Nobody Wants Dis-agreement

Adam Brody said something about Israel. That should not be a remarkable sentence. He is an American citizen, an actor and a Jew. Jews have been saying things about Israel—and arguing with one another about those things—for considerably longer than either Adam Brody, or Netflix, has existed.

But Brody also plays Rabbi Noah Roklov on Nobody Wants This. And that has apparently changed the rules. In a recent GQ interview, Brody said, “Put me down as thinking it’s a genocide. Put me down as wanting a free Palestine.”

You can think he is profoundly wrong. You can believe the word genocide is inaccurate, inflammatory or morally reckless. You can wish he had said more about Hamas, October 7, the hostages or Israeli suffering. Argue with him. But what happened next tells us something much more interesting about ourselves.

Rabbi Steve Leder, who consulted on the first season of Nobody Wants This, called Brody a “relatively ignorant Jew” and told him, “If you know nothing about something, you should say nothing about it.” JewBelong circulated an image calling him a “fake rabbi.” But Brody never claimed to be our rabbi. He is an actor who played one. And there is something deeply strange about demanding greater Jewish responsibility from the actor than we demanded from the show itself.

From its first season, critics raised legitimate concerns about Nobody Wants This. Jewish women were too often portrayed as controlling, hostile and marriage-obsessed obstacles surrounding the lovable gentile heroine. The rabbis were be ridiculous caricatures. And Judaism itself repeatedly became the barrier standing between Joanne and Noah: convert, or this relationship cannot work. (All of which somehow slipped past Leder’s radar?)

Even after the second season attempted to give some of those characters greater depth, Jewish critics continued to question its depiction of rabbis and Jewish life. And yet many of us loved the show anyway. Not because it was flawless. Because it was ours.

At a moment of war, rising antisemitism and tremendous Jewish anxiety, here was a mainstream romantic comedy where people lit Shabbat candles, talked about conversion, went to synagogue and fell in love. Creator Erin Foster herself said, “I think we need positive Jewish stories right now.”

So we argued with the show. We complained about it. We wanted it to do better. And then we invited it back for another season. That is actually a very Jewish response. So why can’t we extend the same complexity to Adam Brody? Please don’t get me wrong. I’m not here for Brody. I’m here for the irony.

The great irony is that Nobody Wants This is fundamentally about whether someone can belong before agreeing with everything. It asks whether Judaism can make room for a person whose biography, beliefs and choices do not fit comfortably inside the community’s preferred boundaries. Then the actor playing the rabbi expresses one political opinion that many Jews find offensive, and suddenly the answer is: No. Get out.

Brody is hardly the only Jew who has discovered that talking honestly about Israel now requires a social risk assessment. Over the past year, I have heard versions of the same story again and again. Rabbinical classmates who have known one another for decades now avoid talking honestly about Israel because they are unsure whether the friendship can withstand it. A rabbi interviewing for a position gets asked, almost as a test, “Are you a Zionist?” simply because they signed a letter criticizing the Israeli government.

A member of a book club quietly skips a meeting when the selection is by an author known for anti-Israel politics, rather than explain why simply being there feels complicated. I know of a decades-long friendship that ended over arguments about Israel. I know a professor whose battles over Israel on a university campus contributed to profound isolation and eventually an early retirement. Jews on the left wonder whether they are welcome in Jewish spaces. Jews on the right wonder whether they are welcome in progressive ones. These are not really stories about Middle East policy. They are a litmus test.

Say the wrong thing in the wrong space and you are no longer merely wrong. You are brainwashed. Self-hating. Fascist. Antisemitic. Genocidal. Traitorous. From outside the Jewish community, Jews can be asked to prove that we are sufficiently ashamed of Israel. From inside it, we can be asked to prove that we are sufficiently loyal to Israel. Either way, Israel stops being something that brings us together and becomes a test: Are you one of us? Can I trust you? Are you safe?

We should call what happens next by its name: censorship. Not government censorship. Nobody is arresting Adam Brody. But communities possess other ways of policing speech. Invitations disappear. Speaking opportunities evaporate. Donors complain. Colleagues distance themselves. Someone becomes “problematic.” A person embraced yesterday becomes suspect today. The message travels quickly: You are free to say what you believe about Israel. Just understand what it may cost you to remain part of this community.

There is a difference between criticism and excommunication. If Brody says Israel is committing genocide, challenge the claim. Demand evidence. Explain why you believe the term is historically, legally or morally wrong. Tell him what he has overlooked.

That’s what it means to debate and argue in Judaism. But questioning whether he is sufficiently Jewish, demanding that he shut up, or treating his political opinion as an act of communal betrayal is an attempt to establish the boundaries of permissible Jewish speech.

And every real rabbi watching this should take note: if a fake rabbi can be excommunicated for saying the wrong thing about Israel, imagine what awaits those of us whose livelihoods, pulpits and communities depend on saying what we actually believe. We say we want rabbis with moral courage, and then create communal conditions that reward them for keeping their mouths shut.

The real danger isn’t what happens to Adam Brody. He is famous. He will be fine. The danger is what everybody else learns from watching it happen: the rabbi wondering whether to say what she actually thinks from the pulpit; the college student calculating which part of his opinion is safe to reveal at Hillel; the synagogue member who decides it is easier to remain silent; the parent who avoids Israel with an adult child because one wrong sentence might rupture the relationship.

Eventually we create a Jewish community in which everyone appears to agree about Israel because we have taught one another to go along to get along and keep our disagreements to ourselves. That is neither consensus nor unity. It is conformity masquerading as both.

Judaism has survived for thousands of years because Jews disagree. About God, law, Israel and almost everything else life has to offer. Open a page of Talmud and you do not encounter ideological orthodoxy. You encounter debate and intergenerational conversation.

Adam Brody is not Rabbi Noah Roklov. He does not owe us rabbinic wisdom because he played a rabbi on television. He does not owe the Jewish community ideological loyalty because we enjoyed watching him kiss Kristen Bell after Shabbat dinner. He gave an opinion. Respectfully challenge and debate him. Invite him into the conversation that’s been going on for generations.

But if our definition of Jewish belonging has become “You may question conversion, intermarriage, synagogue life and virtually every other Jewish institution—but not Israel,” then Adam Brody has accidentally exposed something far more consequential than his politics. He has exposed the limits of our own tolerance. And for a community that spent two seasons cheering a television show about acceptance, that is one hell of a plot twist.