Dozens of writers, including every expert on interfaith families that I know (and yes, I think I know all of them) have now weighed in on the hit rom com "Nobody Wants This." The Netflix show is about a romance between a "hot rabbi" (played by Adam Brody) and a sex podcaster who is not Jewish (played by Kristen Bell). But even after reading a dozen opinion pieces on the show, I realized no one was looking at it from my perspective. So here we go!
The show, about a blond agnostic from a Christian family who falls for a (Reform?) rabbi, is eminently bingeable. It has snappy dialogue, good acting, a strong supporting cast, and chemistry between the leads. Salon even credited the show with " making religion cool again."
Viewer, I binged it.
The show has received top ratings, but also plenty of criticism. Much has been written about the timeworn plotline: star-crossed lovers from two different cultures. It's a tale at least as old as Romeo and Juliet, which in turn inspired the original script of West Side Story. (That musical was first written as " East Side Story," about a Jewish boy and Catholic girl on the Lower East Side, although the writers then transposed the story to a clash of Puerto Rican and white neighborhoods on the West Side).
And, much has now been written about how "Nobody Wants This" is a "daring" ( though not unprecedented) twist on this old plot, because the Jewish man is a rabbi. And, many writers have noted that both the Jews and Christians are portrayed as stereotypes. The Jewish women are brunette, strong, controlling, stubborn, demanding. The Christian women are blond, ditzy, sexualized, and less educated. And, they're called shik**s, to the dismay of many writers.
But despite an avalanche of posts written about this hit show, I still have three questions I haven't seen anyone else ask:
- Why do we keep highlighting Jewish and ex-Christian pairings? I am so, so very tired of the stories that "just happen" to focus on Jews who fall in love with former Christians or people who "don't really believe anything." This selective perspective erases Christian culture and beliefs. In this show, we get so many heart-warming details about the richness of Jewish culture. And about the other partner's culture, zero. In such pairings, it appears reasonable to expect the ex-Christian to give in to Jewish insistence on raising "exclusively Jewish" children. But continuing to focus on Jewish/none couples ignores and erases all other religions, and is not very helpful to interfaith couples in which the partner is a practicing Hindu, Muslim, Presbyterian, or Unitarian-Universalist.
- Why do we keep pressuring people to convert? This show was created by Erin Foster, who converted to Reform Judaism before marrying her Jewish husband. So, she is drawing on her own experience in this show, and of course that is valid. In an interview this week she said, apparently while laughing, "I'm lovable. I converted to Judaism...It's like the ultimate way to get your in-laws to love you." The implication for interfaith families watching the show is stark: If you don't convert, you aren't lovable. But that does not reflect the reality (read my book) of interfaith partners who don't convert but are beloved by their Jewish in-laws.
- Where are my people? What are the chances that anyone would write (and get funding to create) a rom com about a rabbi who falls in love with a practicing Buddhist, Catholic, or Lutheran? Or, an everyday Jew and an everyday Christian who decide to raise their interfaith kids with an interfaith education? Such stories do exist in real life. And I'm waiting to binge them.
Journalist Susan Katz Miller is an interfaith families speaker, consultant, coach, educator and activist. She's the author of Being Both: Embracing Two Religions in One Interfaith Family (2015), and The Interfaith Family Journal (2019).
