being Jewish even when that identity is not affirmed in the space around them. And to do that, I had to find a way to be comfortable in those spaces, too.

Christmas doesn’t quite belong in my Jewish home — but it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t belong in my life. In many ways, I still feel like the Grinch. I don’t like Christmas, but I’m living with it, and yes, I guess, if you have to twist my arm, I do like certain things about it. Like being a guest at my friend’s Christmas festivities — in fact, I’m grateful and humbled by their invitations; I invite them to my Jewish holiday tables, after all. I will admit that I genuinely enjoy Kacey Musgraves and Aimee Mann holiday albums.

And yes, I thoroughly enjoyed Dollywood at Christmas, especially when we can walk around there, innocently humming Hanukkah songs under our breaths.

The post In Dollywood During Christmastime, My Family Found Our Jewish Pride appeared first on Kveller.

While watching the new Netflix film “Don’t Say Good Luck,” I turned to my sister and said, “Nobody’s doing it like the Sandler sisters.” Between the two of them, they are now three for three at leading Netflix films.

I first became aware of Sunny and Sadie Sandler, Adam Sandler’s daughters, now 17 and 20, when I watched 2023’s “You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah,” though they appeared in some of their father’s movies before then. I was immediately impressed by their natural screen presence and their ability to capture all the awkwardness, confidence and intensity that comes with being a teen. These were not annoying, over-the-top child actors or 20-somethings trying to pass for teens. They felt like real people with whom I could have grown up or known from Hebrew school.

In one scene, Sunny (as Stacy) is presenting her family with ideas about her Bat Mitzvah entrance and she and Sadie (as Ronnie) start bickering. It quickly escalates to yelling threats of killing and stabbing each other that reminds me of my relationship with my own siblings, and how we love each other unconditionally but can also get into screaming matches for no reason.

And I’ve only gotten more impressed with them in the films they’ve done since then. Earlier this year, Sadie starred in “Roommates,” once again showing off her comedic skills. Her family members didn’t appear in this movie, but she had that same chemistry with the actors playing her parents and brother (Natasha Lyonne, Nick Kroll and Aidan Langford), proving that “You Are So Not Invited To My Bat Mitzvah” was no fluke.

The same can be said for Sunny and her onscreen family in “Don’t Say Good Luck,” in which Sunny plays Sophie Birenbaum, a teenager starring in her high school’s production of “Waitress” while her mom (Melanie Lynskey) is dying from cancer. Sunny was able to handle the devastating moments and the tear-jerking scenes without making them schmaltzy and capture genuine moments of happiness, a balance not even all adult actors can pull off.

She also got to show off her musical theater skills and range. She has a nice singing voice — not perfect, but real — and it’s refreshing at a time when so much of the singing we see onscreen is autotuned.

When her dad butt dials her and she overhears her parent’s talking about her mom’s cancer coming back right before her audition, she sings “When He Sees Me” with such raw emotion it’s no wonder she got the role of Jenna.

I’m a huge fan of “Waitress” and I’ve been lucky enough to see Jessie Mueller, Sara Barellies and Shoshana Bean sing “She Used To Be Mine” live and I’m not saying Sunny was better than them, but she certainly held her own and brought new meaning to the song when adding the context of a daughter grieving. She nailed the happy scenes too, like her eagerness to make out with her scene partner.

I am usually disappointed by made-for-streaming movies, but if a Sandler sister is involved, I now know I’ll get a funny, entertaining, relatable film. I hope they keep making more. Sadie’s IMDB says she will be in season three of “Nobody Wants This,” which already makes me more excited about a show I have mixed feelings about.

The state of the world is upsetting, but I can always count on the Sandler sisters to bring the Jewish joy.

The post Sunny and Sadie Sandler Are the Real Deal appeared first on Kveller.

Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur aren’t quite the entertainment industry’s idea of a made-for-TV-special kind of holiday. So finding an episode of something to get your family excited for the season, and perhaps even explain to your kids what the High Holy Days are all about, is a tough task.

Thankfully, we’ve got you covered!

These few but mighty shows offer stories of Rosh Hashanah-themed friendship and problem-solving, figuring out fasting for the first time and even a fun song or two. Read on for five kids TV shows or web series which feature the Jewish High Holidays.

“The Sticky Shofar”

Episode 8 of the 2011 “Shalom Sesame” series

This episode of “Shalom Sesame” has just about everything you could ever want from a High Holiday episode. It’s got a shofar, apples and honey, teshuvah and plenty of Muppets hilarity. When Muppet Avigail and Grover gets their honey-covered hands stuck to Muppet Brosh’s shofar, the pair must both figure out how to get unstuck and apologize to Brosh for touching his shofar without asking.

It’s the perfect episode to teach your kids about asking for forgiveness and something you’ll appreciate as a parent who no doubt is always dealing with sticky hands.

Watch “The Sticky Shofar” on YouTube.

“Rap Battle: Rosh Hashanah”

Part of “Lunchbox Rap Battles” on CBC

“Lunchbox Rap Battles” is a recurring segment on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s kid’s programming, featuring upbeat and educational songs. Their Rosh Hashanah rap nods to the holiday with a fun earworm that’ll have you repeating, “It’s Rosh Hashanah, enjoy it how you wanna! It’s Rosh Hashanah, shana tova!”

If you’re looking for a more nuanced exploration of the holiday, this isn’t quite it. But it’s definitely a fun jam to get your kids excited whether you’re going to the kid’s Rosh Hashanah service at shul or noshing on apples and honey.

Watch “Rap Battle: Rosh Hashanah” above or on YouTube.

“An UnBEElievable Rosh Hashanah”

Season 2, episode 27 of “Marvel’s Spidey and His Amazing Friends”

Did you know The Thing from “The Fantastic Four” is canonically Jewish in the comics? The people at Disney seem to, as they wrote this Rosh Hashanah-themed episode in 2023.

“In the episode, Gobby (as they call Green Goblin) steals all the bees and The Thing has to help Team Spidey get the bees back and save Rosh Hashanah,” Linda Buchwald wrote for Kveller ahead of the episode’s premiere. She adds, “In one scene, The Thing wears a yarmulke as he eats Rosh Hashanah dinner, including apples and honey, of course, at the friendly neighborhood community center where people from different backgrounds celebrate each other. Ari and his dad, Mr. Rosenberg, were invited by The Thing to spend Rosh Hashanah with him, and they tell him that he made the community proud.”

Watch “An UnBEElievable Rosh Hashanah” on Fandango.

“The Rosh Hashanah Shaboom! Special: Be the Best Me”

Holy honey cakes! This colorful and engaging animation really gets into the deeper meaning of the High Holidays. When the Plony family seems to be missing their opportunity to become better people for Rosh Hashanah, magical “sparks” (fairy-like creatures) Gaby and Rafi come to help teach them all about teshuvah.

Plus, this episode also features a Rosh Hashanah seder!

Watch “The Rosh Hashanah Shaboom! Special: Be the Best Me” above or on YouTube.

“Is That Kosher?”

Season 12, episode 1 of “Arthur”

Let’s end with my personal favorite. In this episode, Arthur’s Jewish pal Francine Frensky attempts to fast on Yom Kippur for the very first time. What makes this episode so wonderful is that it perfectly encapsulates the emotions of that experience: the nerves, discomfort (especially when you’re around people who are eating that day) and even guilt and disappointment if you’re unable to keep the fast. The episode ends with Francine learning from her Bubbe (played by Joan Rivers) about the rules around fasting for Yom Kippur. Amazingly, this includes the rule against fasting if it negatively impacts your health. But then again, I wouldn’t expect anything different from PBS.

Watch “Is That Kosher?” on YouTube.

The post 5 Kid Shows That Feature the Jewish High Holidays appeared first on Kveller.

Oy with the poodles! An official “Gilmore Girls” documentary is coming to HBO.

It has been 26 years since viewers were first introduced to the quirky denizens of Stars Hollow, including mother/daughter duo Lorelai and Rory Gilmore. Now, for the first time, series creator Amy Sherman-Palladino is going to take fans behind the scenes with an official documentary about the beloved show.

According to the Variety article that broke the news, the documentary will include never-before-seen clips, outtakes, behind-the-scenes footage and lots of interviews with Sherman-Palladino and other cast members. It will also look at the larger success and wide fandom of the show. Sherman-Palladino and her husband, Daniel Palladino (the show’s co-creator) will be the main storytellers, and Lorelai herself — that is, Lauren Graham — will also be sitting down for interviews.

Most Jewish fans of the series are probably well aware of Sherman-Palladino’s Jewishness. The daughter of a Southern Baptist mom and Bronx-raised Jewish dad, Sherman-Palladino and her dad, a stand-up comedian, bonded over Jewish humor. “Anything even mildly Jewish was very important to me for a very long time,” she told Vulture in 2014. “The Borscht Belt, the comic, that whole sort of very rich history — it was a lot of that that I’d heard about through my dad.” She also identified Carl Reiner and Mel Brooks’ “The 2000 Year-Old Man” bit as an especially formative influence on her comedy writing.

The fast-paced, witty banter of these early influences is infused throughout “Gilmore Girls,” especially in Rory and Lorelai’s dialogue. Occasionally, more direct Jewish references peek through the WASPy Connecticut setting, like when Luke builds Lorelai a chuppah for her (ill-fated) wedding to Max. And who can forget the Stars Hollow Elementary School production of “Fiddler on the Roof,” in which Tevye is (obviously) played by Kirk?

Jewish viewers have another reason to kvell over the upcoming documentary, too. The doc is being directed by Bonni Cohen, an acclaimed Jewish filmmaker whose résumé could hardly be more different from the cozy, coffee-fueled world of Stars Hollow.

Cohen is known for hard-hitting documentaries. For instance, she co-directed “Athlete A” about the USA Gymnastics sexual-abuse scandal, which won an Emmy for Outstanding Investigative Documentary. Her documentary “Audrie & Daisy” won a Peabody Merit Award, and her work as a producer and director on “The Rape of Europa,” about the Nazis’ systematic theft and destruction of European art, was Oscar-shortlisted and earned nominations for Writers Guild and Producers Guild awards. Her latest documentary, “In Waves and War,” co-directed with husband and frequent collaborator Jon Shenk, follows ex-Navy SEALs who are turning to illegal psychedelics as a last-ditch effort to treat PTSD.

Cohen also has a particular connection to Jewish storytelling. According to her husband, their respective Jewish upbringings — and the specter of the Holocaust — has really impacted how they tell stories, especially in terms of their mission to look for courage within suffering. They are also active in the Jewish arts world, often participating in Jewish film festivals. Additionally, Cohen has served as a juror for Jewish Story Partners, an organization dedicated to supporting films about Jewish life and experience.

Bonni Cohen has spent years documenting difficult, emotionally complex subjects, so it will be interesting to see what happens when she turns that documentary sensibility toward a beloved fictional world that, to many viewers, feels like a second home. What does a documentary filmmaker who has spent her career excavating trauma and injustice see when she looks at Stars Hollow?

HBO has been pretty tight-lipped about the details, including the documentary’s release date. For now, fans will have to grab another cup of coffee, coffee, coffee and wait for more information. 

The post We’re Excited About the Jewish Filmmaker Behind the ‘Gilmore Girls’ Documentary appeared first on Kveller.

Paging all “Pitt” fans! A teaser for season three of everyone’s favorite medical thriller — and HBO’s arguably most Jewish show streaming — has arrived. And we can all take a collective sigh of relief: Dr. Robby lives!!

The 75-second teaser features Noah Wyle’s gruff Dr. Robby returning for his first shift back at The Pitt following a three-month sabbatical. All last season, Robby planted the not-so-subtle seeds that he might not professionally (or mortally) return from the motorcycle trip he planned for his time off. So Robby stepping off the elevator onto the Pitt floor in the trailer is a welcome sight. But what, if anything, has changed for our tortured Jewish emergency medicine physician?

It’s Nov. 12, 2026 now, just a few weeks before Thanksgiving and Hanukkah, and a nightshift. Robby’s least favorite co-workers Drs. Al-Hashimi and Langdon are working, as well as most of the familiar Pitt faces: Abbot, Shen, Santos, Whitaker, King, Javadi, McKay, Garcia, Ellis, Henderson and head nurse Dana Evans. Meanwhile, Dr. Samira Mohan is notably absent. (News broke before the season two finale that Dr. Mohan, played by Supriya Ganesh, would not return for this season.)

“I knew my first day back was gonna be hard. Dealing with what we go through here,” Robby says in voice-over. “But it’s time to get back to it.”

Though it’s not indicated in the trailer, Noah Wyle recently revealed to Deadline that season three will show Robby begin therapy. (Baruch Hashem!) “We’re going to see that [Robby]’s begun the therapeutic road; it’s had a positive effect. It’s fragile, and it’s not without risk and vulnerability, but at least there’s forward progress,” he explained.

What remains unclear is just how Jewish this new season will be. “The Pitt” season one depicted Robby reciting the Shema during a crisis and season two featured a storyline of a survivor of The Tree of Life synagogue shooting. One clue lies among the new cast. Yesterday, HBO announced seven new cast members for “The Pitt” season three. Among them is actor Chris Diamantopoulos who has been cast as Dr. Asher Grossman, the new Chief Medical Officer of Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center, replacing Gloria Underwood from season one. Could these two Jewish doctors go head-to-head over the direction of PTMC? We’ll have to see!

Season three of “The Pitt” will drop in January 2027. Until then, there are thankfully plenty of other Jewish shows on HBO Max to tide you over.

The post A Teaser for Season 3 of HBO Max’s Extremely Jewish ‘The Pitt’ Is Here! appeared first on Kveller.

Max Greenfield is known for a few iconic Jewish roles: Schmidt in “New Girl,” Yoshi Schwooper in “Long Story Short,” as himself miming the blowing of the shofar on the James Corden show in 2022, and now as Ted Birenbaum, the Jewish dad of the Birenbaum family in the just-released film “Don’t Say Good Luck” (which, as of press time, is the number two movie on Netflix).

In “Don’t Say Good Luck,” Greenfield worked with producer Adam Sandler and co-star Jon Lovitz, two former cast members of Saturday Night Live — which just so happens to have been the theme of Greenfield’s bar mitzvah.

In August of 2025, on the red carpet for his last Netflix project “Long Story Short,” Variety asked Greenfield what his bar mitzvah was like. “It was SNL themed,” Greenfield answered. “Best moments of my life. You would have to go sit at the David Spade table, or the Victoria Jackson table, the Ellen Cleghorne table. It was a great experience. I was thinking about it recently. I just did this Adam Sandler movie. And to be with Adam and Lovitz—”

“Did you tell them that they were tables at your bar mitzvah?” the Variety interviewer interjects.

“I think I told Lovitz, and he was like,” — here Greenfield breaks into a pretty decent Jon Lovitz impression — “You’re Jewish?”

This interaction might have happened while filming “Don’t Say Good Luck,” but it could have been in 2013, when Lovitz appeared on a few episodes of “New Girl” as a side character named Rabbi Feiglin. One scene literally takes place at a bar mitzvah, where Greenfield and Lovitz’s characters get into it as Schmidt shamelessly tries to hook up with the rabbi’s daughter.

It was during “New Girl”’s run that Greenfield shared his bar mitzvah theme. In the first season of the show, Schmidt reveals that his [fictional] bar mitzvah theme was “sports jams,” prompting Greenfield to share his own theme on Twitter. After that, his bar mitzvah was frequent late night talk show and interview fodder. In 2012, he talked to Jimmy Kimmel about it, right after Kimmel told Greenfield he was “this generation’s Fonzie.”

“It was right toward the end of Dennis Miller’s run [on SNL],” Greenfield tells Kimmel, explaining when his bar mitzvah took place. “It was Dana Carvey, but [the bar mitzvah] was big on Farley and Sandler and Spade. The cake was a Blues Brothers cake. You find out what table you’re at and you’d be like, ‘Oh, I’m at the David Spade table.’”

“Does David Spade have any idea he was featured so prominently at your bar mitzvah?” Kimmel asks.

“I’d be happy to tell him,” says Max.

He also tells Kimmel what he wore: a tan suit. “I had seen Will Smith on ‘The Fresh Prince of Bel Air’ — at the time, he had worn a tan suit on the show, and I thought, ‘I mean, we’re just about the same dude,’ so I asked my parents — ‘I gotta wear a tan suit for this.’”

In 2013, Greenfield shared the story again on “Late Night With Jimmy Fallon,” and that time, he brought photos.

Screenshot via Tumblr

And in 2019, he shared my personal favorite detail on Justin Long’s podcast: The shirt he gave away as swag at his bar mitzvah had a version of the SNL logo, and on the back, in an homage to the SNL opening credits, it said “Featuring:” and then listed everyone invited.

On that same podcast, Greenfield said “[Saturday Night Live] was just shifting into Norm MacDonald doing [Weekend] Update. Young Sandler and Spade. I remember watching that show and just being like, ‘This is everything. I watched that show as if these guys were the Avengers.’”

In press for “Don’t Say Good Luck,” Greenfield has spoken about how much being part of the film has meant to him. The fact that he once looked up to Adam Sandler so much that he was featured in his bar mitzvah adds a “besheret” touch to the whole story. 

The post Years Before Starring in an Adam Sandler Film, Max Greenfield Featured Sandler at His Bar Mitzvah appeared first on Kveller.

I’m not one for big birthday bashes, but as my 40th approached this past July, I figured this was the year to make a splash. 

And so my husband and I planned it all out: a backyard barbecue with all our local friends. We’d make it family-friendly so no one had to find a babysitter. We bought a giant inflatable water slide, a pop-up tent for shade, burgers from the fancy butcher shop and just the right combination of juice boxes and beer. We borrowed tables, scrubbed down chairs, pulled out the baby pool and water table from the basement and cleaned out our sunroom for extra seating. My parents flew in from Chicago, bringing with them my preferred brand of hot dogs and buns.

All week, I kept my eye on the forecast. In the days leading up to that weekend, we sweated through a historic heatwave, air quality concerns from Canadian wildfires and a parasite that meant all salads were off the menu. And then, the forecast for the Saturday of the party seemed to solidify: flash flood warnings. Tornado warnings. Rain rain, 100% chance of rain.

As they say, “Man plans, God laughs.”

As a parent of two little kids, I find myself saying that particular phrase quite a lot these days, when all my best laid plans fall through thanks to ill-timed naps, tantrums and perhaps the unreasonable expectation that we can run into Target to grab just two things real quick. The fact that this expression has Yiddish origins makes it feel even more apt for my de facto life motto.

“Man plans, God laughs” is translated from the Yiddish expression, “Mann tracht un Gott lacht.” It’s been used for decades to describe both instances trivial (it rains on your birthday) and big (you move across the country for an exciting new job in, say, February of 2020, only to find yourself working remotely for the foreseeable future thanks to a pandemic). 

But where exactly did the Yiddish phrase come from?

That’s a bit hard to track down.

Similar concepts can be found in the bible. Proverbs 16:9 reads, “Mortals may plot out their course, But it is God who directs their steps,” and Proverbs 19:21 offers a similar thought: “Many designs are in a person’s mind, But it is God’s plan that is accomplished.” 

A fascinating exploration of the phrase in the “Philologos” column of The Forward traces similar popular phrases that spread throughout different languages and cultures. In Homer’s “The Iliad,” there is, “But Zeus does not bring to fulfillment all things which men set forth.” The ancient Greek poet Pindar wrote, “For now I am hopeful, although a god controls the outcome.” The column makes the argument that Catholic German author Thomas à Kempis was most likely inspired by the Book of Proverbs when he turned the phrase into a cute little rhyme: “Homo proponit sed Deus disponit,” or, “Man proposes, but God disposes.” 

From there, it entered the German lexicon with a rhyme that translated to, “Man thinks and God directs.” And from there, it was time for Yiddish speakers to adopt their own version. There were a few Yiddish words that could rhyme with the Yiddish word for plans, “tracht,” including farakht, “scorns,” or makht, “makes.” But instead, the Yiddish powers that be went with lakht, “laughs,” cementing the perfect Jewish phrase that has stuck around ever since.

And it really is perfect. As the Forward writes, “Jews traditionally had a sense of humor about their God and ascribed one to Him, too… The thought of God gently laughing on His heavenly throne at our vain dreams and calculations rather than sternly redirecting them like a traffic policeman makes Him seem — well, so much more human.”

The phrase itself could feel defeatist; why bother planning for anything if it’s all going to come down to God’s will (or happenstance, should you err on the side of atheism) anyway? 

Maybe because, every once in a while, the stars align: the baby naps exactly when you think he should, your toddler eats the chicken you made for dinner without calling it “yucky” even once, the weather cooperates for the perfect summer outing. You can’t go through life never thinking about your future — the near and the distant. Man’s gotta plan.

But “Man plans, God laughs” reminds us, quite succinctly, that when it doesn’t work out, it’s not because there’s some vengeful guy in the sky trying to keep you humble. It’s actually super freeing to think about the gentle laugh of God, whatever your version of God may be, not trying to direct you, but acknowledging that things don’t always go as we hope. If God can laugh about it, maybe we can, too.

As for my big 40th birthday bash, I postponed it by a day, which meant some folks who were going to come could no longer make it — and a few others who couldn’t come on the original day were able to stop by. It was an absolutely perfect weather day, not too hot, not a cloud in the sky. Somehow even the mosquitos seemed to stay away. The kids splashed, the grown-ups ate well. And we all laughed. A lot.

The post The Yiddish Expression ‘Man Plans, God Laughs’ Is My Life Motto appeared first on Kveller.

In their 2023 study of American Jews, the Pew Research Center found that nearly a quarter of all Jews in the United States attended yeshiva or Jewish day school. All-in-all, that’s a fairly significant number of people in the American Jewish community whose education was geared towards excellence in secular subjects while providing them a deeper connection to Judaism! It’s no surprise then that there are a decent number of Jewish celebrities (American or otherwise) who are on that list.

Read on for the list of Jewish celebrities who attended Jewish day school and what we know about their experiences there.

1. Natalie Portman

Let’s start out the list with someone who attended multiple Jewish day schools: Natalie Portman. Born in Jerusalem as Neta-Lee Hershlag, Natalie’s family moved around quite a bit when she was younger. When she was 3 years old, her family moved to the Washington, D.C. area. There, Natalie briefly attended Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School in Maryland. Then, when her family moved to Long Island, she studied at the Solomon Schechter Day School of Nassau County. She later graduated high school from Syosset High School.

When Natalie was nominated for an Oscar for “Black Swan” (which she would go on to win), Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School announced, “The faculty/staff commends Ms. Portman on her award and is proud of her reaching the highest achievement in film for an actor/actress.”

2. Ethan Slater

SpongeBob went to Jewish day school?! Well not quite. But the actor who originated him on Broadway did. Ethan Slater, who also recently starred in “Wicked” as Boq Woodsman, attended Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School. Though Ethan went on to graduate high school from Georgetown Day School, he continued his Jewish studies through Shoresh Hebrew High.

In 2018, Ethan returned to CESJDS to speak about working on Broadway to the middle school and high school student body.

3. Ralph Lauren

Before he was fashion icon Ralph Lauren, Ralph Lifshitz was a student at yeshivas in the Bronx. Ralph attended Salanter Academy Jewish Day School and Marsha Stern Talmudic Academy. He would go on to graduate from DeWiit Clinton High School in 1957. While at MTA, Ralph allegedly sold ties to his fellow students, perhaps marking his entry into the fashion industry.

4. Nick Kroll

General impressionist genius Nick Kroll attended the Solomon Schechter School of Westchester (now the Lefell School), and a tale from his school days made it to late night! In 2013, Nick told a story on “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon” about getting pantsed when he was a seventh grader at Solomon Schechter — except, not only did his pants come down, but so did his underwear. Later, this joke would make it into his Netflix special “Little Big Boy.” Nick claims this jumpstarted his comedy career, as did meeting “Big Mouth” collaborator Andrew Goldberg at Jewish day school.

5. Paul Reiser

Of course Paul Reiser, aka Paul Buchman on “Mad About You,” went to Jewish day school! Paul’s parents sent him to East Side Hebrew Institute in the ’60s, “where the sound of hippies playing drums would waft in through the windows of his classes.” ESHI later merged with Park East Synagogue and became Park East Day School.

6. Mitch Albom

Coming from an observant Jewish family, Mitch Albom attended Akiba Hebrew Academy (now Jack M. Barrack Hebrew Academy) outside of Philadelphia. While he was there, the author of “Tuesdays with Morrie” and “The Five People You Meet in Heaven” spent the majority of his time studying Hebrew and Aramaic texts. “Have a Little Faith,” a 2009 non-fiction book Mitch wrote when his childhood rabbi asked him to write his eulogy, features some of Mitch’s experience attending day school.

He graduated from Haddon Township High School in 1976.

7. Jake Tapper

Another student at Akiba Hebrew Academy, journalist Jake Tapper was president of his class and a legendary prankster. One year, he drew a cartoon for the school’s yearbook that, when turned sideways, looked like male genitalia. In 2012, Jake gave the school’s commencement address and has said that attending Akiba “continues to shape me personally and professionally.”

8. Leonard Cohen

As poet Laureate of the Jewish experience (a title I came up with just now), it’s perhaps not at all surprising that Leonard Cohen went to Jewish day school. He attended Herzliah High School in Montreal. In 1948 he transferred to Westmount High School. He graduated from Westmount in 1951.

9. Natasha Lyonne

Not only did Natasha Lyonne go to Jewish day school, she got expelled from it. Natasha went to Ramaz High School on the Upper East Side on a scholarship, reading Talmud in the original Aramaic. However, she was eventually kicked out for selling marijuana. The “Orange Is the New Black” and “Russian Doll” star did not mince words about her experience in a 2015 interview with Tablet. “[Ramaz] was an atrocious high school environment. Organized religion was in direct correlation with wealth and status. Rabbi Lookstein was my arch nemesis.”

10. Nathan Fielder

Before becoming the awkward, hare-brained comedian we know and love, Nathan Fielder attended Vancouver Talmud Torah. The largest community day school in Canada west of Ontario, Vancouver Talmud Torah serves pre-school age students through 7th grade. While Nathan was at VTT, a Holocaust survivor working with the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre came to speak to the students about their experience. This almost certainly informed the “Nathan For You” and “The Rehearsal” host’s decision to create winter apparel company Summit Ice, which donates 100% of its proceeds to VHEC.

11. Seth Rogen

But Nathan Fielder isn’t the only famous alumni of Vancouver Talmud Torah! Comedian Seth Rogen, of “Pineapple Express” and “The Studio” fame, also attended the Jewish day school. Notably, he critiqued his Jewish education on the Marc Maron podcast “WTF” back in 2020.

12. Selma Blair

Selma Blair, the actress behind Vivian in “Legally Blonde,” attended Hillel Day School in Farmington Hills, Michigan. “Hillel Day School shaped me,” Selma wrote on Instagram after returning to the school for a gala in 2026. “Eight formative years immersed in Torah, Talmud, and history, guided by teachers who didn’t just speak about resilience — they lived it, quietly and powerfully, every day. They passed that strength forward, instilling in me a lifelong love of questioning, of searching, of wanting to understand more deeply.”

13. Jaime Ray Newman

Another alumni of Hillel Day School? “The Hunting Wives” star Jaime Ray Newman. Jaime got her start in acting at the school, playing Ado Annie in a production of “Oklahoma!”

14. Jack Antonoff and Rachel Antonoff

Grammy-winning producer and musician Jack Antonoff and his sister, equally famous fashion designer Rachel Antonoff, attended the Solomon Schechter Day School in Bergen County, New Jersey. “I was just really happy there and I’m not even that extremely religious or observant,” Jack told the Jewish Standard back in 2013 when he was in the band Fun. It was there that Jack formed his first band, a punk rock band called Outline.

The post These Celebrities Got Their Start at Jewish Day School appeared first on Kveller.

Editorial note: Spoilers ahead for “Don’t Say Good Luck.”

In “Don’t Say Good Luck,” Netflix’s new tear-jerker coming-of-age drama, the Birenbaums appear to be like a lot of secular Jewish families.

The front door of their suburban New Jersey home bears a mezuzah, and the mantel piece a menorah and Shabbat candlesticks. They have bagels for breakfast — presumably fresh from the family-owned deli Birenbaum’s. When daughter Sophie (Sunny Sandler) announces she got the lead in her high school play, longtime Birenbaum’s employee Lenny (Jon Lovitz) shouts a hearty “Mazel tov!” And to celebrate, the family (sans Lenny) goes out to celebrate, where else? A renowned Bergen county Chinese-owned tiki restaurant called Lee’s.

That is to say, their Jewishness is omnipresent but oftentimes unspoken. And it’s all a part of a larger portrait of a family in the film which, unexpectedly coming from Adam Sandler‘s Happy Madison Productions, is beautifully tender and moving.

Directed deftly by Julia Hart, “Don’t Say Good Luck” begins with Sophie winning the lead in her high school’s production of “Waitress,” only to learn that her mother Elizabeth’s (Melanie Lynskey) cancer has returned. Suddenly, at the same time that Sophie must move through all the unexpected things that high school has to offer — fights with friends, learning to drive, mixed signals from boys, going to parties, doing well in the musical — the unexpectedness of illness casts a long shadow in her life. Will the Birenbaums be able to go to the beach house they always go to over the summer? Will Sophie’s mom have enough energy to finish the book she’s reading? Will she be well enough to see Sophie take the stage? Is being in the musical even worth losing the precious time the mother and daughter have together?

“Don’t Say Good Luck” offers no relief for the Birenbaums, nor for the viewer. Elizabeth’s cancer is aggressive and expeditious. Even as dad Ted (Max Greenfield) and Elizabeth decide to wait to tell Sophie and their young sons Caleb (Matan M. Friedman) and Ethan (Eitan O. Friedman) about their mom’s prognosis, it doesn’t end up mattering. Within months of her diagnosis, Elizabeth can barely leave bed. It’s a scene Ashkenazi Jews know all too well; carriers of the BRCA gene, a group which includes 1 in 40 Ashkenazi Jews, are more likely to develop breast, ovarian, prostate and pancreatic cancers. Regardless of whether Elizabeth knew this information, Sophie can see the obvious.

In the emotional climax of the movie, Sophie sobs to her mom that she would have not spent so much time doing the show had she known Elizabeth was dying. She’s frustrated at her lack of choice in a scenario where there is no choice to be had, crushed that she didn’t realize sooner and heartbroken that this is her reality. “I wanted to fight it. I wanted to fight it and I tried so hard. I’m trying,” Elizabeth weeps. “I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you. I don’t know how to do this.”

It’s a gut punch of a line that is only matched by a moment a few scenes later when Sophie opts to skip the musical and go be with her mom. As they lie in bed together, Elizabeth retells Sophie the story of how she sobbed while watching her daughter perform at a second grade concert. “I had looked for years for a thing that lit me up. And you found it by 7.”

“I’m sorry you never found the thing that lit you up,” Sophie replies, not totally convinced to go back, but willing to do the show for her mom. Elizabeth sniffles and pets Sophie’s hair, whispering, “But I did.”

Sob.

What makes “Don’t Say Good Luck” so compelling, and why it’s the #1 movie on Netflix at the moment, is the fullness of the Birenbaum family. The viewer doesn’t have to try hard to suspend belief that they are real people because screenwriters Julia Hart, Laura Hankin and Jordan Horowitz create a universe for them that is so intimate and knowable. Their calendar is filled with soccer practices and piano lessons. Birenbaum’s the deli is trying out a new healthier kale wrap option. Elizabeth worries about getting the right cheese for when her parents (Steve Buscemi and Bebe Neuwirth) come over. Sophie just wants to shine in the school musical. And, of course, they have a mezuzah on their door, and a menorah and Shabbat candlesticks on their mantle.

When the movie ends, Elizabeth is clapping for Sophie after she has sung for her on the porch in their backyard. She’s sitting in a wheelchair, her hair thin and skin pallid. The beach trip has clearly been abandoned. Her death feels more imminent now, and the viewer is left with that bittersweet in-between-ness when the movie fades to black. But the beauty of storytelling is that its infinitely repeatable. In this case, “Don’t Say Good Luck” is a Jewish movie worth repeating, for all the moments that are unspoken but irrevocably felt.

The post Netflix’s ‘Don’t Say Good Luck’ Is a Moving Portrait of a Jewish Family appeared first on Kveller.

Suzy Ultman has been delighting us for years, ever since the algorithm gods placed her adorable felt “Shalom” pennant on our feeds. Since then, the award-winning author, illustrator and product designer has brought so much Jewish joy into our lives through her art and the many Jewish children’s books she’s written and illustrated.

Suzy’s newest book might be the most exciting yet: “The Art of Jewish Joy” comes out this week and includes 50 crafts to celebrate Jewish holidays and traditions. (Plus, we’re partnering with Suzy and her co-author Amanda Kingloff on a Rosh Hashanah card-making class — learn more here!)

We asked Suzy to share the things that bring her Jewish joy, and not surprisingly, her answers are as delightful as her art. 

Baking challah: I love to bake challah. The smell is a sensory memory like no other — it immediately brings peace and happiness to my whole being. For years, I used my grandmother’s challah recipe. But I love to experiment in the kitchen with new recipes. So, one day, I gave this Nosher challah recipe a whirl. Don’t tell my bubbe, but it’s my new favorite!

Elegant Shabbat candleholders: I was recently gifted Oneg Shabbat candleholders, and they’re the best new piece of Judaica in my home. They’re elegant and functional. 

Family jewelry with a Jewish story: I have two special pieces of jewelry that help me feel connected to my Judaism. I wear my grandmother’s Yad, a trinket she purchased  during a trip to Israel, and I also have my mom’s charm bracelet which she wore annually to High Holiday services. As a kid, during the long service, I’d play with her bracelet to pass the time. 

A spicy sauce that’s perfect for shakshuka: Sababa’s Saturday Sauce! 

“Dirty Dancing”: When I saw “Dirty Dancing” in the theater when I was 18,  it was the first time I saw myself represented on screen. Jennifer Grey’s Baby Housman was a fully realized young woman who was smart, funny, unconventionally pretty, sexy, determined, confident, compassionate and Jewish! To top it off, I was a dancer, and well, there’s lots of dancing in the movie.

Jewish board books: My board books brought a lot of Jewish joy into my whole family’s life. My kids are a little old for the books now, but the process of making them opened up some fun conversations. For each book, I did a lot of research, so it was a chance to share my discoveries with the family. We all found that really special and joyful.

The post What Brings Suzy Ultman Jewish Joy appeared first on Kveller.

Editor’s note: We originally published this in February 2026, when we first heard the exciting news. We’re republishing it now, in August 2026, as “The Great British Baking Show” just gave us the first sneak peek of the first Jewish judge in action! The charming British baking contest will be back on our screens in September 2026 — we can’t wait.

Since it first aired more than 15 years ago, “The Great British Baking Show” has featured some iffy Jewish representation. Aside from the adorable Jurgen, who is practically a Jewish dad (and whom we very much kvell over), there have been challah blunders and bagel shandas.

But now, a new Jewish baked good age is (possibly? hopefully?) upon us!

For the first time, the show is getting a Jewish judge. Celebrated British Jewish cookbook author and utterly comforting TV personality (and Jewish mom of two!) Nigella Lawson will be replacing judge Prue Leith, who, deservedly, is retiring from the show at age 86. (Thank you for your service to baked goods and colorful eyewear and accessories, Prue!)

“I’m uncharacteristically rather lost for words right now! Of course it’s daunting to be following in the footsteps of Prue Leith and Mary Berry before her, great dames both, but I’m also bubbling with excitement,” Lawson shared in a statement, adding that the show “is more than a television programme, it’s a National Treasure – and it’s a huge honour to be entrusted with it. I’m just thrilled to be joining the team and all the new bakers to come. I wish the marvellous Prue all the best, and am giddily grateful for the opportunity!”

Nigella has already gotten the Prue seal of approval. “I was so hoping it would be Nigella! Brilliant choice,” she commented on Instagram. My feelings precisely, Prue.

One thing is for sure: Lawson, a self-proclaimed “Domestic Goddess,” a title she is very much worthy of, is a Jewish food maven. The daughter of Jewish British parents (her father was a baron, and her mother, Vanessa Salmon, an heir to the Lyons food empire), Lawson was raised culturally Jewish more than anything else.

“They were in every way, essentially about the food,” Lawson said of her parents to the Australian Jewish News, “They were totally, culturally, Jewish – from cooking too much, to feeding anyone the moment they walk through the door, and giving them things to take home.”

On her TV show, “Nigella Bites,” she calls chicken matzah ball soup “the real McCoy — or the real Mc-Oy” and “Jewish penicillin” and uses the Yiddish word kneidlach for the comforting Ashkenazi dumpling (maybe she can help explain what challah is to Paul Hollywood?). Plus, she’d written not one but two scrumptious honey cake recipes for Rosh Hashanah.

One puzzling thing: Nigella calls rugelach “scuffles,” a word I have never heard, but one that may be used in Canada to describe the rolled pastry. Her recipe for the baked treat is, however, quite wonderful, and her hack for making them (rolling the dough in cinnamon sugar!) is very much worth trying.

Will we get a “Great British Baking Show” rugelach challenge? Maybe with some milk warmed in a micro-wah-vay? That sure sounds like a dream.

I can’t wait for Lawson — a British and Jewish treasure — to enter the Tent of Dreams in 2026. What a sweet treat.

The post Jewish Cook Nigella Lawson Is Joining ‘The Great British Baking Show’ appeared first on Kveller.

At some point, Adam Sandler achieved peak Jewish dad.

I’m not referring to back in May of 2006, when he and his wife, Jackie, welcomed their first baby, Sadie, and he literally became a father. I’m not even talking about a month later, when he went through a full-on dad crisis onscreen in the movie “Click.” 

I’m talking about something less tangible, where the idea of Adam Sandler moved beyond the inappropriate comedian whose CD was snuck around the fifth grade Jewish summer camp cabin (just me?), past SNL darling and creator of the Hanukkah song, past rom-com hero and dramatic lead, to appearing on the cover of AARP talking about his hip surgery and literally being someone who, if he wasn’t Adam Sandler, you’d kind of shake your head good naturedly at and maybe say later “I’’m so sorry about my dad, he’s kind of stuck in his ways.”

Take this anecdote Sandler’s younger daughter, Sunny, shared on the press tour for her new movie “Don’t Say Good Luck,” now streaming (and receiving rave reviews) on Netflix.

“My mom tells this story from when I was younger,” Sunny tells Jimmy Fallon on an episode of The Tonight Show. “Me and my sister, we dressed up in his clothes — before that was popular and cool — the big shirts, the shorts. We held Diet Cokes and, like, yelled about the air conditioning being off.”

As if that wasn’t the perfect description of your friendly neighborhood Jewish dad, she goes on to deliver the piece de resistance. “And then we jumped in the pool with our socks on because he wears his socks in the pool because he can’t bend to take them off on land.”

Laughing, Jimmy Fallon asks if he then takes his socks off while floating in the pool, and Sunny confirms. “And then he’ll drain them and then you play catch with them.”

Stars! They’re just like us our dads.

We also have to mention the video and photos circulating of the Sandler family at the “Don’t Say Good Luck” premiere, where Adam — dressed in his formal attire, a flamingo printed polo shirt and Adidas track pants — holds an umbrella so Sunny, Sadie and Jackie can climb into their car without getting wet. The internet is calling it peak girl dad behavior, but we see peak Jewish dad behavior, too.

We love to poke fun at this type of Jewish dad (the corny jokes, the early airport arrival time, the questionable outfit choices), but the world’s acceptance of Adam Sandler and all of his quirks mirrors how we really feel about them: We couldn’t possibly quantify our love and respect.

As Adam Sandler’s daughters take on more roles and more press tours where they will inevitably be asked about their dad, we can’t wait to learn more about his specific Jewish dad-coded quirks. And if and when he has grandkids? We might not be able to handle it.  

The post Adam Sandler Has Reached Peak Jewish Dad appeared first on Kveller.

Turn on HBO or HBO Max, and you’re bound to find shows that are edgy, cinematic and deeply compelling. You’ll also find many shows, HBO/Max Original or otherwise, that are plenty Jewish. There are adaptions of Phillip Roth novels, riveting medical dramas, incisive political satire and Y2K teen romance dramedies. These series either depict or riff on Jewish life, are full of Jewish characters and themes and/or bear the influence of Jewish icons.

Read on for the most Jewish shows you can stream on HBO Max. In no particular order:

“The Pitt”

This Noah Wyle-led medical thriller is the undisputed hottest drama of the last two years. It’s also, arguably, the most Jewish show currently airing on HBO Max. Wyle plays the gruff Head of the Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center Emergency Department, Dr. Michael “Robby” Robinavitch. Though Robby is not particularly observant, his Jewish identity is a central part of his character. It informs how he responds in crises (for example, reciting the Shema) and how he connects with patients like a survivor of the Tree of Life synagogue shooting in season two. Each season constitutes the tragedies and triumphs of one day-shift at the Pitt.

Watch here.

“Reformed”

In real life, Rabbi Delphine Horvilleur is one of France’s most celebrated rabbis and one of its few women rabbis. “Reformed,” or “Les Sens Des Choses” in French, is partly inspired by her. The show follows 28-year-old rabbi Lea supporting her parishioners through weddings, brises, b-mitzvahs and shivas as she navigates her own personal life.

Watch here.

“The Plot Against America”

What would life have looked like had FDR lost the 1940 presidential election to the populist and antisemitic Charles Lindbergh? This is the question at the center of Phillip Roth’s speculative novel “The Plot Against America” and its 2020 miniseries adaption. With President Charles Lindbergh at the helm of the country, it descends into fascism, collaboration with Germany’s Nazi government and systemic discrimination against Jews. The series shows this horror through the eyes of the Levins, a working class Jewish family in Newark, New Jersey. Jewish actors Morgan Spector and Winona Ryder have starring roles.

Watch here.

“One Day in October”

Starring Israeli actors Swell Ariel Or, Michael Aloni and Lior Ashkenazi, this harrowing seven-episode miniseries recounts Oct. 7 as it occurred. Each episode follows a different person who was affected, telling their stories as they lived them.

Watch here.

“Curb Your Enthusiasm”

Larry David stands alone in the canon of American comedy, as do all 12 seasons of his improvised sitcom “Curb Your Enthusiasm.” Each episode follows a semi-fictionalized version of Larry as he gets into hijinks and conundrums that only he could find himself in. His Jewishness is integral to the plot, tone and success of “Curb,” with storylines centering around Larry getting kicked out of a minyan, inviting a sex offender to his Passover seder, eating at a Palestinian chicken restaurant and so on.

Watch here.

“Life, Larry and the Pursuit of Unhappiness”

In Larry David’s ode to America’s 250th birthday, the “Curb” star plays characters who crash the country’s most historic and patriotic moments with his signature, outlandish kvetching. The show also features Rob Reiner in his last TV role, eerily playing George Washington giving his farewell address.

Watch here.

“I Am Jazz”

Jazz Jennings rocketed to fame as a young trans activist thanks to her 2015-2023 TLC show “I Am Jazz.” The reality show follows Jazz and her family as they navigate the joy and trickiness of being a young transgender woman/having a trans child or sibling. Though the Jennings’ family’s Jewishness doesn’t often come up in the show, Kate Bigam Kaput wrote on ReformJudaism.org that “it seems clear that Jewish values played an important role in the acceptance and warm welcome Jazz has received from her local community.” She goes on: “Her friends’ parents, mostly Jewish, are progressive and LGBTQ-friendly, teaching their children to be accepting of differences in others.”

Watch here.

“Valley of Tears”

This 10-episode miniseries depicts the 1973 Yom Kippur War through the perspectives of four soldiers caught in the crossfire. It is perhaps Israel’s most expensive TV show, with millions of dollars going towards producing the battles of this existential war for Israel.

Watch here.

“High Maintenance”

“High Maintenance” connects the lives of various New Yorkers through the one man they have in common: their weed guy. This dealer, known as “The Guy,” also happens to be Jewish, which comes up in a season two episode following ex-Hasidic New Yorkers and a Hanukkah special in season four.

Watch here.

“Girls”

This comedy from Jewish writer Lena Dunham, a voice of her generation, satirizes 2010s millennial New Yorkers to a tee. The youngest of the eponymous girls is Shoshanna Shapiro (played by Zosia Mamet), who might initially come across as a stereotypical neurotic Jewish woman, but matures and settles into herself as the show goes on.

Watch here.

“Be My Guest with Ina Garten”

The Jewish hostess with the mostess (and the biggest cosmos I’ve ever seen) invites a new celebrity guest to her home every episode. Ina leads her guests in exciting, fun conversations as they cook, nosh and visit Ina’s favorite spots.

Watch here.

“Schitt’s Creek”

When the once-wealthy Rose family loses all their money, their only choice is to go live in Schitt’s Creek. Literally, that’s the name of the remote town that is their only remaining asset. Co-created by Eugene Levy and Dan Levy, the Rose family is inspired by their own family’s interfaith Jewishness.

Watch here.

“Hacks”

“Hacks” follows the unlikely partnership formed by the somewhat washed up stand-up Deborah Vance and her writer, the aggressively Gen Z Ava Daniels. Though the show is not explicitly Jewish, Joan Rivers is a clear source of inspiration for Deborah and actors Hannah Einbinder (who plays Ava) and Robby Hoffman (who plays Randi) bring their own Jewish identities to their roles.

Watch here.

“The Big Bang Theory”

When the beautiful and vivacious Penny moves next door to geeky scientists Leonard and Sheldon, chaos ensues. A major part of the show is Leonard and Sheldon’s friendship with Howard Wolowitz, a Jewish aerospace engineer (played by Simon Helberg) who has an extremely stereotypical relationship with his mother. Mayim Bialik joins the cast as neuroscientist Amy Farrah Fowler, Sheldon’s love interest.

Watch here.

“Friends”

Ross, Rachel, Chandler, Monica, Phoebe and Joey experience the joys and challenges of living in New York City in your 20s — all with their friends by their sides. Ross and Monica are canonically Jewish.

Watch here.

“Nathan For You”

Canadian Jewish comedian and generally awkward guy Nathan Fielder attempts to support struggling businesses and the people who run them. One of the most famous stunts Nathan pulls during the course of his show is creating his own winter clothes brand after discovering his preferred outdoor apparel company Taiga worked with Holocaust denier Doug Collins. All of the company’s profits go towards Holocaust education in Vancouver.

Watch here.

“The Rehearsal”

Nathan Fielder’s follow-up to “Nathan For You” is “The Rehearsal,” a semi-real, semi-fictional docuseries in which Nathan purportedly helps others through an elaborate planning and testing process called “rehearsals.” Inevitably, however, Nathan always inserts himself into these rehearsals. In season one, this meant building an interfaith Jewish home with a woman named Angela who wanted to practice being a mother. Then, in season two, Nathan calls out Paramount+ for removing his “Nathan For You” episode about Summit Ice from their platform.

Watch here.

“Sex And The City”

Four 30-something women live it up and search for love (and good sex) in New York City. In later seasons, Charlotte begins dating Harry and converts to Judaism before they marry.

Watch here.

“And Just Like That…”

Twenty years after “Sex and the City,” Carrie, Miranda and Charlotte are still in the Big Apple. Only now, they’re dealing with teens, aging and menopause, new friends, new diagnoses and loss. The Goldenblatt-York family is heavily featured, including an unconventional b-mitzvah in season one.

Watch here.

“Veep”

In this biting political satire, Julia Louis-Dreyfus plays American Vice President Selina Meyer, an ambitious woman who often gets caught up in political gamesmanship that is beneath her. Despite Meyer not being Jewish, the show is filled with well-crafted Jewish jokes. This includes a plotline in which Jonah Ryan (Timothy Simons pre-“Nobody Wants This”) converts to Judaism.

Watch here.

“The Larry Sanders Show”

This ’90s sitcom tears into late night TV and celebrity culture with Jewish comedian Gary Shandling playing an exaggerated version of himself in fictional late night host Larry Sanders. The show also stars Jeffrey Tambor as Hank Kingsley, the Ed McMahon to Larry’s Johnny Carson. In later seasons, Hank “comes out” as a Jew, parodying Ellen DeGeneres’ momentous coming out as a lesbian on her sitcom “Ellen.”

Watch here.

“The OC”

Before there was Rabbi Noah Roklov in “Nobody Wants This,” there was Seth Cohen in “The OC.” This early 2000s teen dramedy centers on the interfaith Jewish Cohen family and how taking in the troubled Ryan Atwood affects their place in the upper echelons of Orange County society. And yes, it stars a young Adam Brody.

Watch here.

“The Comeback”

In this show-within-a-show, struggling sitcom actress Valerie Cherish documents her attempted return to Hollywood. Though Valerie isn’t Jewish, Lisa Kudrow is — and this show would not exist without her. The show also features Jewish actors Dan Bucatinsky, Laura Silverman and Ella Stiller.

Watch here.

“Angels in America”

This miniseries from 2003 is based upon the two-part magnum opus of a play by Jewish playwright Tony Kushner. It weaves together three storylines set in 1985 and 1986. One deals with a gay man named Prior Walter’s AIDS diagnosis and his partner Louis’ inability to cope. Another centers on closeted gay lawyer Roy Cohn’s AIDS diagnosis and his refusal to admit his sexuality. Rounding out the main characters is Joe Pitt, a closeted gay Mormon lawyer, who struggles with his own sexuality and his wife Harper’s mental illness. All of their stories play out as Prior begins to receive messages from an Angel telling him he’s a prophet.

Watch here.

“Kall Me Kat”

In this sitcom, Mayim Bialik plays a middle-aged Jewish woman defying societal expectations (being happily single) and marching to the beat of her own drum (leaving her job as a professor to open a cat café).

Watch here.

Want to keep binging? Click here for all the Jewish shows to stream on Netflix.

The post The Most Jewish TV You Can Stream on HBO Max appeared first on Kveller.

You’ve probably heard the story that the teddy bear was named in honor of President Theodore Roosevelt. But did you know that it was Jewish immigrants who actually invented the teddy bear?

The story begins in November 1902, when Roosevelt went bear hunting near Onward, Mississippi. But even this familiar tale isn’t quite as cuddly as the version we’ve inherited.

Roosevelt, an enthusiastic hunter, had come up empty-handed. His hunting guide, Holt Collier, eventually found a 235-pound black bear. Collier and his dogs pursued the animal, and the bear fought back, killing one of the dogs. Collier struck the bear over the head, tied it to a tree, and summoned Roosevelt, hoping the president could finish the hunt. When Roosevelt arrived, he refused to shoot the injured, tethered animal, considering it an unsportsmanlike kill. He also ordered that the bear be put out of its misery; it was subsequently killed with a hunting knife.

So, no, it wasn’t a cute little bear cub that Roosevelt nobly refused to shoot. And the bear didn’t live happily ever after.

The incident nonetheless made headlines, and political cartoonist Clifford K. Berryman turned it into a memorable image: Roosevelt, with his back turned, refusing to shoot a small, almost comically adorable bear tied to a tree.

This cartoon caught the eye of Brooklyn couple Morris and Rose Michtom, giving Morris an idea.

Morris and Rose, both Russian-Jewish immigrants, owned a penny store where they sold candy and other trinkets. Morris was a tinkerer who enjoyed making toys in his spare time. According to the family story, he saw Berryman’s cartoon and asked Rose to make a stuffed version of “Teddy’s Bear.” Rose, who was skilled with a needle and thread, actually designed and sewed the first bear, reportedly using scraps of fabric and stuffing materials they had on hand.

The Michtoms put the little bear in the window of their shop, with a sign reading “Teddy’s Bear.” Customers immediately wanted to buy it. Morris eventually sent one to Roosevelt and asked permission to use his name. Roosevelt agreed, though he apparently didn’t think the toy would have much appeal.

He was wrong.

The teddy bear became a sensation, and the Michtoms went on to establish the Ideal Novelty and Toy Company, which eventually became a major American toy manufacturer. One of their original bears is now part of the collection at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History.

It is worth nothing that there is another company that also claims to be the inventors of the original teddy bear toy.

Around the same time, a German toy company founded by Margarete Steiff was developing its own plush bear. Steiff’s nephew, Richard Steiff, designed a mohair bear with movable arms and legs in 1902. The company, Steiff, is still in business, and dates Richard’s first sketches of his toy bear to 1894, though by their own admission, the company didn’t start using the name “Teddy Bear” until 1906. Their website boldly declares, “We are the inventors of the Teddy bear,” leaving little room for debate. It also has a timeline of the company’s history, which is conspicuously blank between the years 1930 and 1950, but the company continued to operate during the war, even making a stuffed storm trooper toy in the 30s, and a polar bear mascot for Fanta that has its own odd, Nazi-adjacent history.

For my money, though, I like to think of the Michtoms as the real inventors of the Teddy Bear, at least as it is known in American culture today. This is not just because their Teddy Bear emerged in 1903, directly inspired by Roosevelt (and given his personal stamp of approval!), but also because of the fairytale-like American dream story behind it. Two Jewish immigrants had an idea that catapulted them into success, creating one of the most enduring symbols of childhood.

Rose died in 1937, and Morris less than a year later. His obituary, which ran in the New York Times, emphasizes the couple’s philanthropic work. They were heavily involved in Jewish charities like the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society and Beth-el Hospital in Brooklyn, and were members of several local Jewish groups. They were dedicated to using their success to help the less fortunate, especially their fellow Jews.  

More than 120 years later, generations of children have gone to sleep clutching their bears. They may not know Roosevelt, Berryman or the Michtoms, but they certainly know Teddy.

The post The Very Jewish History of the Teddy Bear appeared first on Kveller.

Quick, think about a historical piece of Jewish media! Did “Schindler’s List” come to mind? What about “Life is Beautiful”? Perhaps “We Were the Lucky Ones,” “A Small Light,” “The Tattooist of Auschwitz,” “Transatlantic,” or “All the Light We Cannot See”?

The Holocaust takes up a lot of space within Jewish film and television, historical or otherwise, for good reason. It was an immense tragedy on a global scale, one of the darkest hours of human history. The stories of those who survived are undeniably compelling. And, in adapting some of these stories for the screen, they are important tools for Holocaust education and fighting antisemitism (provided that they are done thoughtfully).

And yet, if you’re Jewish, it can be exhausting to constantly engage with this specific trauma. Sometimes you might want to learn more about different periods of history through media which reflect lesser told Jewish stories, even if some of those are traumatic, too.

If that’s you, you’re in the right place. Read on for eight TV shows, both based on true stories and fictionalized, that center Jews throughout various periods of history other than the Holocaust. Though this list is not exhaustive, it’ll give you a good place to start.

“Heirs to the Land”

Set in 14th-century Barcelona, “Heirs to the Land” follows a young boy named Hugo Llor who is separated from his mother. In order to survive, Hugo goes to live with a Sephardic Jewish family. “You have multiple references to the Inquisition and to antisemitism in recent historical production, but I wanted to go beyond and show the texture of life for a Jew in Spain just before the expulsion,” executive producer Jordi Frades explained. The show is in Spanish (and it’s Spanish title is “Los herederos de la tierra”), so “Heirs to the Land” is also a great opportunity to get in some bilingual TV-viewing!

“Heirs to the Land” is streaming on Netflix.

“Vienna Blood”

You simply can’t go wrong with an odd couple pairing and a thrilling mystery to solve. Based on Frank Tallis’ “Liebermann Papers,” “Vienna Blood” follows veteran detective Inspector Oskar Rheinhardt (Jüergen Maurer) and the young Jewish psychoanalyst Dr. Max Liebermann (Matthew Beard) as they solve murders together in early 20th-century Vienna.

“As this odd couple find their endearing way towards a successful crime-fighting partnership, the murders of the week sit side-by-side with the series’ overarching plot across two seasons: the increasingly uneasy place held by even the most affluent and well-educated Jews in Austria-Hungary prior to the first World War,” Sophie Brookover wrote for Hey Alma in 2022, ahead of the show’s third season. She concluded, “‘Vienna Blood’ shows us something special: urbane Jewish lives in much of their fullness, complexity and internal contradictions, as people uneasily navigating life in a society that both needs and reviles them.”

“Vienna Blood” is streaming on PBS Passport.

“The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem”

At the center of “The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem” are multiple generations of women from the Sephardi Ermoza family, who are cursed to love men who do not love them back. Based upon the best-selling book of the same name, this series features a remarkably wide swath of Jewish life and culture, from its setting in Jerusalem, both before and after the founding of the state of Israel, to its use of Hebrew, English, Ladino, Turkish and Arabic. It also stars Michael Aloni as Gabriel, the patriarch of the Ermoza clan, and Swell Ariel Or as Luna, the eponymous beauty queen.

“The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem” is streaming on Netflix.

“The Club”

Set in Istanbul in 1955, “The Club” centers around the Sephardic Jewish former convict Matilda and her daughter Rasel, who was separated from her as a baby. The first episode shows Matilda negotiate her daughter’s release from jail after breaking into the prominent Club Istanbul — in exchange, Matilda must go work in the club. What follows is a story of the drama, romance and societal conflict which affect Matilda and Rasel’s lives and relationship with each other.

“The Jewish details aren’t half-hearted embellishments; they are well-crafted, with Jewish characters that are lovable, complex and mostly sympathetic (aside from a couple of nosy aunts),” Lior Zaltzman wrote in 2021. Members of the Turkish Jewish community agree. They have praised the series for accurately and positively reflecting their lived experiences, including the use and pronunciation of Ladino and portrayals of Jewish ritual. The show goes as far as to include discussions of the Wealth Tax and portray the Istanbul pogrom, an organized attack on the Greek minority community in Istanbul that also affected Armenians and Jews.

“The Club” is streaming on Netflix.

“Lady in the Lake”

Natalie Portman’s first TV project, “Lady in the Lake,” is a thrilling and oh-so-Jewish 1960s period drama. Portman plays Maddie Schwartz, a balabaloosta housewife and investigative journalist who leaves her Pikesville, Maryland community behind to look into the murders of a young Jewish girl and a Black woman. The series is full of Jewish details: scenes in a kosher butcher and at a synagogue benefit, conversations about Torah and Shacharit morning prayers, and Portman saying the Hanukkah blessings. It features fellow Jewish actors, Oscar winner Mikey Madison and “Stranger Things” star Brett Gelman.

“Lady in the Lake” is adapted from the 2019 novel of the same name, which author Laura Lippman was inspired to write based upon two crimes she remembers from her childhood in 1960s Baltimore. The first was the highly publicized kidnapping and murder of 11-year-old Esther Lebowitz, and the second was the overlooked and unsolved death of 33-year-old Shirley Parker.

“The Lady in the Lake” is streaming on Apple TV+.

“The Spy”

Eli Cohen was an Egyptian-born Jew (from a Syrian-Jewish family) who later emigrated to Israel and became an agent for Mossad. He is best known for infiltrating the higher echelons of Syria’s political and social circles starting in 1961, until he was discovered and executed by the Syrian government in May 1965 for espionage. “The Spy,” based upon the book “The Spy From Israel,” tells the thrilling and tragic story of Cohen’s life, from his recruitment in Israeli intelligence to his death, against the backdrop of the impending 1967 war. The miniseries stars Sacha Baron Cohen as Eli Cohen (the two are unrelated). Be warned, many have criticized the show as being historically inaccurate at times. Still, according to Lior Zaltzman, “The Spy” is “must-watch” Jewish TV.

“The Spy” is streaming on Netflix.

“No One Saw Us Leave”

“No One Saw Us Leave” was somewhat of a sleeper hit on Netflix in 2025. If you haven’t already seen this Mexican true crime thriller, you simply must. Inspired by a true story, “No One Saw Us Leave” follows Valeria Goldberg’s (Tessa Ia) journey to get her children back after they were kidnapped by her husband (Emiliano Zurita). This includes utilizing the help of former Mossad agent Elías (Ari Brickman).

Though Leo (the husband) goes on the lam with kids Tamara and Isaac across France, Italy, South Africa and Israel, the show is grounded in the close-knit Jewish community in Mexico, where the story begins in the late 1960s. “Jewish life, history and music are painted in vivid color in this show, which is full of beautiful moments and rituals,” Lior Zaltzman wrote when the show came out. “Valeria’s love for her children is illustrated when at the hospital bed, holding her newborn, the women around her sing the classic Yiddish tune of ‘Tumbalalaika.’ We see their love, their sense of community and Valeria’s complete devotion.”

“No One Saw Us Leave” is streaming on Netflix.

“Mrs. America”

“Who the hell is Phyllis Schafly?” Betty Friedan asks early on in “Mrs. America,” mispronouncing the name of ’70s conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly. In many ways, this is the thesis of the 2020 miniseries which highlights Schlafly’s hard-fought battle to steer Americans away from the Equal Rights Amendment and the Women’s Liberation movement. Schlafly (Cate Blanchett) herself was an ardent Catholic, and “Mrs. America” contrasts her with notable Jewish feminist icons Gloria Steinem (Rose Byrne), Bella Abzug (Margo Martindale) and Betty Friedan (Tracey Ullman).

The show also features Adam Brody wearing a terrific wig to play lawyer Marc Feigen Fasteau, so all the more reason to watch.

“Mrs. America” is streaming on Hulu and Disney+

The post 8 Jewish Period TV Shows That Aren’t About the Holocaust appeared first on Kveller.