Jews Should Watch Netflix’s ‘Mo’

When Netflix’s “Mo” series debuted on August 24, 2022, I was a bit apprehensive.

A series about a Palestinian refugee trying to achieve citizenship in the U.S. was certainly going to be riddled with anti-Israel propaganda, I thought to myself.

I was partly right. The series skews history – Israel’s the bad guy, Palestinians are blameless victims. Neither characterization is entirely true.

But what the series does get right is a relatable storyline that hopefully makes viewers reflect on their own deep-seated biases, beliefs and behaviors.

We’ve too long focused on invalidating each other’s heartfelt feelings, trauma and positions for so long that we’ve all lost some of our humanity when it comes to others.

Palestinians viewing Israelis as all monsters and land thieves, and Israelis viewing Palestinians as all terrorists and animals. With neither side really taking the time to dig into each other’s truths and trauma.

Season 1 of “Mo” was good but didn’t really push the envelope when it came to politics. With Season 2’s release on January 30, 2025, I was still cautious but more relaxed, although it wasn’t quite as soft this time around.

I watched both seasons regardless of my concerns because I’ve never been one to fear information. Using critical thinking skills, I can typically weed through the good and bad of most things and not be shaken. Plus, if it was really really bad, I know how to work the stop button on my remote.

I’ve visited a half dozen Palestinian cities and villages over the past 20 years and have met countless wonderful Palestinians. I’ve eaten in their homes and their restaurants, and even danced in a night club in Ramallah.

I also knew Palestinians from law school and today, I know several Palestinian lawyers and entrepreneurs.

I know first-hand that Palestinians aren’t all a bunch of Hamas terrorists. For every crowd of Hamas supporters on the news, there are plenty more kind, loving Palestinians. The idea of a show featuring a Palestinian family engaged in life wasn’t a foreign concept to me.

“Mo “revolves around the life of lead character, Mohammed Najjar, an undocumented immigrant from Kuwait whose Palestinian parents and siblings escaped to the United States. The backdrop of the comedy-drama series is Mo’s asylum and citizen-seeking journey in the U.S.

Between Mo’s struggles to stay in the U.S., the show winds through various comedic, serious, and sometimes traumatic storylines.

From illegal border crossings in Texas where Mo feigns a Texas accent to Mo navigating dating life.

In one substory, Mo’s autistic brother struggles with life.

We get to see just a regular family (that happens to be Palestinian) confront that challenge and how best to provide for and assist him. We see some family members in denial. Others who are evolved enough to know he needs proper professional therapy. Just like many families experience.

Humans. Palestinians are humans. Read that again.

One beautiful moment highlights how people with so-called developmental disabilities aren’t necessarily less evolved, as we sometimes think. When the family visits Palestine, the West Bank, the autistic brother wanders off and meets a Jewish settler child who is deaf, who had also wandered off. The two just walk back to the Palestinian village as if all is happy and normal. Peacefully. Oblivious to politics. Humans.

But aside from these substories, the underlying theme in the show, especially season 2, is really what Palestinians feel and confront in the real world.

On the one hand, the dialogue shows the reality that Palestinians want to live a normal life. You see their singing, their food, their smiles and laughter. Their joys, failures and triumphs.

And yet, on the other hand, most of the characters define themselves almost exclusively by the conflict with Israel. Themes hyper-focus on the IDF, settlers, stolen land, harsh life for Palestinians.

In one profound scene, Mo’s Palestinian sister tells their mother to stop gluing herself to the news on her phone about all the bad things happening in Palestine, urging her instead to watch a baking show.

“We are more than our pain and suffering,” the daughter reminds her mother. A powerful message for both sides of the conflict.

In another comedic yet serious scene, Mo storms into a Jewish-owned Mediterranean restaurant in Texas owned by his ex-girlfriend’s new Jewish-Israeli boyfriend.

He demands to see the owner.

“Do you know him?” the maître d asks.

“We’re cousins,” Mo shouts back in a sarcastic tone.

A subtle acknowledgement from a Palestinian that Jews also have a connection to Israel, and both of their roots date back to the land. To Abraham.

When Mo’s ankle brace, placed on him by U.S. immigrations officials, starts beeping in the restaurant, the Islamophobic patrons fear it’s a bomb. The Jewish restaurant owner attempts to calm the restaurant goers as his face shows frustration at their ridiculous suggestion.

“It’s not a bomb,” he shakes his head in disgust at the suggestion.

A subtle reminder that Jews care, too. That Jews are humans.

Nonetheless, the bright light the show shines on Israel will for sure trigger Jews.

It tells a very lopsided view of the conflict. Where Israel is solely to blame and where Palestinians play no part in their predicament. Sometimes even misleading viewers about complete history.

Yet, many of the one-sided parts of the Palestinian narrative (in Mo’s life and in real life) aren’t less true even if they leave out part of the story.

There really are Jewish settlers who harass, abuse and harm their Palestinian neighbors. There really are prohibitive checkpoints that make movement for Palestinians unbearable. There really are difficulties with Palestinians accessing their own farmland and being able to export. There really are people who lost their homes when Jews reclaimed their ancestral homeland.

Peaceful Palestinians—families, fathers, mothers, children—really do have a difficult life under Israeli occupation.

None of that is fiction.

We all forget that most of us view our own origin stories and narratives in a one-sided way. That someone else is to blame for every problem. That our side took no part in how things got to where they are.

How many of us Jews have stopped to think about the many things Israel has done and still does that cause Palestinian trauma? That makes life incredibly difficult for Arabs who aren’t citizens of Israel? Even in the name of protection against extremists and terror, do we ever think about how that impacts the rest of people? Their children? Their children’s children? Their happiness? The level of stress?

Have any of us ever thought about how moving 500,000+ Israelis into the West Bank since 1979, and then creating separate roads, trenches, checkpoints and the like to keep them separate and safe, has made Palestinian life there more difficult?

And how many Palestinians in the Middle East and here in America have stopped to think about how they would advance peace and their cause for their own state if they once and for all took a hardline stance against Hamas and other terror groups instead of wearing their headbands or shouting their slogans at rallies?

If they demanded peaceful co-existence instead of more war with a different winner? If they said a collective hard “no” to extremism?  If they weren’t offended by posters asking for elderly and baby Jewish hostages to be returned?

“Mo” for sure tells one side of a much more complex story, but it’s a critically important part of the story us Jews ought to start hearing so us Jews and Israel can do our part in treating our cousins better.

None of us can control others. But we do get to control our own behavior.